Huawei has set a target of selling 60 million smartphones worldwide, this year. The ICT solutions giant has spent only two years in the smartphone business, yet earned itself the title of ‘fourth largest smartphone maker in the world’, beating Nokia & Blackberry, earlier this year. India, being an important market for any growing mobile manufacturer has seen few and delayed handset launches by Huawei. However, the Chinese company hopes to change that trend, soon. “We are not a well-known brand in India, yes that is true and we acknowledge we have work to do”, affirmed Scott Sykes, Head of International Media Affairs, Huawei to FoneArena, in an interview in Shenzhen, earlier this year.
After the delayed launch of Ascend Mate (phablet) in India, Huawei has now introduced its next star product -the Ascend P6. This super slim android device was first announced in UK, way back in June. P series includes Huawei’s top end devices. P6 is the last launch in this series for 2013 and could prove to be a mark-breaker for Huawei. The USP of Ascend P6 is its attractive, slim built. However, is the P6 good enough to catch the attention of an android phone user – who has several other options, from more popular brands in India? Let’s find out.
Unboxing and Hardware
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AibbZIpV_8
The box is a plain white thin package. with branding in silver print.
The phone sits comfortably in a tray that slides out without much struggle.
The packing is elegantly done to match the theme of the phone. The pretty white handset is wrapped neatly in factory plastic.
The back plastic sheet is wisely printed with signs indicating the slot names and method of access.
The Ascend P6 comes with 8 GB inbuilt memory but also offers a micro SD card slot. P6 supports a micro sim. Both slots are placed adjacent to each other.
An interesting and unusual aspect about the phone is the placement and utilisation of the 3.5 mm audio jack. It is placed on the bottom side of the spine and is covered with a sim slot opener pin. Genius to add the pin inside the phone, for the sake of the sim slot. However this tool might not be of much use as it will be easy to lose the pin while using headphones, with no other alternate space to fix the pin in.
The pin can be used to open the SIM and the micro SD card slot.
SIM and micro SD slot trays.
Ascend P6 sports the 5MP front camera with 720P video recording capability.
Bottom side of the screen sports the branding and the three touch, onscreen buttons.
Top side of the phone has the USB slot.
Bottom side has a signature cylindrical curve that makes it easier to rest the phone in hand while typing with single hand.
One side spine has the pin and the audio jack.
The other side spine is where all the slots and other necessary buttons. Sim, memory card slots are accompanied with the volume and power button on the same side.
Ascen P6 phone box has another bunch of boxes. One is filled with user guide and other booklets.
The box includes a translucent back cover – for the White Ascend P6. A very useful accessory that is well-built and clearly well-tailored to fit the 4.7 inch touch screen phone.
The cover is a worthy accessory in the box to protect the beautiful white colour of the device. The rare side 8MP camera supports 4cm macro view, which means pictures taken of objects at a closer distance from the camera, will be clearer than cameras who do not support this feature.
The cover is very light weight and thin. It does not take away from the phone, its USP of being the slimmest and lightest android phone.
Also in the box are a pair of good quality headsets. Colour is white, to suit the handset shade.
Two pin charger with USB cable. All of the accessories are made with good quality material.
All the inbox material from the Huawei Ascend P6.
Display
Huawei p6 has a stunning display despite a basic 1280×720 HD resolution screen.
For single hand usage, it is easy for a thumb to waltz around the 4.7inch screen. Form factor is built with material that allows a firm grip even while operating with one hand. The phone runs on 1.5GHz Quad-core CPU K3V2E processor and has a 2GB RAM. The P6 comes set with Android 4.2.2
I found the phone easy to use in bright sunlight because of the matte finished colours used in the UI skin.
Sensitivity-wise, touchscreen performs well. Didn’t quite experience a lag in response. For those who prefer extra sensitivity on the touchscreen, Ascend P6 offers ‘gloves-mode’ option in settings menu. This option increases touch sensitivity response of screen.
Huawei Ascend P6 uses ‘In-cell’ display, which saves the phone from a few millimeters of thickness. In-Cell display eliminates a layer on the screen by incorporating capacitors within the display. In simpler words ‘In- cell’ technology combines the functions of two displays into one.
Camera :
The 8MP camera with single LED flash can give up to 3264 x 2448 pixels resolution pictures. A 5MP camera is added in front for the ‘Portrait feature’. The camera application has most of the settings options available in android phones, in the same price range.
Here are some photo samples to give an idea of the quality of image capture with the 8MP snapper. This one is taken in bright sunlight.
Huawei has highlighted the rare camera’s ability to take macro pictures from a distance of 4 cms. I did try a macro shot on the candies. Result is of average quality
Picture of speakers, taken in indoor lighting without flash and with flash.
Ascend P6 can record videos at 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution.
Software: Emotion UI over Android 4.2.2.
P6 comes packed with Android 4.2.2. Huawei has beautified the phone by layering Android UI with homemade ‘Emotion UI’.
How does Emotion UI change the Android experience? Emotion UI basically compresses the Android 4.2.2 UI. Huawei has eliminated the applications launcher. Instead, applications menu is now one of the home-screens.
The applications menu has several group folders. For example – all Google applications like Gmail, Google maps will be clubbed in one folder. Management folder contains functions like system update, backup and more.
Highlight of Huawei’s own UI is the ‘Me Widget’. Found on the main home-screen, ‘Me widget’ is where a user’s favourite applications can be arranged as live-icons. Nothing new here, really.
Emotion UI has 4-5 pre-installed themes that change not just the wallpapers or skin but also change look of application icons.
Changing profiles is fun with the easy to change and personalise Profiles Widget. Emotion UI adds only beauty to Ascend P6. Wish the application launcher was allowed to stay from Android root UI. Not everyone likes to clog homepage screens with a sea of applications.
Audio & Music Player
Preinstalled with a very basic music application, the music player allows categorisation of soundtracks into Happy, Serene, Energetic and well, ‘Sad’ ! The music player app has a pretty & simple layout.
Handsfree is a necessary accessory provided by most phone makers. Huawei has added a white hands free, to match the phone colour. It seems to be of good quality and gives a rather good audio output.
Storage
Out of 8GB of internal storage, you get about 7.39 GB of user memory. The phone supports micro SD cards up to 32GB, and you can move the apps to SD card once you insert it.
Performance and Benchmarks
It powered by a the Huawei’s own K3v2 processor developed by HiSilicon Technologies from Huawei. It has four 4 ARM Cortex A9 cores based on ARMv7 architecture. The chip is based on 40nm technology. It has a 16-core Vivante GC4000 GPU. Huawei used the same chip in the Ascend Mate that we reviewed earlier this year. We did not find any lags. Check out the benchmarks below.
Quadrant Benchmark
The Ascend P6 could easily some smartphones including the Ascend Mate in the Quadrant benchmark, but it couldn’t beat the Xperia Z or the Mega 6.3.
AnTuTu Benchmark 3.3
In the AnTuTu benchmark 3.3 the Ascend P6 scores less than the Ascend Mate and lies behind the S3.
Vellamo 2.0 HTML5
In the Vellamo 2 HTML 5 browser benchmark, the Ascend P6 manages to score 1464 points. Check out the complete set of Huawei Ascend P6 Benchmarks here.
Battery
Ascend P6 carries its fuel tank – a 2000 mAh battery, sealed behind the cover. Huawei has used the ‘Quick Power Control’ technology in P6. According to the phone maker, it improves performance of device by up to 30% when compared to phones with similar battery strength. Battery power is divided between 3 functions – Chipset, hardware and software. A day’s use of – average web surfing, messengers and phone calls, leaves the battery with little strength. Add good minutes of gaming to that and battery might give up in ¾ of a day.
Conclusion
Ascend P6 is a joy to carry around because it’s lightweight and built slim. Wish it were light on the wallet. too. It is difficult to justify why a phone that wins big on looks but not as much on performance should be priced at Rs. 29,999. For a company that is striving to make its presence felt in a tough market, scoring on price point is of utmost importance.
Pros
- Outstanding slim built
- Super light in weight
- Beautiful Emotion UI
- SIM ejector included in Phone’s body
Cons
- Absence of application launcher
- Battery performance is average
- Priced too high