Quick, do you know how is Huawei pronounced? In 2008, at a telecom conference in Cape Town, I met a Huawei employee who, while talking to me, smiled now and then, amused by the way I was trying to get Huawei?s pronunciation right. When I failed at my various attempts, the sweet lady told me, ?It is Wah-way!? She added that Huawei is gung-ho about India. Then, the company was not a big name in India; in fact, it was primarily seen as a low-price manufacturer, which meant its products were regarded as of low quality.
Today, things have changed, and India has become Huawei?s second-largest research base outside China. And this research gets reflected into its products ? which, as far as quality is concerned, do match the Samsungs and Apples, but are still Chinese when you check out their sticker price.
Recently, Huawei launched in India its Ascend G600 smartphone, which the company claims will improve customers? mobile phone experience. Running on Android 4.0 with an 8-megapixel backside illumination (BSI) auto-focus rear-facing camera and dual DTS SRS speakers, the Ascend G600 does place a whole lot of technology within the reach of more people, courtesy its sticker price of only R14,990.
Though visually the G600 doesn?t stand out among the various smartphones available in the market, but its 4.5-inch LCD display and scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla glass, with 960×540 pixel resolution, ensure that you have good screen clarity and a nice touch experience. Powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU with 1930mAh Li-Polymer battery, the G600 is quite fast and boasts of a decent battery life too; Huawei claims its power saving technology provides more than 15 days of standby time! Additionally, it?s got a 768MB RAM and 4GB ROM storage, which can be supplemented with MicroUSB 2.0 and Micro-SD up to 32GB.
But one area where the G600 does stand out is capturing vision. Its 8MP BSI camera with dual LED flash lets you record hi-definition images and videos. BSI means that the camera works well during low-light conditions as well. Then you have a front-facing 0.3MP camera that is useful for video chatting. Yet another feature where the G600 impresses is in its ability to reproduce sound via its Dolby DTS 5.1 dual speakers. Lastly, the G600 supports seven Indian languages?Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, Punjabi, Kannada and Gujarati.
Now there can be some overly-enthusiastic smartphone fans who might miss the fact that the G600 is not upgradeable to Jelly Bean 4.1, but I don?t see this as problem since the Ice Cream Sandwich works well for the phone.
Overall, the Ascend G600 is a decent smartphone that impresses with its sound, camera and screen clarity, but what really works for the phone is its sticker price that makes it a whole lot value-for-money proposition.
SPECS
Display: 4.5-inch qHD screen, 960 x 540 pixel resolution
Processor: Dual-core Qualcomm 1.2 GHz CPU
Operating system: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
RAM: 768 MB RAM and 4GB ROM storage
Speaker: Dual speaker with DTS SRS
Battery: 1930mAh Li-Polymer battery
Estimated street price: Rs 14,990
