First Look: Huawei Ascend P1 LTE

New Delhi, Oct 17: Huawei has just announced Ascend P1 LTE, the first LTE smartphone in India, in partnership with Airtel. With a width of 6.68 mm, this is one of the slimmest smartphones available in the country.When it was first announced earlier this year during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, USA, it was one of the most powerful smartphones around. Since then, though, many more powerful phones have arrived.Ascend P1 LTE with its 4.3 inch Super Amoled screen with qHD (960 x 540 pixel) resolution does impress us with its vibrant colours and sharpness.PerformanceThe 1.5 GHz dual core TI OMAP 4460 processor of Huawei Ascend P1 LTE was one of the most powerful but is now just average. However, the performance is again very good and there is no lag, but we will need more tests to say how exactly good it is. Also, what helps performance is the healthy 1 GB RAM.OS and build qualityHuawei Ascend P1 LTE is based on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and offers Emotion UI which is aimed at making performance better and smoother. There is, however, little change in the user interface itself and consequently there is very little for the end user to see.In terms of design and build quality, the Ascend P1 S leaves nothing to complain about. It looks very sexy, with a slim profile, but build quality could be improved further.Camera and batteryThe Huawei handset has an 8 megapixel rear camera with LED flash and is capable of capturing HDR (high dynamic range) images, as well as (1080p) high definition videos. The front facing 1.3 megapixel camera is also HD capable, though only at 720p.The phone has a 2000 mAh battery which is actually bigger than that of the Ascend P1 S, which has a 1670 mAh unit. The bigger battery will definitely be of much help as power is said to drain fast on LTE networks.ConnectivityOn the connectivity front, the smartphone has TD-LTE, penta-band 3G, Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi and micro USB support. HDMI support is missing but you can always connect a WiFi enabled TV.VerdictThis phone is certainly not the most powerful device in the market. In fact, even Huawei has more powerful phones than this. However, it is a good device and it is a good move to bring LTE into smartphones starting with a mid level phone rather than on a very expensive one.Though the price has not been announced, it is likely to be Rs 25,000 which is a good price point for the kind of performance, screen and connectivity this phone offers.