Let us go ahead with the quick review of the device.
Camera And Internal Storage
The Huawei Ascend Mate comes with a main 8MP camera on the rear. Although you get 8MP cameras on budget devices costing around 10,000 INR, but there is bound to be a difference in the quality, which is quite obvious. The front camera on the Ascend Mate is a disappointing 1MP unit. Although it might suffice for video calling in daylight, we did expect better hardware in terms of the camera at least. The phone comes with 8GB of on-board storage which is little below par for today’s market, but the rest of the hardware on the phone will surely make you think otherwise. The phone has a microSD slot for expansion of storage, which can work with microSD cards up to 32GB in size.
Processor And Battery
This is one department where the phone shines, above all other competitors. The device packs a powerful quad-core processor, the HiSilicon K3V2 which is clocked at 1.5 GHz and promises great performance. The powerful processor is complemented by 2GB of RAM, which is unseen in the price range at which you can avail the Huawei Ascend Mate. You can expect the phone to perform as well as any other quad core phones such as the Xperia Z from Sony or Samsung’s Galaxy SIII. The battery again promises a lot. The Ascend Mate sports a massive 4050mAh battery which promises 2 days of runtime. A battery of this size has not been featured on any phone as yet, and definitely, there has been a lot of buzz about this phone thanks to the battery, apart from other specifications.
Display Size And Type
Out of the various ‘massive’ things about the phone, one is the screen. The screen on the Ascend Mate measures at 6.1 inches, and comes with a resolution of 1280×720 pixels. This means that although there will be a lot of real estate on the screen, the display density will suffer. On calculating the PPI of the display, we get a figure of 241PPI, which isn’t particularly great given, today’s standards. The display type is IPS + LCD, which means the display will have great viewing angles without the colours being washed away. We expect the display to be bright enough to be viewable in sunlight and outdoors.
Comparison
The device is stacked up against a wide number of devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8, Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3, among a host of other phablets. If you missed, you can read our comparison posts of the Ascend Mate against the Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8, Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3.
Key Specs
Conclusion
The device comes with superb hardware and a great processor. The phone is priced at 24,990 INR, which means the phone really gives a lot of bang for your buck. As mentioned above, the phone does face competition from other manufacturers like Samsung, the configurations of those phones clearly don’t stand a chance against the Huawei Ascend Mate. The only 2 gripes on the phone are the (relatively) low display density and the camera. We would have loved to see a combo of 13MP and 2MP cameras instead of the 8MP+1MP which got featured. If you have a budget of around 25,000INR and are looking for a phablet, we would definitely recommend the Huawei Ascend Mate over any other competition in the Indian market, at least at this moment.
