Huawei Adds LTE with Unveiling of Ascend P7

By Jane McEntegart
published

Huawei's newest Ascend smartphone will arrive just under a year after its predecessor was first unveiled.

Huawei had massive booths at both CES in Las Vegas this past January and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February. Unfortunately, the company's rumored successor to the Ascend P6, the P7, wasn't on show. It sort of makes sense. The P6 was only unveiled in June of last year, so showing off the next model so soon wouldn't be wise (smartphone manufacturers like to maintain the illusion that next year's phone isn't already in the pipeline by the time the current generation hits widespread availability). Now, with June just around the corner, Huawei is ready to show us what it's been working on.

The company this morning officially unveiled the Ascend P7. Unlike the P6, the Ascend P7 comes with support for LTE. It also packs a 5-inch 1,920 x 1,080 display, a quad-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A9 CPU with Mali-450MP4 graphics, 2 GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel camera in back, an 8-megapixel camera up front, 16 GB of storage (microSD up to 64 GB), a 2500 mAh battery, and Android 4.4.2. Of course, Huawei also has its own custom user interface skinned on top of Android (you didn’t think you were getting the stock experience, did you?). The company has version 2.3 of its Emotion UI on top, which allows for customizable home and lock screens, an harassment filter, permissions and notifications managers, and power saving modes.

The Ascend P6 is hitting shelves starting this month, and will launch in Europe, Asia, and UAE first. Other markets will follow later, though Huawei hasn't mentioned any specifics as far as the USA is concerned. Suggested European pricing is €449. We'll keep you posted on U.S. availability and pricing.

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Jane McEntegart
2 Comments Comment from the forums
  • aloof11
    Have the P6, good phone, not a performance phone by any means. Its price mostly comes from a sleek design/look, looking at the P7 specs they have tried to improve on the problems that P6 had. Larger battery should improve on the battery life front (though the added features, larger screen and LTE support, might keep it somewhat at the same level as P6), heating issues were talked about (P7 runs more then 7C cooler compared to the P6, the smaller node SOC helps in that). The performance is improved but again, it is by no means a performance phone

    Going with even more of a premium look with the glass coated back, so it seems they are continuing the trend of design/looks with mid range performance, but imo the price is just too high when you take into account other chinese phones, so hopefully it comes down a bit but overall it looks as good as when the P6 came out though now the competition is tougher

    Also, on the last paragraph I believe you mean to say that the "Ascend P7 is hitting shelves" not the P6
    Reply
  • icemunk
    I wonder if we'll see any RK3288 phones on the market ever
    Reply