Huawei has announced a new device today in Germany that will fill a niche for them in the lower price category, but the quality doesn’t beckon cheap and neither do the specs. Huawei is becoming a bigger player with each passing device, and their hardware is getting nicer as well. Though it’s true that they are a huge device manufacturer in the mainland of China they haven’t been a huge player in the western markets in recent years. But as their devices are becoming more widely available, thanks to the internet, they are gaining speed in the US and other western countries. Recently announced by Huawei is the Ascend G615 which is offering some pretty beefy specs that can rival a majority of devices from the end of 2012, including the Nexus 4. Huawei recently announced the phone in Germany and it is looking to be a pretty good contender in the smartphone market even though the focus has been on the D2 and Mate which were both announced at CES 2013. Coming from information released by Huawei the specs are as follows; a 1.4Ghz Quad-Core Processor, a 1GB of RAM, 8MP Camera capable of 1080P video recording, expandable storage, Bluetooth 3.0 and a 4.5″ 720P display.
All of this together makes for a rather nice device at any price, especially compared to what is on the market now. But, because of the new trend of full 1080P display’s and some new processors like the Tegra 4 some people may see this device as coming out a little late, but there is a reason behind the madness. Huawei is taking a note from Google and releasing the device with a lower price point to compete on the open market and that is why they are using some of last years device specs. These internals are still plenty capable and personally I wouldn’t mind paying less for a device that can go up against some of the top devices of the last year. Being released at €299 this phone can fill a niche for people that are looking for a phone with strong internals and nice build quality without paying a hefty premium to get it. The only real drawback to this device is the fact that it is being released with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and not Jelly Bean. Though ICS is a perfectly good OS the fact that Jelly Bean isn’t on a device with such power is unfortunate to say the least, especially since Jelly Bean is so well thought out and is silky smooth with Project Butter on board. All of that said I believe that this device has a lot of potential to be a great contender, especially in places like China and India where many shoppers are very price conscious but still want a powerful device. Though Huawei will be touting it’s new Mate and D2 smartphones as the king of their line, with the specs coming out on the G615 there could be three strong contenders for Huawei, and given the specs, price and build quality we may even see the G615 out selling it’s older siblings. Stick around to see what happens because this device should be released some time in February. I know I want one!