The Huawei Ascend P6 is certainly in the running for the worst kept secret in the gadget industry and after leak after leak, Huawei has revealed the super slim phone in a more official manner today in London.
Dubbed as being “impossibly thin” by the budget phone manufacturer, the P6 has hopes of taking on the likes of Apple, Samsung, Sony and HTC as a top of the range product. At 6.18mm thick (or thin, as Huawei would rather we put it) the P6 is up there with the thinnest smartphones in the world and certainly outdoes the Galaxy S4, iPhone 5 and HTC One S in terms of thickness. A slender body isn’t its only selling point, however, and there’s plenty of high tech inside.
The phone is also very light, weighing 120g, and comes in white, pink and black finishes. Speaking of the finish, it’s rather nice – a brushed metal effect adorns the back panel whilst the front is nice and glossy.
Under that finish, which is covered by a sheet of tough Gorilla Glass 2, is a 4.7-inch 720p HD display sporting a resolution of 1280 x 720. Powering the whole show is one of Huawei’s own processors rather than the popular Qualcomm or Nvidia options; a quad-core chip clocked at 1.5GHz. That’s paired with 2GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage, the latter of which can be expanded upon by up to 32GB via micro SD. Interestingly, in Huawei’s home land of China there won’t be a micro SD card slot as the company is replacing it with the popular dual SIM slot.
Huawei has borrowed from its rival Sony in the camera department, adopting the same 8 megapixel f/2.0 Exmor R sensor that Sony uses in many of its own smartphones. That sensor will shoot Full HD 1080p video, has backside illumination for better low light performance and the ability to shoot sharp macro images at up to 4cm away from the subject. On the front Huawei has, for some unknown reason, gone overboard and stuck in a 5 megapixel camera. We’re sure this will please those who love to video call and take the odd ‘selfie’, as will the software options which smooth your skin and remove any unsightly blemishes. Huawei went as far as to say that the camera will ‘make your girlfriend look 10 years younger’ – perhaps it’s hoping that ladies the world over will hear this and pester their partners to buy an Ascend P6.
Unfortunately the Ascend P6 doesn’t support 4G (we’re told a 4G version will come at the end of the year) nor the increasingly popular NFC, but does offer the usual options in the form of Wi-Fi and 3G, Bluetooth and GPS. Inside there’s a sizeable 2,000 mAh battery that should provide enough juice to see you through a full day off a single charge. The latest version of Android – Jelly Bean 4.2.2 – is on board, complimented by Huawei’s own Emotion UI.
Huawei will undercut its big name rivals by offering the new model for free on contracts of around £25, with O2 and Carphone Warehouse already down to stock it from July.