[rwp-review id=”0″]
Someone recently said that the time of high priced smartphones is coming to an end. This prediction may hold merit.
Acer, Lenovo, Oppo, Asus, OnePlus and Huawei are producing fantastic phones for a fraction of the price of flagships like the G3, One (M8), S5 and Xperia Z3.
Today, we look at Huawei’s Ascend P7, a smartphone that has truly impressed us in more ways than we had imagined.
Design
The design is brilliant. It reminds us a lot of the Xperia Z range. Very similar in form factor and build quality. Even the power button on the side seems similar.
With a metal rim on both sides and the top (we’re not sure why they omitted the metal frame at the bottom), and a textured glass finish on the back, the phone screams premium and quality build.
The phone supports two SIM cards; slots for both are on the right side sitting side by side. The 13MP back camera is on the top left corner of the phone with the flash placed underneath, also similar to the Xperia Z series.
The phone looks and feels great. It definitely gives the impression that it’s worth more than it’s actual value.
Hardware
This phone boasts a 1.8GHz Quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of built in memory. The Ascend P7 supports LTE/4G and two SIM cards. It comes in black or white, supports NFC and has a 2500mAh fixed battery.
Display
The Ascend P7 comes with a 5-inch full HD 1920×1080 resolution display. The screen looks great with very deep and vivid colors. The edges are crisp with no pixilation whatsoever throughout.
We felt that blacks could have been darker and white seems a little greyish though. Viewing angles weren’t the best either.
Software
The Ascend P7 uses Huawei’s version of Android (4.4.2 KitKat) called Emotion 2.3, which shares some similarities with that of Lenovo’s. There is no app drawer; instead, apps populate the endless supply of the Home screens (like the iPhone). Even the icons are very similar to those of Lenovo’s. To the untrained eye, and if we dismiss the Huawei logos on the front and back, this phone could easily be mistaken for a Sony Xperia Z2/3 build wise or a Lenovo Vibe range software wise.
What differentiates this phone as far as software is concerned? A couple of really cool things actually.
The phone has a Suspended Button. When enabled, it activates a small circular dot, which sits on the edge of the screen (like Samsung’s multi-window folder). When pressed, a nifty little circular tool bar rolls out in a nice animation. The tool bar contains: the back and home buttons (for quicker, easier access), a running apps clean up button, a suspend button (puts the phone in security locked mode), and multi-window button. The multi-window button provides a range of prebuilt apps which don’t sit side by side as they do in Samsung phones. Instead, they pop up in a floating window, allowing fast access and minimally disrupting whatever window/process you already had running. This pop up window can easily be closed or maximized to take up the full screen. Currently, the apps provided include the Calculator, Music app, Calendar, Messaging and Note.
Another cool feature the Ascend P7 has is a Multi-screen option. This connects the phone to any other display connected to the same Wi-Fi. This could be a Samsung TV or any other smart TV that allows such connections to be made. Once the connection is made, media is seamlessly transferred from the phone, displayed on TV. This could be a video, music or images that reside on the phone; definitely a nifty feature, especially when considering that it’s not tied to any specific brand of TV’s.
Other nice to have features include the Ultra Power Saving mode, Gloves mode, Protected Apps, and Phone Manager.
The Phone Manager is a nice built in app that allows you to optimize your phone’s performance by cleaning up unnecessarily opened apps, disallowing some apps from sending out notifications or continuously syncing, defining which apps to load at startup and which apps are allowed to have data access.
We’ve seen apps in the Google Play Store that do similar things, it’s nice to have one built in that is ads-free, trustworthy, and well integrated with the phone’s hardware and software.
Camera
Some of the best features of the Ascend P7 are its cameras. Not only does it have a 13MP in the back, it also has a whopping 8MP front camera so owners can go all out on their selfies.
Both cameras performed quite well in both low and good light environments, as well as, in close ups.
Pictures sometimes seemed a bit too saturated at times. That said, the cameras are some of the best in their class and we have no complaints here at all.
Conclusion
The Ascend P7 has a lot going for it for a mid-level smartphone. It’s sexy, premium design screams quality and it’s handy software features provide that little extra added-value to its owners.
While it cannot compete with the heavy weight champions out there, it certainly does a good job in standing out from its peers.
If you’re on a budget and are looking for a decent, sexy, smartphone that does all the basics really well and then some more. This is definitely a phone you should consider.
