Chinese mobile maker Huawei has had a habit of firing handsets into the market with specs that are pretty tasty for the money. Today it’s continuing this Android underdog strategy: unveiling what on paper looks like a relatively high-end 3G smartphone but at a price that sits in the mid-range for Europe (€299/$398). Huawei’s previous quad-core handset — the Ascend D Quad XL — is around €80 more expensive.
The Huawei Ascend G615 is apparently heading for the German market — cropping up on this German Huawei website, which notes that it will be sold exclusively via online retailers Amazon, Conrad and cyberport. We’ve reached out to Huawei for more details on market availability and will update this story with any response.
According to German website BestBoyZ, the G615 will go on sale early next month — with other retailers offering it from March. Speaking to the site, Lars-Christian Weisswange, Vice President of Device Western Europe at Huawei Technologies, said (via Google Translate): “Our goal is to make the power of quad-core processor, making even accessible to those who do not want the high price of the current high-end pay models or can. It is particularly pleasing that has now enabled us to such an extensive and demanding total package.”
While the Ascend G615 lacks 4G, it packs in a quad-core 1.4GHz chip, 16-core GPU, 1GB of ROM and a large 4.5 inch LCD 720p display. Pixel density is 330 ppi. The phone does not run the very latest version of Android — rather the last but one flavour: Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) — but, according to BestBoyZ, it will get an update to Jelly Bean in the future.
There’s not a whole lot to talk about design wise, but the slab form is reasonably slender without being skeletal — at 1.05cm thick. Weight is 145g. Under the hood is a 2,150mAh battery which is apparently good for 11 hours of talk time, or 360 hours on standby.
The Ascend G615 also includes an eight megapixel rear camera, which supports 1080p HD recording, plus a 1.3 MP lens on the front for video chatting and 720p recording.
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