Hands-on review: MWC 2013: Huawei Ascend Y300

We're not quite sure why some handsets don't get a proper announcement when they are in front of the world's press, but the Huawei Ascend Y300 is another handset from the Chinese manufacturer that is quietly residing on its booth.

This handset is incredibly similar to the Ascend G330 in terms of specification, but it sports a slightly different design, battery boost, a newer version of Android and a fresh overlay.

The Ascend Y300 release date is set for April/May and while no price was available we reckon it will land around the £100 (around $150/AU$147) mark.

In terms of style, the Ascend Y300 borrows its look from its bigger brother, the Huawei Ascend G510, sporting an assuming generic smartphone design.

It's not the slimmest of handsets, at 11.2mm (0.4 inches), but the Y300 sits comfortably in the hand and its 124.5 x 63.8mm (4.9 x 2.5 inch) frame is made easier to hold thanks to the slightly curved and textured back.

Like the waterproof Ascend G350, the Ascend Y300 comes with a 4-inch WVGA IPS display, which is a little brighter than its water-resistant brother.

On screen you'll find version 4.1.1 of Android Jelly Bean and the same Emotion UI overlay that graces the flagship Ascend P2, as well as the mid-range Ascend G510.

This user interface does away with the app list altogether, providing you with only the home screens to manage your apps from, in a bid to make Android an easier platform for first time users.

Luckily you can easily create folders by dragging and dropping one app onto another, which means you won't have to use all nine home screens and waste time skipping between them to find what you want.

There's also a range of themes to choose from, which change the icon style, wallpaper, font and colour scheme to give you a look that suits you.

Adding to the personalisation options even more, Huawei has added a master widget that enables you to pop several widgets of varying sizes into one larger container - a design that reminds us slightly of the Live tiles on Windows Phone 8.

Jelly Bean runs pretty smoothly on the Ascend Y300, and we managed to navigate around and jump between apps with relative ease, although the missing app list key at the bottom of the screen did catch us out a couple of times.

There's a 1GHz dual-core processor running the show, so the Huawei Ascend Y300 has enough power to ensure that even the more taxing applications such as Google Maps didn't cause too much trouble.

Huawei seems keen to deliver a relatively decent camera experience at the bottom end of the smartphone market, with the Y300 another handset in the firm's line up to sport a 5MP rear-facing camera, plus there's a single LED flash thrown in for good measure.

The camera app is a little sluggish and the shutter takes a couple of seconds to settle the autofocus and snap a picture, meaning rapid fire photos were out of the question.

The design of the rear camera reminds us of the HTC One X, while a front-facing 0.3MP camera offers up a low quality lens for video calls and vanity checks.

Typing on the Ascend Y300 is pretty decent thanks to Huawei sticking with the stock Android keyboard, which offers up a responsive and accurate experience.

A 1,730mAh battery has been squashed inside the Ascend Y300, which should give you a decent amount of battery life, but we'll put this to the test during our in-depth review.

The Ascend G330 hasn't been around for long but the Ascend Y300 looks set to usurp it at the bottom of Huawei's smartphone range.

It offers a good array of features for a low-end smartphone and will certainly give the ZTE Blade 3 and LG Optimus L3 2 a run for their low cost money.

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Hands-on review: MWC 2013: HP Slate 7

After its aborted efforts with WebOS and the TouchPad two years ago, it appears that HP thinks now is the time to get involved with tablets. Here is the Slate 7 - a 7-inch tablet running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

And why not? After all, though we think of tablets as a market that's 'Apple plus others', it's worth remembering that it's actually in its infancy both in terms of the technology itself and the number of people globally that actually have a tablet - think how complex or widespead the PC or a mobile phone were after only a few years. And, of course, it's only been three years since the first iPad emerged.

So what about the HP Slate 7? Where does it fit in? Well the first thing to note is the price. The Slate 7 will be available in the United States in April with a starting price of $169. That's pretty cheap, although it doesn't quite match the Kindle Fire's $159 pricing.

The Kindle Fire is probably its closest competitor, not least as the Slate 7 features the same screen resolution - 1,024 x 600 as well as a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9-based processor (HP hasn't been more specific than that). The screen is the Slate 7's first issue - it isn't as polished as slightly more expensive 7-inch contenders such as the Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7.

Up against those slightly more expensive models this screen looks decidedly old-school.

The Slate 7 is the industry's first tablet to offer embedded Beats Audio, while software settings are also available on the device. HP reckons it hasn't done a lot to the Slate in terms of software development, but says that this is merely its first step into Android - it will offer more differentiation in the future.

Sound quality is undoubtedly given a bit of beef by the addition, and it's a good selling point for the device. But HP must be careful that it's not over reliant on Beats to separate it from the tablet pack.

As for look and feel, it's a pleasant device in the hand, even if the large black bezel is a little off-putting (we'd expect it at this price point, though). The Slate 7 weighs in at 13 ounces (around 370g). It has front and rear-facing cameras, though the rear is 3 megapixels only. Still, it's a reason to buy the HP Slate over the original Kindle Fire, which doesn't have cameras.

The Slate 7 is quite good looking from the back and side - there's a stainless-steel frame and soft black paint in grey or striking red. As you can see, there's a microSD slot on the top of the device as well as a headphone jack and the sleep/wake button.

Charging and data transfer is via a micro USB port on the bottom of the device, where there are also two speakers as you can see.

The Slate 7 is the first offering from HP's newly formed Mobility Global Business Unit, established in September 2012 with the hiring of Alberto Torres. Torres joined HP from Nokia, where he was executive vice president and oversaw the MeeGo products and platform. Hopefully HP's new tablets will be more successful than MeeGo.

The HP Slate 7 does just enough to differentiate itself from the competition because of the cameras and Beats Audio support. But it isn't a hugely impressive tablet. While it's good enough for very basic pootling about in Android, using email and browsing the web, it's not the tablet you want if you want to watch video (get a better screen). The Nexus 7 remains our 7-inch choice.

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'Hands on reviews' are a journalist's first impressions of a piece of kit based on spending some time with it. It may be just a few moments, or a few hours. The important thing is we have been able to play with it ourselves and can give you some sense of what it's like to use, even if it's only an embryonic view. For more information, see TechRadar's Reviews Guarantee.

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Hands-on review: MWC 2013: Huawei Ascend G350

The Huawei Ascend G350 crept onto the scene at MWC 2013 with its big brother the Ascend P2 stealing all the limelight and getting its own press conference.

Similar in many ways to the budget Ascend G330, the Ascend G350 sees the addition of a rugged chassis and IP68 dust- and waterproofing.

Huawei is aiming the Ascend G350 at the affordable, mid to low-end of the market and expects the handset to arrive in stores in May/June.

Although it's being billed as a rugged device the Huawei Ascend G350 doesn't look overly different to the rest of the smartphone world, a change from days gone by as tough phones looked to be pumped up on steroids.

A metallic rim which runs around the edge of the front of the phone gives an air of premium quality when viewing from a distance, which is a pleasing aesthetical touch.

It's a little on the chunky side, but that's probably due to the waterproofing which has been done to protect all the vitals, and at 125.2 x 65.2 x 11.98 mm it still sits well in the hand and the plastic case feels sturdy.

We were assured by a Huawei representative that the Ascend G350 would withstand being dropped on the floor and hit hard on the desk, however they wouldn't let us test this claim at the show - boo!

Around the perimeter of the Ascend G350 the plastic case is textured providing additional grip which means you can easily keep hold of it, even under water.

It's easy to reach all the keys on the handset, with the power/lock button located on top and the volume rocker switch on the right both proving responsive.

We weren't big fans of the bronze finish on the handset which we snapped, but the G350 also comes in black and while it may not be the most exciting of colours we prefer it in this case.

The 4-inch WVGA display isn't going to blow you away and we found it was a little on the dark side even at full brightness, but we expect the Ascend G350 to be very keenly priced so this isn't a huge problem.

There's a 1GHz dual-core processor under the hood which does a decent job of running Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, with no lag during our hands on time.

It's certainly not as snappy as the more powerful handsets but you still get a decent Android experience and Huawei has only applied a light overlay meaning you still have access to all the core Jelly Bean features.

Quick settings have been added to the notification panel giving you access to toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

Huawei has stuck with the stock Android keyboard on the Ascend G350 and thanks to the decently sized 4-inch display typing is pretty good on the responsive touchscreen, although we still prefer the SwiftKey alternative when writing lengthy emails.

There's only 2GB of available storage inside the Huawei Ascend G350 so you'll need to be careful with the apps you download and content you transfer onto the handset, as that could fill up pretty quickly.

A 1,730mAh battery is tasked with keeping you going all day, and due to the waterproof credentials of the Ascend G350 it's sealed into the handset to avoid water damage meaning you can't take it out and swap it.

Round the back there's a 5MP camera minus a flash, but Hauwei has also included a 0.3MP front facing snapper as well which means video calls are an option on the Ascend G350.

The camera app itself is pretty basic, but you do get a panorama mode and a handful of standard options such as brightness and white balance, all of which is easy to use.

Shutter speed is a little of the slow side and image quality is acceptable, but not great with a lack of clarity and strong colour.

The black version of the handset we mentioned earlier was chilling out in a bowl of water at the Huawei stand, and we were able to call the handset and witness it ring - proving its underwater abilities.

Sadly though you cannot operate the Ascend G350 underwater, so if you're in the bath you'll need to keep it above the water line if you want to play Angry Birds.

The Huawei Ascend G350 is a decent durable device with a strong feature list for a handset which will likely sport an affordable price tag.

We may not agree with some of the colour options, but we look forward to getting the G350 in for review and putting it through its paces - we may even smash it against a desk to see if it can really withstand such a brutal attack.

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Hands-on review: MWC 2013: Nokia Lumia 520

Let's get something straight first. We really like Windows Phone 8. It's not for everybody, but it's a great mobile phone OS and Nokia and Microsoft have made great strides with it.

It's also very easy to use - and that's why we think the 4-inch Nokia Lumia 520 could do rather well, as a low budget handset for those who don't want an over-complicated or over-equipped smartphone.

It isn't a slouch, with a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, but most of the other specs have been trimmed from the higher end Lumias to reach its price point - it has an estimated starting price of €139 (around £120/ US$183/ AU178).

The 5MP camera has no flash, for example, while the display is 800 x 480, the same resolution as the 620's 3.8-inch and the 720's 4.3-inch displays.

Nokia does, however, say the 520 uses the same digital camera lenses found on the flagship (and rather heavy) Nokia Lumia 920. That's hardly a big deal, but the fact Nokia said it shows that this new handset has very little in common with its top-end brethren.

You get 8MB of storage, but you can expand it thanks to a microSD slot.

It is slightly thinner than the Lumia 620, matching the Lumia 720's 9.9mm (0.39 inch) thickness, while at 124g (0.27lbs), it's a pleasant weight.

There is a small speaker on the bottom rear of the device, a headphone jack on the top and the standard microUSB on the bottom.

In terms of look and feel, the Nokia Lumia 520 feels as good in the hand as any other Lumia, thanks to the now-familiar monoblock casing. And there are also familiar controls - the sleep/wake button, camera shutter control and volume controls are on the right side of the device.

In terms of apps, you get all the standard Windows Phone stuff, including Office, plus Nokia Music for free music and Nokia's Here location apps, as you'd expect.

The handset, which comes in five colours, will launch over the coming months in Hong Kong and Vietnam, before "expanding broadly" (Nokia's words) to Europe, Asia - including China and India - Latin America and Africa.

The handset maker also says the Lumia 520 will roll out in the United States with T-Mobile.

We rather like the Lumia 520 - Nokia clearly has a market in mind for the device and has given it a price point to match. It's not a handset for those who really want a Windows Phone, but rather it's one for those who want a budget smartphone. For that type of purchaser, the cheap and cheerful nature of the 520 will surely appeal.

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'Hands on reviews' are a journalist's first impressions of a piece of kit based on spending some time with it. It may be just a few moments, or a few hours. The important thing is we have been able to play with it ourselves and can give you some sense of what it's like to use, even if it's only an embryonic view. For more information, see TechRadar's Reviews Guarantee.

View the original article here