Huawei Ascend P1

“When we first got the Huawei Ascend P1 at the office we thought it was a great phone - if only had it arrived a year earlier. Now that we're done reviewing it, we think it's an excellent package for this year too. Clearly, the Ascend P1 won't beat any of the new flagship releases by the major players, but there's a good chance it will do well in the high volume upper midrange market. It has a solid build quality, very good performance and a software experience that Android purists will appreciate. We're quite happy with the Super AMOLED screen too - its PenTile matrix is something that's annoying only when you know it's there and look from way too close, while everything else about its performance is great. The camera does quite well too, especially the Group shot mode, which mimics the functionality of the HTC One series. All that's great, but the Ascend P1 still faces an uphill battle - Huawei isn't exactly a household name and the yesteryear flagships are now priced very competitively. In the end, the Huawei Ascend P1 is a great, well-rounded upper mid-range droid that holds its own against the competition. Huawei may have to slash the price for it to really gain traction - people are not willing to pay the same (or more) for a relatively unknown maker when they can go with a big-name brand. And who knows, there may be a point in their long-term strategy, where Huawei become a part of the very establishment they're now challenging.”

“You probably shouldn't buy the P1. At anywhere from $500 to $800, it'll cost you an arm and a leg, and it isn't optimized for use in the U.S. But that doesn't negate the P1's striking design and excellent performance. It's also one of the few devices out there to ship with the latest version of Android, 4.0. So while you shouldn't get the P1, you also shouldn't count Huawei out from becoming a top-tier player in the Android world in the near future.”

“The big problem with the P1 in terms of the bigger picture is this: in markets with phones like the HTC One S, ever-cheapening Samsung Galaxy Nexuses, and increasingly competitive mid-range handsets from the likes of Sony and LG, the Ascend P1 feels like a phone for a place that doesn't exist. At least in the western world. And if you're waiting for a true Huawei flagship device, the upcoming Ascend D Quad should blow the P1 out of the water. In China and other parts of Southeast Asia, though, where this phone will be pushed heavily, and where iconic devices like the Galaxy S series and iPhone can still command gray-market premiums, it will likely be much more of a contender. Its price is reasonable, its specifications respectable, and its pedigree increasingly well-known in that corner of the world. And it will probably do well enough - the P1 is a very satisfactory phone, even if it isn't a particularly exciting one. And really, it's good that a phone like the P1 doesn't leave me wowed. A year ago - even 6 months ago - it probably would have. But that goes to show just how how much better Android phones have become in such a short period of time. It's quite amazing, actually. The P1 is a perfectly adequate device. It exhibits a few flaws, but none of them are exactly what I'd call damning. It really is the Camry of smartphones: it does almost everything well, but little spectacularly.”

“The Huawei Ascend P1 that so impressed us at CES isn't quite as shiny or new a few months down the road, when other Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phones are also trotting out top-of-the-line features. Its design is arresting, but the just-adequate camera and so-so call quality wouldn't inspire me to pay the ballpark $600 unlocked price. Still, it's a handset I'd love to see take root in a carrier portfolio, at the very least for some eye candy and to assess how well the data and voice elements work when tuned to a specific carrier's bands. Moreover, the P1 is a good example of the caliber of phone that Huawei should strive to sell in the U.S., where the brand is still little-known.”