Introduction, design and display
I have bemoaned Hauwei products for looking and feeling cheap before now. But the company is now, finally, starting to change things.
First was the metal bodied Ascend P7 launched earlier this year, and now at IFA 2014 the Chinese firm has launched the all metal Huawei Ascend G7.
In terms of price Huawei hasn’t announced it quite yet, but I was told that it will come in cheaper than the Ascend P7, so expect a mid-range price tag.
I say all metal – that’s not strictly true, but it’s pretty close. The Ascend G7 does sport a metal unibody, but there are two chunky gaps in the rear which are covered with plastic. This is presumably to allow the antenna and other equipment to function properly.
It’s not as neat as the finishes I’ve seen on the HTC One M8, Sony Xperia Z2 or iPhone 5S, but the Ascend G7 has a reassuring heft and feeling the metal against my palm certainly gave me a frisson of premium quality.
This isn’t a small or lightweight device, and with a 5.5-inch display the Huawei Ascend G7 creates a noticeable presence in the palm – and the pocket.
It will be a little too big and bulky for those will smaller hands, but if you’re looking for a big screen smartphone that won’t cost the earth, the G7 is still looking promising.
Huawei has kept the G7 at a respectably slender 7.6mm in depth, although it’s a little wider in the centre thanks to the curved rear of the device.
The closet rivals to the Huawei Ascend G7 are the HTC Desire 816 and the low cost, high spec OnePlus One.
The latter boasts a full HD 5.5-inch screen (versus the 720p resolution of the G7 and Desire 816) and while the body may be plastic the OnePlus wins out when it comes to power and performance.
Both the power/lock key and volume rocker are located on the right side of the handset, with the former below the latter – making them both easy to hit when holding the G7 in one hand.
Round the back the 13MP camera and single LED flash reside in the top plastic portion, while at the base of the device the second plastic area is home to a smallish speaker grille.
You’ll find the headphone jack on top, while the microUSB charging port is on the bottom of the handset.
The presence of two trays on the right side of the Ascend G7 are your clues that you can’t take the back off the handset – or even remove the two plastic sections.
These trays allow you to stick your microSIM and microSD card into the handset, the latter of which helps you build on the 16GB of internal storage supplied.
This does mean there’s no access to the 3000mAh battery which is sealed inside, but Huawei has its own power saving mode built in to the Android operating system to help you stretch out the last drops of juice.
It may not be the most striking metal smartphone I’ve had the pleasure of using, but the Huawei Ascend G7 is a positive step forward for the Chinese firm when it comes to design and I hope it’s a sign of things to come.
Interface, performance, camera and early verdict
The Huawei Ascend G7 comes equipped with a 1.2GHz quad-core 64-bit Snapdragon processor and 2GB of RAM – the same processor you’ll find in the lower end Ascend G620S and Ascend Y550.
64-bit processors are still relatively unnecessary for now, but apps are expected to become more complex in the near future and thus these chips provide a certain level of future proofing.
As the unit I got hands on with was still running development software it’s not clear how well this setup will perform on the Ascend G7, especially as the larger screen will encourage some more intensive gaming apps to be fired up.
It’s tasked with running Android 4.4 KitKat and Huawei’s own interface, dubbed Emotion UI 3.0. This is the latest of the firm’s Android skin and the Ascend G7 and Ascend Mate 7 are the first handsets to run it.
On the surface it’s not hugely different from the previous iterations, but app icons and colour schemes have been slightly updated to give it a slightly less childish appearance.
It’s still not my favourite Android skin, and I do miss the app list – although I can understand why Huawei has decided to keep things simple and have everything stored on homescreens.
General operation was smooth enough, although as I’ve already said the handset wasn’t running final software so you’ll have to wait for the full review to see how the finished article performs. Early signs though are positive.
Something the Ascend G7 inherits from the Ascend P7 is its rear facing 13MP camera, which is backed up with a single LED flash.
Round the front the 8MP camera from the P7 has been dropped in favour of a lower res 5MP option, although it still brings over the features from its flagship brother including the panoramic selfie mode.
Unfortunately the cameras were not working correctly during my hands on time, so I was unable to test them.
Hauwei is going big on 4G too, with all four of its handsets launched at IFA 2014 sporting LTE capabilities. The Ascend G7 is CAT 4 rated, which translates to data speeds of up to 150Mbps – if your network allows those sort of speeds that is.
It means that web browsing should be super slick and app downloads should occur in next to no time – it’ll be put through its paces in the full review.
The Hauwei Ascend G7 release date is scheduled for November 2014, and it will arrive in gold, silver and grey.
Early verdict
The Hauwei Ascend G7 is a decent offering from the Chinese firm and it beats its closest rival – the HTC Desire 816 – in both specs and design.
There is a slight issue though, and that’s the presence of the OnePlus One – a handset which is set to become more widely available in the coming months. The OnePlus One’s superior feature set and surprisingly low price tag may be too much for the Ascend G7 to handle.
That said, the Ascend G7 can’t be touched when it comes to an all metal body in its price bracket, and that could help it sell.
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