Huawei's attracted a fair bit of media attention in recent times, and sadly not enough of it has been to do with their phones which always seem to offer a pretty amazing bang per buck performance equation. The latest cab off Huawei's rank is the Ascend G510 which is expected to go on sale via Vodafone shortly and is expected to retail at just under the $300 mark depending on which mobile plan you choose. It's a budget smart phone, but one that really bats well above its spec and price.
Look and feel
Essentially your typical black smartphone rectangle, the G510 feels good in the hand. Where some Huawei hardware has historically tended to feel a bit light and flimsy, the G510 feels solid and has a reassuring heft to it. I also liked its textured back. It's a simple thing that other phone makers appear to have overlooked, but having a grippy back to a smartphone just makes a whole lot of sense if you're as much of a klutz as I am.
Powering the G510 up reveals a pretty decent screen. While it doesn't sport 400 bazillion pixels-per-inch, its 480 x 854 resolution equates to about 218ppi, which is still plenty useable. Outdoor testing was fine and it delivered near tanning studio levels of brightness when used indoors. One thing I liked about Huawei's choice of TFT LCD over AMOLED was that garish, over saturated colours were replaced by more natural colours that were far gentler on the eyes. Viewing angles were also good.
Taking a leaf out of Samsung's book, the back of the G510 also has a removable to provide access to the battery, a full-sized SIM socket, and a microSD memory slot. MicoSD is a nice addition that'll quickly become essential for multimedia use as the G510 only has 4GB of storage baked in (which given its sticker price isn't a huge surprise). Interestingly NFC (near field communications) has also been built-in too. NFC is already used to pay on public transport but I've yet to see any phones actually making use of NFC for anything meaningful beyond sharing contacts and files.
