Huawei Ascend G6 has 4G LTE and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera (hands-on)
The Huawei Ascend G6 is an Android Jelly Bean phone packing 4G LTE connectivity and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera to make your selfies look better than ever.
- Shortlisted for British Photography Awards 2022, Commended in Landscape Photographer of the Year 2022
Huawei has a new phone to show off at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in the form of the Ascend G6. With a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, Huawei is hoping the Android phone will appeal to those of you who want more quality in your selfies.
The 4.5-inch phone has a 960x540-pixel resolution, packs a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, sports an 8-megapixel camera on the back and runs Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. It also has 4G LTE connectivity for super-speedy data downloads.
Huawei has yet to say exactly how much the G6 will set you back, but stated that it will be competitively priced. Based on the specs, I would hope the G6 comes in at under £200, but we'll have to wait and see when the phone goes on sale in the UK in April.
The Huawei Ascend G6 has also recently gone on sale in Australia for AU$329.
Design and display
With its metallic edging and rounded bottom, the G6 is very reminiscent of the Ascend P6 Huawei released last year -- it even has the same headphone jack placed oddly on the side at the bottom. There are quite a few changes though.
At 7.9mm thick, the G6 is quite a bit fatter than the ludicrously narrow 6.18mm of the P6. That's a real shame, as the P6's slender design really helped it stand out from other Android phones and made it extremely comfortable to hold in one hand. The brushed metal back panel is gone, replaced instead with a rubberised plastic back.
The G6 generally looks and feels like a cheaper, less luxurious version of last year's phone. If Huawei pairs the G6 with a much more affordable price tag, then these design changes will be much easier to live with. Either way, it still feels fairly comfortable to hold and its 4.5-inch display (down from 4.7-inches) means the body is marginally smaller too.
Around the sides you'll find the power button, a volume rocker, micro-USB port for charging and data transfer and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There's 8GB of built in storage as standard, but you can expand that using a microSD card.
The 4.3-inch display has a 960x540-pixel resolution. That won't impress those of you looking for Full HD panels in your phones, but it seemed adequately crisp in my hands-on time and the lower resolution should help keep the price down.
Features
The phone is running a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, which should keep the everyday essentials ticking along nicely. It'll arrive with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean on board -- a bit of a shame that it's not the more recent 4.4 KitKat, but with Huawei's Emotion UI slapped over the top, you probably won't notice a whole lot of difference.
Emotion UI makes a few major changes to Android. For one, it removes the dedicated app menu, meaning all your app icons are simply scattered across numerous homescreen panels. I'm personally not keen on this as it can be difficult to remember exactly where you left things. On the upside, it's highly customisable with a wide array of themes to choose from that change fonts and app icons. It'll no doubt appeal if you like putting your own stamp on your tech.
Around the back is an 8-megapixel camera but, more interestingly, you'll find a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, which is way more pixels than you'd usually find on most phone's front-facing lenses. Great news, if you're a constant selfie-snapper.
Outlook
The Huawei Ascend G6 might be chunkier than its predecessor, but it's still comfortable and doesn't look too bad either. The addition of 4G connectivity will allow for super-fast data downloads, meaning those selfies from the 5-megapixel front-facing camera can be uploaded without having to wait around.