Huawei did unveil it’s first Windows Phone 8 smartphone. The Huawei Ascend W1 was not announced on stage like the two Android devices, the Huawei Ascend Mate and Huawei Ascent D2 that are on the high end. The Ascend D2 is the Huawei Flagship device of 2013. Onto the Windows phone, Huawei was not in a hurry to get devices running the outdated Windows phone version Windows 7.5/7.8 and went to the more developed Windows Phone 8 that critics and lovers have come to like.
Ascend W1 is a 4 inch device with an IPS LCD screen and 480 x 800 pixels resolution. The processor underneath is a 1.2 GHz Dual-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8230 and Adreno 305 GPU. This is the only CES announced device from among the three that Huawei announced that does not have Huawei’s processor, QPC and ADRX. It has 512 MB RAM and 4GB internal storage with microSD support of upto 32GB. The camera is a 5MP rear with Autofocus and flash, and VGA front camera.
The Ascend W1 has a 1950mAh battery that is quite impressive for a 4 inch windows phone, Huawei says it can do 470 hours on standby. Availability will be in four colours; blue, red, black and white in China and Russia within this month of January. Other markets like Middle East, USA will get it a bit later. Here in Kenya it will definitely be selling in this first quarter as it’s one of the markets selected where the Ascend W1 will be available.
