IFA 2014 Recap: Huawei's mid-range Ascend G7

IFA 2014 Recap: Huawei’s mid-range Ascend G7

Huawei has had a slew of very beautiful, well-designed smartphones in the last two years. While the company is still not on the cards of your regular mainstream Android diehard (it has said to hell with Windows Phone recently so let’s not go there), it continues to wow all with its design prowess that is only matched in most cases by Apple with its iPhone and the Taiwanese, HTC. Huawei’s device lineup at this year’s IFA in Berlin served to remind us of who the company was and that it would stop at nothing on its way to the top, Remember Huawei was the third smartphone manufacturer globally and from the half year figures released by the company back in July, over 30 million smartphones sold in the first half of the year is not a bad figure. Not when the flagship Ascend P7 already had 2 million units fly off the shelf in just two months of going on sale in select regions.

Ascend G7

Almost every company of note is trying to bring something to the market that will atttract the average smartphone buyer. This is the person who wants the best performance on their device but doesn’t want to pay so much for it. Obviously this person is not the target of the $600+ smartphones (flagships mostly) so what does s/he want? Something like what HTC has been releasing on its Desire smartphone lineup or the likes of the Lumia 730 if they are after a Windows Phone. They’ll be spoilt for choice if they are after a Samsung or LG device as the two companies have a diverse range of mid-range devces that are mostly region-specific and tailored to meet the demands of such a buyer. The Ascend G7 is Huawei’s own offering for such a buyer.

The device doesn’t pack the latest SoC or other cutting edge technology like the Quad HD displays that are the latest fad. Heck, it doesn’t even have a full HD panel. Yet that is not its Achilles heel. Such sacrifices are deemed necessary in order to keep the final retail price down as the company won’t have to make the consumer pay for the expensive parts and components used. Yet even by trimming cost edges Huawei never compromised on the device. It may not be as beautiful as the P7 but it has a premium build. Metal everywhere save for small parts of the back that have to stay that way so as not to cause signal reception issues. Actually, of all the devices Huawei showed off at IFA, this is the only one I’m dying to see unveiled in the Kenyan market. Why? The $390 or thereabout pricing is very attractive. Add the insane taxes to it and you still get a good device for a decent price here in East Africa. It would go a long way in providing real quality for users of certain phones flooding the market at around the same price that I really don’t recommend. This will likely happen as the device will be available in South Africa when it goes on sale later this month alongside another hot market, Mexico. European countries like the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Hungary and Poland are also in line to get the G7 in its initial rollout before it is available in other markets around the world.

Here are specifications of the device: