Huawei Ascend P6

Available now
20th June 2013

The Huawei Ascend P6 is billed as the world's thinnest smartphone, coming in at just 6.2mm thick. But although the Ascend P6 boasts some impressive specifications there's a chance that Huawei might have misjudged the market somewhat.

The technical specifications are relatively high-end but are certainly not as sophisticated as those on the class-leading HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 devices. There's a 4.7" 720 x 1280 pixel display on the front (which can be used while wearning gloves), on the back is an 8 megapixel camera capable of 1080p HD video capture and unusually there's a high-resolution 5 megapixel unit on the front as well. Inside is a quad-core 1.5GHz CPU of Huawei's own design. Inside is 2GB of RAM and 8GB of onboard flash storage plus a microSD slot and a 2000 mAh battery.

From the hardware specifications it looks like a pretty good but unexceptional device, and in the past that would be about all you would except from a Huawei smartphone. However, Huawei have added a number of their own touches such as some advanced photography tricks, custom widgets, some rather nice looking themes that lift the device from the standard Android layout and enhanced security functions. All the usual Android 4.2 features are here too, such as 3.5G support (although apparently not LTE), WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth 3.0 and USB connectivity.

The fundamental problem with this phone is that consumers are less and less interested in how thin the device is and are more interested in features such as battery life. Although the 2000 mAh battery is large compared to devices from a couple of years ago, the Galaxy S4 and One have larger batteries at 2300 and 2600 mAh respectively, and the upcoming HTC Butterfly S packs a much bigger 3200 mAh cell. It seems to us that although the impressive svelteness might give an initial "wow factor", in the long-term it is longevity that most Android users seem to appreciate.

Huawei say that the Ascend P6 should be available in Europe from July onwards in black and white colours, plus a pink version following in August for a suggested retail price of €449, with customers in China getting it this month. Several major European carriers are on board, so it looks like this device might have a good chance of success.