The Huawei Ascend P1 makes it to American shores

Huawei is one of those "shooting star" companies from China that seems to know their stuff. They have big plans for the United States smartphone market and the Huawei Ascend P1 is a Valiant effort. It may not be as good as a Samsung on specs, but the price will reflect that. This handset is supposed to also get a LTE model soon.

The screen of the Huawei Ascend P1 is bright and clear but does not handle high definition tasks. The numbers point to 256 pixels per inch ( PPI ) of density. By comparison an iphone has 326 PPI, so it is easy to see the difference. Huawei did Craft the screen from Super AMOLED, not LCD, so the screen will use less battery power. The size of the display is 4.3 inches of digital real estate and comes covered with Corning Gorilla glass for durability. The size of the screen is in between the super huge Galaxy Note and an iPhone. There is no manual keyboard for the P1, so emails and texting will be accomplished on the virtual screen.

The wireless capabilities of the Ascend P1 are just short of fantastic. The smartphone can handle all the mode of Wi-Fi, 2G and 3G networks. The handset can send a DLNA signal to a compatible monitor or television, making an HDMI cable unnecessary. Along with all that, the phone can be used as a wireless hotspot, sending out an internet signal to other nearby devices. There is no Wi-Fi Direct, but they did throw in a FM Radio for local information.

When it comes to menus and programs, the Huawei Ascend P1 used the Google Android mobile operating system. This comes in the latest version, 4.0. This is known as "Ice Cream Sandwich" and should be one of the last versions of Android, doing away with the troublesome fragmentation issues. Version 4.0 is faster than the last 2.3 version so there should be little to no latency in the operation of this phone. The Android system is still vulnerable to malware attacks, thanks to the Android market setup. A good anti-malware software is good thinking for this smartphone. The browser in the P1 is able to handle Adobe flash files for superior web surfing pleasure.

The processor in the P1 smartphone is a screamer. It is dual core model that flies along at 1.5 gigahertz. It is made by Texas Instruments, not Qualcomm, for a change. It is accompanied by a PoverVR SGX540 GPU ( Graphical Processing Unit ). Huawei seems to be one of the few to use this specific GPU, so the performance is yet to be seen. Otherwise, the internal storage is rated for four gigabytes with the ability to add up to 32 gigabytes extra with an external flash card.

For the photo taking section, the P1 handset comes with an eight megapixel camera on the back and a 1.3 megapixel on the front. The rear camera has dual LED flash and autofocus features as well as the ability to take high definition video at 1080p standards. As you can see from the picture above, it comes in three colors, soft pink, ceramic white and black. The battery is medium in size and will not give a lot of hours of use if videos are played profusely. The P1 is a savvy smartphone and should be on the Verizon network shortly.