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Huawei Ascend G300 Review

We featured a first impression of the Huawei Ascend G300 last week, a mid-range Android smartphone with a 4-inch display and sleek design. Find out if this smartphone has more to offer by reading our full review after the break.

Design and Construction
The Huawei Ascend G300 has a sleek design, primarily because it has smooth curves with tiny edges that feels nice in the hands. It has a plastic body with a two-tone color of white and silver which makes the G300 look appealing but not cheap or toyish.

On the front is a 4-inch display with three capacitive buttons. Right on top is the headset jack and Sleep/Wake button. At the bottom is the microUSB port and microphone. On the left side is the volume rocker. The right side is empty except for a tiny space to fit your fingernail into if you want to remove the back panel. Flip it on its back and you’ll see the 5MP camera with LED flash, another microphone and the speaker grill.

Display
The Ascend G300 has a 4-inch IPS LCD display at 800×480 pixels with a pixel density of 233ppi. Not the best out there but it has good viewing angles, good colors and decent sharpness. Pixels are evident but only if you look very closely. Sunlight legibility is okay but throws a lot of glare even under maximum brightness.

Camera
The G300 uses a 5MP shooter with LED flash. Good for stills but slow on focusing which makes shooting moving objects a bit frustrating. Shooting in low-lit conditions will double your frustration because it will take 5 seconds for it to capture an image.

But like most cameras on smartphones, the one on the G300 performs well under bright conditions. It’s still a bit on the slow side (2 secs) but produces very decent photos. Check out the samples below:
[fancygallery ID= “huaweig300”]
It can also record videos. Videos produced are a bit lacking on sharpness and details but still very viewable. Watch the sample below:

UI, Multimedia and Performance
The Ascend G300 is running Android 2.3 Gingerbread out of the box with slight UI customization. If you’re familiar with Android I’m sure you know the drill. You’ll still get your five home screens for your shortcuts and widgets and 4×4 grid of apps. It also has a Fast Boot feature that turns on the device in just six seconds from warm boot.

It’s filled with stock Android apps such as Google+, Play Music and GTalk. Huawei threw in a couple of its own apps such as Streams, Traffic Manager and its own File Manager which are really useful. For anything else, the Google Play Store is there if you need to download more apps. Multimedia playback is not an issue. However, we find the sound coming from the speakers audible but very weak on the bass.

We’re pretty much impressed with the G300’s performance. Lags are rare to almost non-existent. We played Temple Run and Fruit Ninja with no hiccups. However we did experience some problems with the built-in browser. There are times that it becomes really slow and stalls a bit. We tried downloading Chrome browser but the device is not supported.

As for the Ice Cream Sandwich, there’s already an update available for other builds but not this one. I hope Huawei rolls out Android ICS for all builds soon.

Benchmarks
Quadrant Standard gave it a score of 1,942, scoring a bit higher than the HTC Desire HD but below the LG Optimus 2X. AnTuTu gave it a score of 3,164, almost at the bottom of the charts below the Nexus S. NenaMark test shows an Adreno 200 GPU with 19.3fps.

Battery
The Ascend G300 has a 1350mAh battery but it managed to last a little over three days of regular use which includes texting, calling and frequent WiFi browsing. But if you play a lot of games and take a lot of pictures and videos, the G300 can last for a two days and a half.

Conclusion
Some may find the Ascend G300 on the weak side based on specs. It only has a single core processor, 512MB of RAM, 5MP camera and Android Gingerbread. But even with these specs, the G300 manages to perform quite well. It is far from perfect but it gets things done. It’s not the most featured Android smartphone but it’s not boring. And with a retail price of Ph9,490 it is a good phone to consider.

What we liked about the Huawei Ascend G300:
* Sleek design and thin profile
* Almost free from lags
* Very decent battery life
* Affordable price

What we did not like about it:
* Android Gingerbread out of the box
* Some Play Store apps not compatible
* Slow browser
* Low-spec camera

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Avatar for Diangson Louie

This article was written by Louie Diangson, Managing Editor of YugaTech. You can follow him at @John_Louie.

8 Responses

  1. Avatar for Sheen Sheen says:

    Im selling mine a week old, complete 99.9% scratchfree, with matte screenpro since day 1, and a free orig jellycase also from huawei. contact me for more info 091617*****. you can even look at my IFS at tipidcp.com, my username is sheen16.

  2. Avatar for JP JP says:

    matte screen protector available na kaya para sa phone nato?

  3. Avatar for Rad Rad says:

    yun oh may full review na….ty

  4. Avatar for dmeprestado dmeprestado says:

    wow…i like this phone! but a bit pricey for its specs…

  5. Avatar for Ron Ron says:

    This phone really reminds me of an HTC.

  6. Avatar for FinoyReturns FinoyReturns says:

    i laughed at “It can also record videos”. surfrizzzing isn’t it?

  7. Avatar for Robert DC. Reyes Robert DC. Reyes says:

    Try installing Firefox for Android :D

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