Preview: P9,490 Huawei Ascend G300 Android phone

You’re looking at the Huawei Ascend G300, a China-made Android phone with an attractive design and an even more attractive P9,490 suggested retail price here in the Philippines.

Let’s start with aesthetics. The Huawei Ascend G300 is easily one of the best-looking mobiles under P10,000. The dominant design scheme reminds us a lot of old-school HTC handsets, given the curves, virtual navigation keys, black bezel, and metallic, two-tone shell. The 4-inch screen is another highlight, boasting 800 x 480 resolution, bright colors, and Corning Gorilla Glass for added durability. It also benefits from in-plane switching tech for improved sunlight legibility and viewing angles.

A power/lock button and a 3.5mm headphone jack are perched at the top, and a volume rocker can be found on the left side. The bottom hosts a lone microUSB charging port. The removable concave back is stamped with logos of Huawei and Google in gray. A hump at the top is where a single-focus, 5-megapixel cam; an LED flash; and a speaker sit.

Construction is equally impressive. For all the individual components which make up the Ascend G300′s exterior, we have yet to spot at least one unusual gap somewhere.

Inside is where this Huawei outguns many budget smartphones. The specs sheet reveals a single-core 1GHz Cortex-A5 processor operating at 1GHz paired with 512MB of RAM and an Adreno 200 GPU—meaning a resounding yes for 3D games like Temple Run. As expected, the 4GB onboard memory is expandable via microSD.

The resulting performance and multitasking is good; the mobile is generally responsive, and except for some noticeable hiccups, transitions happen almost instantly.

Huawei Ascend G300 specs:

Qualcomm MSM7227A Snapdragon chipset
1GHz Cortex-A5 CPU
Adreno 200 GPU
512MB RAM
4GB internal memory
microSD card slot up to 32GB
4-inch IPS display (800 x 480 resolution; 233ppi pixel density)
5-megapixel camera with auto-focus and LED flash
Dimensions: 122.5 x 63 x 10.5mm
140g
1350mAh battery
Android Gingerbread OS

Stills and footage from the Huawei Ascend G300′s camera are mostly passable. To be specific, the outputs show a decent amount of detail and color. If anything, photos taken under low-light conditions are a bit to be desired. The smartphone can adapt to most shooting environments as well, thanks to its integrated LED flash module and assortment of user options.

Here’s a sample photo we took with the Huawei Ascend G300.

Perhaps the only snag at this point is the operating system, which is still stuck on Android Gingerbread. According to Huawei, the upgrade to Android Ice Cream Sandwich will be ready soon. (The official Ice Cream Sandwich software for the Ascend G300 is already available on Huawei’s website. However, based on the included how-to, our unit’s version isn’t compatible with the download.)