HUAWEI U8815: High on looks

A smart looking handset with decent features

Chinese handset maker Huawei is making deft moves in the fast-growing Indian smartphone market. Recently, it introduced its new U8815 phone, priced at R13,490. It is a smart looking handset with a slim form factor, curved edges and a huge 4 inch multi-touch display. It has a plastic body yet the metallic bezel lends to it a sturdy metallic feel. There are minimal physical buttons on the phone. All it has is two keys for volume, one for switch-on, a proprietary USB and a 3.5mm jack. We missed the camera button, which is a popular physical key and just can't be ignored.

The device runs on Android 2.3.6, an older but healthy and popular operating system that is still found in mid-range and budget smartphones such as Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus, Motorola Defy Plus etc. The interface is easy to follow and work upon, as its response is prompt. The wide 4-inch multi-touch display, with a decent resolution of 800 x 480, has a glossy surface but that can be addressed with a simple screen guard for R150. It features plenty of interesting apps like Google Voice Search, Maps, YouTube, GTalk, Google Plus and voice dialer to keep you busy.

However, the app that beats them all is Huawei Cloud Plus. Cloud Plus is an exclusive Huawei Cloud service for Huawei users. It is seamlessly integrated into the device platform and offers features like Cloud Plus drive; Message Plus; Stream that helps you integrate phonebook with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn; Phone finder, SNS and storage of up to 16 GB.

The smartphone has a long lasting 1350mAh battery that gives a glitch-free backup of 1-2 days on normal use. Video playback is decent and the speaker, intelligently placed on the front, is powerful. Video playback is decent and runs without any jitter. The device runs on 1 GHz single core processor and 512 MB memory. But don't worry, it works just fine. Its internal storage capacity is 2 GB and with a micro SD card it can go up to 32 GB. The 5 megapixel camera with flash and 5x optical zoom is an average performer with video recording.

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