Huawei Ascend G330 – initial impressions

The popular budget Huawei Ascend G300 has now been replaced with the G330, and I have one for a fortnight to see how it fairs.

Huawei are dragging their reputation from cheap ‘n’ cheerful to serious contender in impressive style, not least because the G300 was such good value. This means the G330 has a lot to live up to.

First impressions

Good

• Feels good in the hand
• Fast boot up
• Clear screen
• Themes
• Ice Cream Sandwich

Bad

• Plain looks
• Ice Cream Sandwich

Technical Specifications

• Dimensions – 122.5 x 62.6 x 11.2 mm
• Weight – 130g
• TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
• Size 480 x 800 pixels, 4.0 inches (~233 ppi pixel density)
• Multitouch
• 3.5mm jack
• Memory Card slot microSD, up to 32 GB
• Internal 4 GB storage (2.5 GB user available), 512 MB RAM
• WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot
• Bluetooth
• microUSB
• Primary camera – 5 MP, autofocus, LED flash
• Video – VGA 30fps
• Secondary camera – VGA
• Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
• Chipset – Qualcomm MSM8225 Snapdragon
• CPU – Dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A5
• GPU – Adreno 203
• GPS
• Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
• Battery – Li-Ion 1500 mAh battery

Just as when the iPhone 5 replaced the 4S, there’s bound to be comparisons. I am the proud owner of a G300, so comparisons are inevitable.

The first thing I noticed out of the box is that, whilst the G330 feels great in the hand, it is incredibly plain; a black phone with no distinguishing features. There is also a ‘luxury silver’ version, this is just as plain, except brighter! This is a stark contrast to the G300, which came with a contrasting silver and white colour scheme. It’s a matter of taste, but I prefer a phone with some character.

The experience gets a lot better when the power button is pressed.

The boot time is very quick, and within seconds the bright, high contrast screen took my mind off what the body looked like.

The fact that it runs Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box will divide opinion. Some people will be expecting Jelly Bean, and won’t be happy with anything else. I, however, don’t mind a budget phone having ICS on it, as long as it’s not Gingerbread!

Digging through the settings brought a pleasant surprise: there’s an option to change themes. Nothing revolutionary there, right? Except that one of the themes is pretty much vanilla Android. At last!

Please take note HTC, we don’t all want your custom skin and we want to turn it off!

Overall my first hour with the Ascend G330 was a very positive one, and I am looking forward to seeing what the coming couple of weeks brings. Will I be tempted to jack in my G300? Stay tuned…

Thanks to the Huawei team at Fleishman Hillard for the loan of the Huawei G330