Clari Says

The smartphone market is becoming more competitive. From the launch of Apple’s iPhone 6 and Samsung’s Note 4, existing brands and new players in the market also launched their flagship smartphones ahead (or at a later date). With all the choices they offer at a variety of prices, searching for the perfect phone is also becoming more difficult.

Going to the malls and scouting is a good idea apart from online reviews and word of mouth. But the most important thing is making sure that you really need a smartphone. Afterwards, you can search for the brand and model perfect for your needs.

Checking personal and work emails has been my routine as well as taking photos and posting them on my blog and my blog’s social sites. Reading online reviews and asking friends and colleagues were my first steps. Second was scouting different smartphones at the mall. That is where I encountered the Huawei Ascend series.

Make It Possible

Huawei, a leading information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider indeed make things possible. Providing solutions in 170 countries and regions worldwide, Huawei was ranked 285th on the Global Fortune 500. In their efforts to build a better connected world, Huawei made a leap in the smartphone industry.

Shipping 52 million handsets wherein 32 million were smartphones in 2012, the company was ranked third in global smartphone shipments. Not only that, they also have the highest year-on-year increase among the leading vendors at 67.5 percent.

According to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Huawei retained the third position worldwide in 2013. In addition, Huawei had the highest year-on-year increase among the leading vendors at 67.5 percent capturing 4.9 percent market share in 2013 shipping a total of 48.8 million units.

Huawei Ascend G730
Huawei Ascend offers various series in different designs. What caught my attention was the Huawei Ascend G730. Apart from checking emails and the social media, I also watch videos on YouTube and play games. A smartphone with big screen with a good battery life is all I need.

The Huawei Ascend G730-U10 has a dual SIM – 1 standard and 1 micro SIM. It has a 5.5-inch (960 x 540 pixels) FWVGA touch screen display, 149.5mm in height, 78mm, in width, 9.6mm in Depth and weight is about 180g. It is powered by a MediaTek 1.3 GHz quad-core CPU and ARM Mali-450MP2 GPU with 1 GB of RAM and 4GB of ROM.

Though the device is big, it is easy to handle. Video viewing or gaming isn’t a problem due to the large screen. Not to mention, the battery life goes a long way with 2300 mAh. Music, games, videos or whatever application you use daily, the device’s battery can last a whole day. However, the memory easily fills up since only 2 GB remains free for the user. A micro SD card (up to 32 GB) is needed especially if you will be installing a number of apps. I suggest taking advantage of the pre-installed “Optimization” and “Phone Manager” tools in the device to accelerate, clean and save power.

Now let’s go to the camera. It has two and both are voice activated making it easier to capture group photos. The rear camera has a 5 MP lens with LED flash and a 720p recording capacity while the front camera only has a 0.3 MP VGA lens.

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With the back camera, you can take decent shots with proper lighting. On the other hand, the front camera is a letdown. Proper lighting is greatly needed or there will be noise in your image. Even editing will be difficult, so just download a camera app in the Google Play Store if you want to take selfies.

For those who love to personalize their phones, Ascend G730 is equipped with an Emotion UI, Huawei themes and other options to set your home screen. As of the moment, the device runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and Emotion UI version 2.0. Though Huawei has not announced an upgrade yet, but you can check the “Top Apps” folder and choose “System Update” or check their website for a newer Emotion UI version and Android 4.4 KitKat.

Overall, Huawei Ascend G730 is a decent device with its battery life, screen size and performance. The only thing that would have made the device even better is a larger resolution for both cameras.

For a better view of the phone, here is a short Huawei Ascend G730 video review!