HUAWEI ASCEND MATE

Considering that the 6.1-inch Ascend Mate is Huawei’s first foray into phablet territory, we’re willing to overlook its lack of a distinct design language; it looks comparatively plain next to the all-metal Lenovo K900, or the Xperia Z Ultra which sports Sony’s OmniBalance design.

Still, we can’t say outright that Huawei hasn’t put any thought into the design. For example, to make it easier for users to grip the massive phone, Huawei goes with a grippy matte plastic for the back and sides of the Ascend Mate. This is in contrast with the glossy (and oftentimes slippery) backs of both the LG Optimus G Pro and Samsung Galaxy Mega.

The Ascend Mate runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean with Huawei’s custom Emotion interface. Emotion includes some unique features such as the option to hide the navigation bar for maximizing real screen estate, while also removing the app drawer altogether.

“THE LOCK SCREEN, DIALER, IN-CALL KEYPAD, AND KEYBOARD ARE OPTIMIZED

FOR ONEHANDED USAGE.”

Ascend Mate is the Huawei’s own Hi-Silicon K3V2 quad-core 1.5GHz processor, as well as 1GB of RAM. Despite the flagship-worthy specifications, the Ascend Mate is also the only device in the shootout not to support 4G LTE connectivity.

Complementing the internal storage capacity of 8GB is a microSD card slot that supports memory cards up to 32GB. The Ascend Mate also comes with a non-removable 4,050mAh battery, which happens to be the largest in this comparison.