blog We’ve been getting gradually more impressed with the smartphones launched in Australia by Chinese vendor Huawei over the past several years, although they haven’t quite measured up to the best that top of the line vendors like Apple, Samsung and HTC have been able to deliver. The newest cab off Huawei’s rank is the Ascend P6. It was previously reported that the smartphone would land down under this month, and in a new statement today, Huawei has confirmed the phone will land in little over a week:
“Huawei Devices today announced the world’s slimmest smartphone, the Huawei Ascend P6, will be available in Australia from July 15 for A$499 (RRP). … The Huawei Ascend P6 comes in black and white colours and will be available at JB Hi-Fi and Dick Smith stores from July 15, 2013.”
So no cute pink for Australian customers, unfortunately — just black and white. Still, the P6 has top of the line specifications, with its only real downside being no 4G support in Australia. As is per normal with Huawei, the company hasn’t gotten any carrier support from the likes of Telstra, Optus or Vodafone. But we still consider the P6 is likely to be competitive in the local market — it’s got the specs to compete with models which are much more expensive than its launch price of $499, and we suspect that price will quickly come down as we get closer to Christmas. At $350, the P6 will likely be a steal — and especially so if it turns out it can receive a custom ROM from the likes of CyanogenMod — although the P6 does already run the latest 4.2.2 version of Android.
Image credit: Huawei
I found your story on the new Huawei smartphone very informative and l thank you for that. The price sound great and it seems this model has a lot going for it, although no 4G is a real concern and may be the one deciding factor that prevents me from getting one myself
That’s a big downside. All the networks have started 4G rollouts now, and 4G costs less to operate than 3G so there’s a strong financial incentive for the network to push customers onto 4G as much as possible. I suggest 3G data will be pretty close to obsolete in Australia within the next few years.
> I suggest 3G data will be pretty close to obsolete in Australia within the next few years.
I thought 3G would hang around until everyone squeezed the last ounce of value out of their gear? Or are the operational costs markedly different?
I don’t know exactly what the costs are, but I have read that there’s a 50% gain in spectrum efficiency going from 3G to 4G and spectrum in Australia is not cheap. Once the 4G towers implement “beam forming” there might be something like a doubling of spectrum efficiency again.
Remember that iBurst had working beam forming in Australia 10 years ago, and they claimed they could triple the spectral efficiency from a given tower. Admittedly iBurst went broke, but that’s a business issue, not a technology issue and anyhow all equipment is much cheaper now than it was back then (and we see a pretty consistent trend that wireless equipment gets cheaper and more powerful every year, expect to find a free phone at the bottom of your cornflakes soon).
The price point is the kicker.
I see the P6 as direct competition to the Nexus 4. Pretty similar stats. http://phonerocket.com/smartphones/Huawei-Ascend-P6-vs-Google-Nexus-4
It’s thinner and has an sd card (Nexus 4 without a micro sd card = stupid), but nexus 4 will never have the “Do you think they’ll upgrade to the next version of android” questions.
Does seem rather a pointless omission, but if I was facing the choice of limited storage space and 4G internet, vs massive storage space and 3G internet… I would choose the 4G internet, and put up with less storage space.
Comments are closed.