Huawei upped the bar and threw down the gauntlet to its competition last night, launching its latest 5” Ascend P7 LTE smartphone at a glittering event held in Sandton.

According to the company, this is the slimmest (6.5 mm) LTE phone on the market, and, as a follow up to its previous P6 smartphone, has been refined with customer feedback in mind.

Yudi Rambaran, the product marketing director for Huawei, explained that particular attention has been paid towards offering higher quality selfies and a better camera, a longer lasting battery, and better connectivity.

Smile for a selfie

To this end, the P7 now boasts an eight megapixel front facing camera and selfie friendly features like auto beauty enhancement; while the 13 megapixel camera is more up to dealing with low light conditions. Furthermore, responding to customer requests for the facility to quickly capture snapshots, Huawei has made it possible to activate the camera and take a photo by just double tapping the volume down button when the phone is locked.

With regards to its internals, the phone is powered by a Hisilicon Kirin 910T Quad-core 1.8 GHz CPU, along with 2 GB of memory and 16 GB of storage (expandable via microSD).

As for battery life – an aspect of a premium phone that the company considers imperative – the P7’s 2500 mAh battery can apparently last up to a day’s worth of intense usage, or two days normal usage, before requiring a visit to the power point. Furthermore, a new power saving feature has been introduced on the phone, which enables users to switch to ultra power saving mode when they have 10% battery power remaining and still receive 24 hours worth of standby time.

As for the screen, the 5” display is no slouch, with a full HD resolution of 1920x1080 (445ppi) and a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Huawei's Ascend P7 is certainly a sleek and slender phone in the hand, it also has a rather premium, well built feel to it as well. 

Time for something new

Along with the latest version of Android 4.4 (KitKat), the P7 has also received the newest version of Huawei’s own Emotion UI 2.3, which apparently boasts in the order of 650 enhancements.

The device will be exclusively available to Vodacom customers in store and online from 7 July – 31 July. The company elaborated that it will be available on the Vodacom Smart S plan for R379 per month and has a recommended retail price of R6 700. “

As we continue to expand our 3G and LTE coverage across the country it is essential that we provide our customers with the best tools to access this technology. The Huawei Ascend P7 is the latest LTE-enabled smartphone to join our network and we’re proud to be the first operator in South Africa to offer it to our customers,” said Davide Tacchino, Vodacom’s managing executive of Terminals.

Huawei’s P7 will be available in black and white in July, while pink will only be available later in the year.