Huawei launches 6.1 inch phablet Ascend Mate in India for Rs 24,900

After unveiling it at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2013 earlier this year, Huawei has now launched its phablet in the Indian market. The device, called Ascend Mate, has a 6.1 inch screen, runs on the Android Jelly Bean operating system and costs Rs 24,900. Here is a quick look at the specifications.

It has a 6.1 inch IPS+LCD HD capacitive touchscreen display (720×1280 pixel resolution) and is powered by a 1.5 GHz Quad-core Hi-Silicon K3V2+Intel XMM6260 processor. According to the company, the device has a screen-to-body ratio of 73 per cent that will maximise viewing for e-mail, document, video or game. The phablet runs on the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system, has 2 GB of RAM and the internal memory of the device can be expanded up to 32 GB.

Ascend Mate has an 8 mega pixel auto-focus rear camera and a 1 MP front-facing camera for video calling. On the connectivity front, the device has Wi-Fi (with Wi-Fi Direct), Bluetooth 4.0 and 3G, and it also has a microUSB port. The device measures 163.5mm x 85.7mm x 9.9mm and weighs 198 gm. It is powered by a 4,050 mAh battery, which the company claims will provide up to 9 days of battery life. The phablet will be available in crystal black and pure white colours.

Other key features include dual MIC noise reduction technology; Dolby sound system and stereo recording; an augmented reality navigation app that provides turn-by-turn navigation; smart reading to enable quick reference to dictionaries, Wikipedia and Google Search pages, and swift sharing after uploading pictures, videos and other files. You can read the detailed specs here.

At 6.1 inches, the device will primarily compete with the likes of Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 (Rs 37,500), Galaxy Mega 6.3 (Rs 30,990) and Galaxy Mega 5.8 (Rs 24,899). We feel at under Rs 25,000, the company has priced the device reasonably and users looking for a really large-screen smartphone can give this one a try.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)