Huawei Ascend P6 review: Zen droid slim

Introduction

The razor-slim Huawei Ascend P6 has snatched the slimmest smartphone title right under the nose of the big guns. The China-based maker is not only keeping up with its high-profile competitors in terms of both hardware and software, but has achieved what few others have lately. The Ascend P6 offers a well-balanced feature set in a beautifully designed body, record-breaking thin at that.

Huawei Ascend P6 official pictures

The Huawei Ascend P6 was introduced in June and is now officially hitting the shelves with its record still intact. The Ascend P6's signature feature is the phone's 6.2mm profile, edging ahead of even the impressively slim Sony Xperia Z Ultra.

Sure, there has been word of even thinner phones like the Vivo X3(5.6mm) and the Umeox X5 (5.6mm), but they're the kind of gadgets to give small-time Chinese makers their 15 minutes of fame rather than make a big splash globally. Huawei's vision, on the other hand, goes well beyond the home market - though what a market that is!

The Ascend P6 is powered by the company's home-brewed chipset - the K3V2 - featuring a quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A9 processor, a 16-core GPU and 2GB of RAM. Having already seen this configuration on the Ascend Mate phablet, we can confirm that it's a more than adequate match for the 720p screen.

Here is the full breakdown of the Huawei Ascend P6.

Key features

Ultra-slim 6.2mm profile
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE; penta-band 3G with HSPA
4.7" 16M-color 720p IPS+ LCD capacitive touchscreen with Gorilla Glass, usable with gloves
Android OS v4.2.2 Jelly Bean with Emotion UI
Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A9, 16-core GPU; 2GB of RAM; Huawei K3V2 chipset
8 MP autofocus camera with LED flash, 1080p video recording @ 30fps
5 MP front-facing camera, 720p video recording
Dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA
GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS
8GB of built-in storage
microSD card slot, side-mounted, hot-swap
microUSB port with USB host, USB OTG
Bluetooth v3.0
FM radio
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
Accelerometer and proximity sensor
Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic

Main disadvantages

Non-exchangeable battery
No LTE or NFC support
Video recording could be better
Disappointing audio output

As you can see, there is very little the Ascend P6 fails to deliver. Some may find the non-removable battery unacceptable, but lots of manufacturers these days are resorting to a similar design in order to keep their phones beautifully slim, yet sturdy enough.

For NFC and LTE, there's the Huawei Ascend P2, which was introduced early on in Barcelona. Actually, the jump from P2 to P6 is not to be construed as a massive improvement in terms of level of equipment. The two handsets are more like alternative versions for those with different design preferences. What's more important is that with the Ascend P series Huawei's looking quite solid in the upper midrange.