Huawei Ascend P7: We review the PANORAMIC SELFIE smartphone Last year Huawei crept into the No 3 spot for smartphone sales worldwide without anyone really noticing. At least not here, where Chinese giant is known (if it’s known for anything) for its networking equipment. But with the Ascend P7, it raises its game in two ways. It’s Huawei’s first 4G phone, and it's by far the most …
iOS8, out later this fall, will have per OS battery usage statistics allowing you to see what is doing what and act accordingly. I'll try and put a link in, no idea if it will get pulled out or not. If it does go to google image search and type "ios8 per app battery usage" First result should give you an idea.
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/123219-image/iphone-battery.jpg
This goes along with iOS7 providing per-app data usage and per-app storage usage which has been around for forever.
Karl P
Something Huawei added.
The strangest thing for me, as a PC user coming to Android, was the concept that I didn't need to close applications. Reading up on it at the time, I was given the impression that Android OS did this for me. Fair does. Since version whatever, I can manually close apps with a swipe, but often when I return to an app after a period of time it shows signs that it has been 'hibernated' in the mean time.
It was always the case on Windows mobile. The close button just sent the app to the background. It was always getting complaints and Microsoft were always defending that design choice.
Even when iOS added the multitasking people complained that the home button wasn't closing the app.
it's particularly bad during video calls when I have actually had to put in into the freezer for a bit to keep it from shutting down.
The build quality isn't too great as, although smooth at first the plastic around the corners has chipped away after several months of heavy use.
What I'd like to know is if the volume buttons have moved further away from the power button? I've tried to take a photo a number of times and accidentally turned the screen off.
After the farcical "we will update it honest guv (months later...) er, no we won't" with their first foray in the range - the P1 - don't be surprised that as soon as the successor to this model comes out, you won't see updates for the P7 any more.
Sorry, but if you're actually going about-turn (I was almost going to say "lie", but let's give them the benefit of the doubt) about updates to end-users, then you've burned a lot of goodwill, Huawei, and it makes your later models a really hard sell.
As ever, my advice for *any* Android device is either buy the Nexus/Silver/Google Play Edition or at the very least make sure you can get CyanogenMod on it. Any other route will result in update delays ranging from months to, er, never.
Would be nice if the review included something on audio quality through headphones. As phones these days are the modern 'iPods' for most people it would be good to know.
Also, what are Huawei like for Android updates? Good, or forget about it? If they're hopeless can another ROM easily be flashed to these things?
Seems a good spec for the price, phone looks nice, UI looks pretty awful but another launcher could fix that. With the Nexus 5 currently down to £249 in CPW I wonder how they both compare.
Android updates - does anyone but google ever roll them out? I've had HTC nd Motorola phones, and there's typically one minor update in the first 6 months of life and that's all. Basically I expect to continue with whatever comes on the phone until it's replacement time or it gets rooted. That's not a problem if one buys a phone that does everything you need in the first place, of course.
I'm going to keep an eye on this. I have been using a Huawei Ascend G330 for some time now and though it's a reasonable budget phone (if you aren't one of those that buys mobile phones as a fashion accessory, of course), it's a little strict on space so adding apps is a bit of a problem. Upgrading to something like this, especially if the price isn't too high, is certainly a possibility for me, especially as I seem to have gravitated away from the big names and more toward folk like Huawei, ZTE and the like.
Actually, I've been reading up on quite a few reviews and this one is probably the best one I've read so far, especially as it isn't quite so eager to steer you toward the latest Samsung, HTC or Nexus products (most of what I have read so far is "It's good, it's even great, buuuut.... LOOK AT THE [insert favourite here]" which can be helpful on occasion for comparison but gets really annoying after the first few times).
And so what if it looks a bit like an Apple? Actually all the various companies nick little bits and pieces here and there (sometimes a bit too much, hence the mobile patent wars of the last few years!). If it works and does what you want it to do, then overall looks matter very little (except, I say again, if you are buying it as a fashion accessory - yes, some people do that sort of thing!)
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