Yesterday Huawei announced its latest UK smartphone, the Vision, which joins the Blaze in the company’s UK line-up.
Whereas the Blaze was an entry-level phone, retailing at under £100, the Vision is a mid-range handset, which includes a faster processor and bigger screen.
We had some hands-on time with the Vision yesterday, we’ll bring you a full review as soon as we get a sample, but here are our first impressions.
Running Android Gingerbread 2.3.5, what sets the Vision apart is its custom 3D user interface, which you can use instead of the Android interface and is accessible by tapping the control at the base of the homescreen.
The 3D user interface looks really impressive graphically with very bright colours. All the panels are displayed as a 3D carousel you can scroll though, with all apps available.
Alternatively you view them as a overview where you can change the order
Aesthetically the Vision looks fairly similar to an HTC handset. Constructed from a alumium alloy pick up the Vision and it feels lighter than it looks, although at 135g, it’s not the lightest handset in the 1Ghz category.
In common with the Blaze you get the slightly curved screen, which here is a respectable 3.7-inches in size inches and has a resolution of 480×800.
Powered by a Qualcomm MSM 8255 1Ghz processor, the Vision feels very quick to use. Obviously we weren’t able to test it with much depth, but you swapping between screens and rotating the 3D carousel feels exceptionally quick.
The Huawei Blaze is due to be available at Phones4U before Christmas and will cost around £25, which seems reasonably competitive.
On the back you can see the 5-megapixel camera, which includes an LED flash. Three colours are available: silver (above), rose gold and charcoal
The volume rocker sits on the top left of the phone
The Blaze is just 9.9mm deep and feels very light in the hand
The main menu includes all features laid out in a grid, we like the 3D effect where you can see icons underneath
Choose between the conventional Android Launcher or the SPB Shell 3D – which is basically Huawei’s 3D user interface
It’s hard to do the 3D effect justice in this pictures, but it’s certainly slicker and brighter than that seen on the latest version of HTC Sense. Each homescreen appears in a carousel you can flick through. Each app and feature is clearly visible.
In 3D mode you can also choose to view the homescreens side by side
Here you can see the 3D carousel effect you can flick through
The Vision feels very responsive when swiping through the carousel.
The version of the Vision we were testing used Android 2.3.5.
Google Chat is included for making voice calls using the front-facing camera.
Leave a Reply