Huawei a Chinese brand is starting to make a name for itself worldwide, infact it already had made its mark in the UK, the Huawei ascend Y200D in particular is beginning to gain popularity here in the Philippines, some local cellular network actually offers the ascend Y200D in one of their postpaid plans, luckily, I got mine free from my Sun Cellular subscription line. The ascend Y200D is not exactly an enticing phone, for one; it uses an older version of android (gingerbread) nothing wrong with it, its just that with the uprising of the ICS and Jellybean it somehow made the gingerbread inferior, but for someone who just wanted an android experience, gingerbread still has a lot left to offer and the Huawei ascend Y200D maximizes the gingerbread’s potential in a 3.5 inch screen.
The Huawei ascend Y200D is a dual-sim phone with dual standby feature and is powered by an 800mhz Qualcomm MSM7225A processor with 512 mb of ram, I was impressed the first time I use it to browse the web, it’s fast and responsive the way an 800mhz processor should be and the 512 mb ram allows you to open more apps, the best I’ve seen so far in its class, most android phones that fall in this criteria only have 256mb of ram. I have no idea on the exact price but I’m guessing it ranges somewhere in between 4,490 to 4,990 php competing with the Samsung Galaxy Y….. Advantage once again favor the ascend Y200D from its competitors, the 3.5 inch IPS capacitive touchscreen is something you don’t normally see to a phone falling under this criteria, it’s large, it’s sharp and it’s affordable. Huawei’s choice of hardware ensures system stability for the ascend Y200D, a thing that keeps them apart from the stigmata that Chinese brands are made out of volume not by quality.
In terms of design the ascend Y200D is a thing of beauty a master craftsman’s masterpiece, it is ergonomically designed to fit the user’s hand without stressing it and the materials used are high quality plastics. Huawei incorporates their proprietary Emotion UI in all their smartphones to make it distinct to other brands and even more so, to make navigation easier. The ascend Y200D handles the Emotion UI very well I’m guessing it’s the Adreno 200 GPU that kicks in to action, and I’m pretty sure it will handle games seriously, but to my dismay the ascend Y200D had a flaw, a very small internal rom, only 79 mb is available for use, so installing games in it seems near impossible, to make things worst it doesn’t come with a Facebook app, it needs to be downloaded via google play and will consume a lot from that precious 79 mb of realty, not to mention viber, skype, and IM+, who needs games when space is at a premium. It’s just a small blimp it might seem but it causes a domino effect, a large amount of points taken away from this would have been excellent phone.
The ascend Y200D features a 3.2 megapixel camera with fix focus lens, the first snapshot I took from it was clearly amazing, it’s sharp and vivid, another bonus you can get from this phone, sorry no front camera here, though it supports 3G connectivity, a deliberate move from Huawei to keep the phone glued to such a low price. The battery life, however is reliable even with moderate use it will last you for more than a day and a half, it also comes with a built-in power saving app, activate it and you’ll see a big difference in battery performance….. I’m beginning to speculate that this phone is designed for the business people, no games, long battery life, sizable screen and a clear call conversation courtesy of its dual-mic noise reduction feature, clearly the way a businessman would want it.
Bottom line: The Huawei ascend Y200D is one of the best in its class, however shortage in application storage prevents it from rising up, a good phone though, in relation to its price.
PROS: affordable, sizable screen, excellent built quality, good browsing speed.
CONS: low internal storage, slight lag on the home screen.
HUAWEI ASCEND Y200D SPECIFICATIONS:
3.5 inch IPS capacitive touchscreen 320×480
Qualcomm MSM7225A 800MHz processor
Adreno 200 GPU
512MB RAM
2GB ROM
HSDPA 14.4Mbps
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Dual-mic noise reduction
3.2MP camera, fix focus lens
proximity and light sensors
GPS w/ aGPS support
Bluetooth 2.1
Android 2.3 Gingerbread
1250mAh Li-Ion battery
