Huawei Ascend II Hands-on

If you’re looking for cheap and straightforward Android smarthpones, you really don’t need to look any further than the Huawei Ascend II as it’s currently available through MetroPCS and Cricket Wireless. At Huawei’s CTIA 2011 booth, we managed to get a quick look at their recent model for Cricket.

Boasting a no-contract price of $129.99, the Huawei Ascend II pretty much looks and feels like all the other devices cramped into the prepaid category. Right off the bat, we notice that it’s one super glossy handset, as its contrasting white and black colors appear shiny at all times. Sure it’s constructed out of plastic, which isn’t surprising to tell you the truth, but it does keep the handset extremely lightweight.  With its 3.5” HVGA display, it’ good, but nothing captivating to make it a standout hit. Under the hood, there’s a  600MHz processor beating extensively to get most basic tasks accomplished, however, it doesn’t quite exhibit the smoothest executions.




Running a custom interface running on top of Android 2.3 Gingerbread, we’re easily reminded of the 3D cube found with HTC’s TouchFLO interface on its Windows Mobile smartphones. Naturally, it tries to exude some nifty 3D effects while navigating around the homescreen, but it’s simply lacking that pizazz to astonish us – though, it still presents us with all the deep features of any Android smartphone. But hey, you really can’t downplay it too much considering it’s only priced at $129.99.