Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Huawei Ascend P6, Samsung Galaxy S4 Active & Zoom - Interesting phones that did not make it to my top list

As with the start of every month, I do a survey of the available phones in the market divided into entry level, mid-range and top of the line models. A few interesting ones always do not make it to the list. These phones will appeal to a niche market, and hence still worthy of consideration.


One is the Huawei Ascend P6. The Ascend P6 is a 4.7-inch Android-powered phone with a quad core processor. Fitted with a 720p display and 2 GB of RAM, it is a reasonable enough proposition for its Php18,190 street price. The main claim to fame of this phone is its 6.2 mm thickness. The drawbacks are a smaller than average 2000 mAh battery and the absence of LTE. The absence of LTE knocked it out of contention on my mid-range list.


Then you have the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and Zoom. The Active is a "ruggedized" but downgraded Galaxy S4. For those into outdoor activities, I would be happier with a Galaxy S4 in a tough case or, better, a Sony Xperia ZR which is small enough not to get too ungainly in a tough case. I wrote about my misgivings with the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active at this link.


The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom is more like a Galaxy S4 mini with a 10x zoom lens and optical image stabilization for its 16 MP camera. The asking price is pretty good Php23,940, but appeal is limited to a specific kind of buyer.

Well, those are the interesting devices that came out last month which you might want to take a look at.

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