Huawei Ascend W1 review: First look

Huawei has announced its first Windows Phone 8 device, claiming to be the thinnest on the market at just 10.5mm thick, and although it's not the most attractive windows Phone 8 device, it's not a bad attempt by the manufacturer known for budget devices.

The case of the Huawei Ascend W1 we saw was black. The screen is slightly raised above the bezel, and this gives you the illusion it's extra glossy.

The camera sits slightly proud on the rear of the device which gives a slightly awkward-looking bulge.

The backplate is soft touch which encourages you to stroke, as soft touch normally does.

The design is nothing groundbreaking, but inoffensive. It feels a little outdated and plain, but for a device we expect to sit at the bottom of the smartphone chain, we're happy to let it slide.

Packed inside the W1, you'll find a 1.2GHz dual core Qualcomm processor. It runs along smoothly in the time we used the device, and handles multitasking absolutely fine.

4GB internal memory is avaiable, which we hope will be reflected in the price of this device.

The Huawei Ascend W1's screen measures 4-inches with a rather average resolution of 800x480 pixels. It doesn't look as low resolution as that sounds though. Colours aren't as vibrant as you'd find on a top-range Lumia device, but again this will no doubt be reflected in the price.

It's super-responsive which makes usability tip top.

With a 1950mAh battery, the Huawei Ascend W1 should be able to handle a day of use, if not more - it's much better than you'll find on the low-end Windows Phone 8 devices in Nokia's range.

Packing a 5-megapixel camera with flash, the camera on the Huawei Ascend W1 probably isn't what you're after if you do anything other than upload pictures to Facebook or Twitter. It does the job, but not to the standard of other similarly-targeted devices.

After a lot of speculation around Huawei's Windows Phone 8-based devices, it's pleasing to see the company has announced it officially, but we'll have to spend a lot of time with it to see if the hardware corner-cutting can be redeemed in performance.