Huawei Vision review: Farsighted

Introduction

With Incredibly Fast and About to Take Off written across their flag, Huawei took this year's MWC by a storm. Firing up on all cores - four of them, in case you've missed it - they pinned themselves emphatically on the Android map with an impressive new lineup of smartphones and a shocker of a tablet.

Their rise didn't happen overnight of course. And although we're about to look back at a less glorious chapter of their history, phones like the Vision and the Honor deserve credit for helping the company get where they're now.

So, what about the Huawei Vision? Incredibly like an HTC Desire S and About as Smart makes a good motto. Come on, the Vision is no droid if it can't take a joke. And by the way, it looks strong enough to take a beating.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support
• 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• 3.7" 16M-color capacitive LCD touchscreen of WVGA resolution (480 x 800 pixels)
• Android OS v2.3.5 Gingerbread
• SPB Shell 3D launcher preloaded
• Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 chipset, 1 GHz Scorpion CPU, Adreno 205 GPU,
• 512 MB of RAM and 2 GB ROM
• 5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging
• 720p video recording @ 30fps
• Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA, hotspot functionality
• GPS with A-GPS
• microSD slot, up to 32GB
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1
• Front facing camera
• Compact aluminum unibody

Main disadvantages

• Below-par sunlight legibility
• No dedicated camera key
• No video calling out of the box
• Non-user-replaceable battery
• SPB Shell 3D launcher looks messy
• Non-hot-swappable microSD slot

The Vision reports to the Honor in the previous generation of the Huawei Android lineup. By far the better-equipped smartphone, the Honor was let down by a stark lack of style. The Huawei Vision must've been quick to grab the chance. Not that it's propelled to staggering heights of finesse but the unibody design is a source of strength and credibility.

The Huawei Vision at ours

The Vision risks being soon overshadowed by its younger and more gifted siblings, and faces frightening competition. No one can reasonably expect Samsung, HTC, LG and Sony Ericsson to be nice to newcomers. With dual-core phones becoming more and more affordable, the Vision needs to be prepared to battle some tegra 2-yeilding brutes too.

The Huawei Vision looks good and is more than decently equipped to be a trusty day-to-day companion or your first smartphone to learn the basics with. All it needs is the right price and an audience to make happy. It has all our attention. Let's see if it can keep it.