Cinema on the go

Huawei Ascend Mate is being marketed as a 'pocket cinema' experience, and the device is as good as any smartphone available in the market

The first thing that hits you when you lay your hands on Huawei Ascend Mate is the sheer size of it. It's a big phone - more like a phablet -and draws more than its share of curious glances. Huawei is selling the phone as a "pocket cinema" experience, and it's fair to say the company delivers on that promise. The size of the phone comes with its share of advantages and challenges.

Despite being a big phone, it's relatively easy to hold - that is once you get used to it - and one doesn't get tired even on long-duration calls. At 198 gm, it's heavy, but not too heavy. That could be due to the plastic body Huawei has used. Despite being plastic, it's not a cheap-looking phone.

For a 6.1-inch screen, we were expecting at least 1080p display, but Ascend Mate comes with 720x1280 pixels HD resolution. What Huawei has done to compensate on resolution is that it has integrated an IPS panel which makes viewing content extremely good. The colours come out pretty well, even at different angles.

The Ascend Mate runs on a 1.5-GHz Quadcore processor and comes with a two-GB RAM. It runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS and has Huawei's Emotion user interface. The app menu isn't there in the Ascend Mate; instead all the apps are located on the home screen. The touch response of the phone is very good and the Huawei keyboard is extremely user-friendly. Despite being a massive phone, you can actually use the keyboard with one hand.

The Ascend Mate has an eight-megapixel rear and one-megapixel HD front-facing camera that comes with shooting modes like portrait, panorama, HDR, low light and so on. The picture quality is just about decent, certainly not the best feature of the phone, but quite acceptable. Don't try clicking "selfies" though with the front camera, as most of the pictures come out pretty grainy. It's a bit surprising when most smartphones come with at least two megapixels of front camera, Huawei opted for just one megapixels.

Watching movies on the Ascend Mate is actually a very good experience. We saw three two-hour documentaries on the phone and multiple YouTube videos and can safely say the experience is excellent. Just because of its sheer size, watching videos and movies is as good as watching on the iPad mini. And surprisingly, it doesn't drain the battery either. The battery life of the Ascend Mate is certainly one of the best in its category. On one full charge, the battery has the capacity to run for over 30 hours of heavy usage. The slight hitch is that the phone takes a lot of time to charge from up to 20 per cent, but once it crosses the 20 per cent-mark, it charges pretty fast.

For people who dig a big screen and are comfortable with its size, Ascend Mate is as good as any phone available in the market. It comes for an attractive price as well (Rs 24,990). It has all the features you would want in a big phone: good display quality, very good battery life and easy on the pocket.

If you don't get intimidated by the size of the Ascend Mate, you will be in for quite a few surprises. Huawei has got a winner on its hands and as long as you don't swear by brand names like Samsung or HTC, the Ascend Mate fits the bill of a good, functional and value-for-money smartphone.

Screen: 6.1-inch touch screen
Display resolution: 720 X 1,280 p, 241 ppi
Operating system: Android OS 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
Processor: 1.5-GHz Quadcore
RAM: 2 GB
Internal Memory: 16 GB
Camera: 8-mp rear, 1-mp front
Dimensions: 163.5 x 85.7 x 9.9 mm (6.44 x 3.37 x 0.39 inches)
Weight: 198 gm
Battery: 4,050 mAh Li-ion