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Huawei Ascend W2 shows up prematurely, packs color-matching backlit soft keys (hands-on)

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Huawei Ascend W2 shows up prematurely, packs colormatching backlit soft keys handson

After the official product shot leaked in late May, we knew it wouldn't be long before Huawei's Ascend W2 makes an official appearance. Well, today's the day, but as the company's second-ever Windows Phone device, the W2's appearance at Mobile Asia Expo was surprisingly low key. According to the spec sheet at Huawei's booth, this affordable phone comes with a 4.3-inch 800 x 480 display (looked like IPS to us) and a 1.4GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8230 SoC (same as the W1 but faster) with 512MB RAM. There's 8GB of built-in storage along with microSD expansion -- the slot is located next to the removable 1,700mAh battery plus full-size SIM slot, all underneath the red or yellow back cover.

Even though Huawei doesn't hide the fact that the W2 is a low-cost device, it's actually not too shabby. Most notably, the three usual soft keys are color backlit and will match your desired theme in Windows Phone 8. As a bonus, the touchscreen has a glove mode -- as featured on several other more recent Huawei phones -- for the cold winter days. There's still no price or date announced just yet, but since this particular model packs a TD-SCDMA radio for China Mobile, folks outside China will have to wait for the WCDMA variant. For now, we have a hands-on video for you after the break.

Gallery: Huawei Ascend W2 shows up prematurely, packs color-matching backlit soft keys (hands-on)

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Sony’s SBH52 Smart Bluetooth clip acts as your secondary handset

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Sony's SBH52 Smart Bluetooth clip acts as your secondary handset

HTC may have its Mini Bluetooth handset, but Sony thinks such implementation works best as a big clip without the numeric pad. Dubbed the SBH52, this splashproof device comes with FM radio, a headphone jack plus a small OLED display to show caller ID and text messages, so in a way it's similar to its predecessors. What's new is that you now get NFC as well as an earpiece -- the latter lets you use the clip as a mini phone. Expect to see this on the shelves in Q3 this year.

Gallery: Sony's SBH52 Smart Bluetooth clip acts as your secondary handset

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Sony Xperia C S39h is company’s first MediaTek device, does the dual-SIM trick

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Sony Xperia C S39h is company's first MediaTek device, does the dualSIM trick

There's no denying that MediaTek is becoming mainstream these days, to the point that even Sony finally decided to join the party. The manufacturer's first attempt in this space is the Xperia C (S39h), a 5-inch qHD phone with dual-SIM capability (WCDMA and GSM) destined for China Unicom, and it'll come in either black, white or purple. Like many flagship devices from Chinese brands these days, the handset packs a quad-core MediaTek MT6589 SoC, along with an 8-megapixel camera -- Exmor R, specifically -- with voice shutter function. On top of the hardware, users in China will also have access to 3 million tracks from local music content provider Duomi. There's no price or date just yet, so we'll be keeping an eye out for further announcements.

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Huawei Ascend P1 XL hands-on

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Huawei Ascend P1 XL handson

Knowing that Huawei's just announced the Ascend P1 XL for power users alike, we swung by the company's booth at Mobile Asia Expo to see how much bulk the 2,600mAh battery adds to the body. In fact, at 9.9mm thick, the Android 4.0-powered XL is almost as thick as the original P1's thickest point, and in terms of weight the extra 930mAh of battery juice adds another 25g on top of the P1's 110g, which isn't all that noticeable when we fiddled with the new phone. Leaving the thickness and the camera shape aside, the XL is otherwise identical to its sibling device. We'll let you see the external differences in our hands-on photos below.

Gallery: Huawei Ascend P1 XL hands-on

Huawei Ascend P1 XL hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jun 2012 17:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ZTE Grand X (U970 and N970) and Grand X LTE (T82) hands-on

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ZTE Grand X and Grand X LTE handson

You may recall that ZTE unveiled its Snapdragon MSM8960-powered Grand X LTE handset (pictured right) just a few days ago, but as it turns out, the original Mimosa X design is still very much alive under that new Grand X moniker, and we were able to play with both Android 4.0 devices at Mobile Asia Expo in Shanghai. In fact, there were three models in total, as the Grand X comes in two flavors in China: the U970 for China Mobile comes with 1.2GHz Tegra 2 (yes, Tegra 2), TD-SCDMA radio, 1GB RAM, 4GB storage and a five-megapixel camera; while the identical-looking N970 for China Telecom packs a 1.5GHz MSM8660A, CDMA2000 radio, 1GB RAM, 8GB storage, microSD expansion and an eight-megapixel camera.

With all the phones attached to various cords we weren't able to get a good sense of their ergonomics, but they were all surprisingly light. In terms of build quality ZTE didn't disappoint, either (at least the casing is certainly a big step up from the Skate), and their 4.3-inch qHD LCDs looked good as well. Oh, and the vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich build flashed onto these devices ran smoothly during our brief hands-on, so hopefully they'll stay that way in the hands of buyers. Help yourself to our photos below.

Gallery: ZTE Grand X hands-on

Gallery: ZTE Grand X LTE hands-on

ZTE Grand X (U970 and N970) and Grand X LTE (T82) hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia Lumia devices now present in 54 markets, 44 percent of Windows Phone apps available in China

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Nokia Lumia devices now present in 54 markets, 44 percent of apps available in China

In case you want to check Nokia's pulse amid a mixture of good news and bad news, the company's decided to dish out some new stats on its Windows Phones at the first-ever Mobile Asia Expo here in Shanghai. Asia region president Olivier Puech announced the Lumia devices are currently available in 54 markets worldwide, courtesy of over 130 operators and over 80,000 apps (though our friends over at All About Windows Phone said the marketplace broke the 90,000 barrier last month). Sadly, there was no mention of market share or sales figures, but Puech did add that since the Lumia launch in China at the end of March, only 35,000 -- or about 44 percent -- of all those Windows Phone apps are available in the restricted marketplace, 5,500 of which are tailored for the local market. Of course, with Nokia's constant push in the country these numbers should, hopefully, only go up, so hang in there, Elop!

Continue reading Nokia Lumia devices now present in 54 markets, 44 percent of Windows Phone apps available in China

Nokia Lumia devices now present in 54 markets, 44 percent of Windows Phone apps available in China originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jun 2012 01:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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