By Anu Passary email: a.passary@mobilenapps.com | Jan 15, 2013 12:54 PM EST
Huawei joined the Windows Phone 8 (WP8) party with the announcement of its first-ever WP8 smartphone, the Ascend W1. The Chinese company took to CES 2013 to take the wraps off the Ascend W1 and is looking to establish a foothold in the consumer market with its budget smartphone.
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The Ascend W1 joins the ranks of the Nokia Lumia 820 and HTC 8S, and will look to eat into the share of these mid-range WP8 offerings. The battle of the Windows Phones just got more intense.
We take a look at the features and specifications of the Ascend W1 and Lumia 820:
Processor
The Ascend W1 features a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8230 processor that is clocked at 1.2GHz, whereas the Lumia 820 has a faster 1.5GHz dual-core Krait processor.
Display
The Ascend W1 sports a 4-inch IPS LCD with OGS Technology vis-à-vis the Lumia 820's slightly bigger 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBack display.
Both the smartphones offer the same pixel resolution of 800 x 480; however, the Ascend W1 edges out the Lumia 820 with 223 ppi versus 217 ppi.
Weight, Thickness, and Body
The Lumia 820 measures 4.90 x 2.70 x 0.39 inches, compared to the Ascend W1's 4.90 x 2.51 x 0.41 inches. Both the phones are of the same height, but the Lumia 820 is less wide and thinner.
Weight-wise, at 4.59 ounces, the Huawei offering is much lighter than the Lumia 820 which weighs a good 5.64 ounces.
Storage and Memory
Storage-wise, the Lumia 820 edges out the Ascend W1. The Ascend W1 has 4GB of internal memory, compared to Lumia 820's 8GB option. Both smartphones have the option to expand the memory (up to 32GB) using a microSD card.
Memory-wise, the Lumia 820 is the clear winner with its 1GB of RAM vis-à-vis Ascend W1's 512MB of RAM.
Camera
The Ascend W1 has a 5-megapixel (2592 х 1944 pixels) rear-facing camera, which pales in front of the Lumia 820's 8-megapixel (3264 x 2448 pixels) snapper. Both smartphones offer support for LED flash and autofocus; however, the Nokia offering has Carl Zeiss optics
Both smartphones have a front-facing VGA camera.
Software
Both the Lumia 820 and Ascend W1 run on Microsoft's latest Windows Phone 8 operating system.
Battery
A slightly more powerful 1950mAh battery fuels the Ascend W1 versus the 1650mAh battery of the Lumia 820. Both the batteries are removable.
The Lumia 820's battery supports 8 hours of talk time 3G and 330 hours of standby time. Huawei claims that the Ascend W1's battery supports up to 10 hours and 30 minutes of talk time and up to 470 hours of standby time on 3G.
Availability and Colors
The Lumia 820 hit the shelves in most regions in November 2012 and the unlocked phone costs around $580. It is available in an array of colors like red, yellow, purple, and cyan.
The Ascend W1 was recently announced at the CES 2013 and is expected to release in China and Russia in January. The Ascend W1 will launch in Western Europe, Middle East, USA and other selected countries soon after.
The smartphone will come in four colors - red, black, white, and blue; however, Huawei has not revealed the pricing.
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