Huawei’s Jumps on the Windows Phone Bandwagon with the Rather Humdrum Ascend W1

There wasn’t much to show for in the Windows Phone camp at CES 2013 and the devices that did make an appearance were rather drab like Ascend W1 — Huawei’s first attempt at making a Windows Phone device.

On the outside the Ascend W1 looks very much like most other Windows Phone we’ve seen in the market with no real distinction or difference. Featuring a 4-inch LCD display with a rather low resolution of just 480×800 pixels (a paltry 233 ppi), the Ascend W1 is powered by 1.2 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 MSM8230 CPU mated to 512MB of RAM. There’s 4GB of onboard storage that can be augmented thanks to a microSD expansion slot. There’s also a 5MP rear-facing camera and a 0.3MP front-facing camera with 720p video recording playback. Completing the list of so-so specs, is a 1950mAh battery and no LTE support.

Let’s not mince words: in terms of hardware, Huawei has launched an utterly boring device. This forms an interesting contrast against Huawei’s head of consumer electronics Richard Yu’s comments, elsewhere at CES, about a dearth of innovation in the smartphone arena. Much greater hardware offerings for Windows Phone 8 are already being offered by Samsung, Nokia, and HTC.

The W1 nevertheless provides consumers with another simple and elegant device for Microsoft’s mobile operating system. Support for Internet Explorer 10 and Mobile Office 365 is included, and consumers should be able to easily access Microsoft’s vast ecosystem of useful and exciting software applications but we’re not sure if that’s enough to make you want to get this phone.

No information has been released about this phone’s RRP or date of availability in Malaysia. We don’t think the Ascend W1 be making the trip here. Anyway, enjoy the Ascend W1 prmo video after the jump. It has a catchy tune.