Huawei Ascend II (U.S. Cellular)

The original Huawei Ascend was a low-end, free-with-contract smartphone?released on a number of different carriers. It sold well because of its low price, but it wasn't a very good device. The Huawei Ascend II for U.S. Cellular addresses some of that phone's issues, but it's a case of too little, too late. The Ascend II won't cost you a dime, but you can get a much better phone if you're willing to spend some cash.

Design and Call Quality
Like a diet-version of the original, the Ascend II measures 4.6 by 2.4 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.1 ounces. It looks and feels nicer than the Ascend, clad all in black with a soft touch plastic back and a shiny plastic ring around the display. The display is the same 3.5-inch, 320-by-480-pixel capacitive touch screen as the last time around, which looks reasonably sharp and bright. There are four haptic feedback-enabled touch keys beneath it, and typing on the on-screen keyboard felt fine.

The Huawei Ascend II is a dual-band EVDO Rev A (850/1900 MHz) device with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. In New York where we test, U.S. Cellular phones use Sprint's network. Signal reception was fine, and it connected to my WPA2-encrypted Wi-Fi network without a problem. It can also function as a mobile hotspot with the appropriate data plan.

Call quality was decent on the Ascend. Voices sound clear, but thin and a touch robotic. Calls made with the phone are easy to understand and feature good noise cancellation, but can sound a bit muffled. The speakerphone sounds fine and is loud enough to use outdoors. Calls sounded clear through a?Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset ($129, 4.5 stars) and voice dialing worked fine. Battery life was on the shorter side of average at 5 hours, 8 minutes of talk time.

Android and Apps
The Ascend II runs Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread). There's no word on whether it will receive an update to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), but we wouldn't hold out hope. Huawei has added some very limited customizations to the UI. Unfortunately, they give off a bargain bin vibe; Huawei would've fared better leaving well enough alone in this case.

There are five customizable home screens you can swipe between, which come preloaded with a number of useful apps and widgets, along with a bunch of nonremovable bloatware.

Everything is powered by a 600MHz Qualcomm S1 MSM7627 processor. This was standard for lower-end smartphones a year ago, but it's really starting to show its age. The Ascend II turned in some of the worst benchmarks we've seen for a device sporting these specs, and you can really feel that while using the phone. Most tasks felt sluggish, and it took longer to open and close apps than usual.

App-wise, you get Google Maps Navigation for free voice-enabled, turn-by-turn GPS directions, along with all that bloatware from U.S. Cellular. You should also be able to run most of the 300,000+ third-party apps in the Android Market, but again, be prepared to encounter stalls and crashes.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
The Ascend II has 146MB of internal memory, along with a 2GB microSD card; my 32GB and 64GB SanDisk cards worked fine as well. Thankfully, the phone has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack this time around, which makes it easy to find a pair of earbuds. Music tracks sounded fine over both wired earbuds and Altec Lansing BackBeat?Bluetooth headphones ($99.99, 3.5 stars). I was able to play AAC, MP3, OGG, and WAV files, but not FLAC or WMA.

Video playback is lackluster. I was able to watch movies at resolutions up to 800-by-480, but anything above 640-by-480 looked choppy. I could play H.264 and MP4 files, but not AVI, DivX, or Xvid.

The Ascend II's 5-megapixel camera lacks auto-focus and an LED flash. Test photos looked soft and dark, with muted color detail. The camera also records 640-by-480 video at 16 frames per second indoors and 19 outside.

The Huawei Ascend II isn't a terrible phone, it's just not a very good one. It's sluggish today; a year from now, it will probably feel glacial. If you're looking to score a smartphone on the cheap, you'll get a faster processor but slower Internet with the Samsung Repp?(Free, 3 stars). For $49.99 there's the LG Genesis?(3 stars), which gets you two higher-res displays, along with a physical QWERTY keyboard. But you'd do best to spend $100 and pick up the HTC Hero S?(3.5 stars), or $149.99 for the Motorola Electrify?(4.5 stars). Both phones feature faster processors, sharper displays, and better cameras than the Ascend II. The Electrify can even convert into a laptop PC with the proper accessories. And even better, in both cases you won't be itching to upgrade your phone in just a few months.?

Benchmarks
Continuous talk time: 5 hours 8 minutes

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