Huawei Ascend P7: tested in humans

Can you say now what was so special about the Huawei Ascend P6? The correct answer is that it was the thinnest smartphone of the middle of last year - 6.18 mm. It was also very similar to the iPhone and Sony Xperia devices at the same time.

But the merit of the P6 is different - perhaps, after the release of this particular model, Huawei started to treat it as a serious player in the smartphone market.
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A year has passed - the company has released a new flagship. See if P7 can surprise us? Who knows, all of a sudden, Huawei’s engineers and designers have been eating their bread for nothing?





Huawei Ascend P7
price: 14 500 rub.

OS: Android 4.4.2
processor: HiSilicon Kirin 910T, 1.8 GHz (4 cores)
screen: 5 '', 1920x1080, IPS
RAM: 2 GB
memory: 16 GB (+ microSD - up to 64 GB)
3G / LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, NFC
Camera: 13/8 MP
battery: 2500 mAh
dimensions, weight: 139.868.86.5 mm, 124 g


The developers did not abandon the idea implemented in P6 - we are again met by the mix and fusion - the P7 still looks like the smartphones from Apple and Sony. Pay particular attention to the power button - isn't it a bold move? Of the noticeable differences between the P6 and P7 is the location of the audio jack and microUSB (for the P7, they are located on the upper and lower end, respectively).





The filling of the device has changed, and with it the thickness of the device has increased - up to six and a half millimeters. But this smartphone does not become less elegant - after all, the screen size has changed - now we have a 5-inch model. In P6, we recall, the diagonal of the display was 4.7 inches.



Predictable step - increase resolution to Full HD. This did not affect the other characteristics of the screen, although the brightness and color saturation of the novelty is subjectively inferior to the flagships of other major brands - for example, Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8.

There is, however, a drop of tar - the brightness in the “auto” mode sometimes behaves somewhat strangely and does not change smoothly, but in jerks, which is noticeable to the naked eye.





Ascend P7 works on the basis of the HiSilicon Kirin 910T chipset developed in Huawei with a quad-core processor running at 1.8 GHz and a Mali-T450 MP4 video accelerator. This chipset is inferior in performance to the Snapdragon 801, but perhaps the next generation of Kirin will be able to surpass the new, 805th, Qualcomm mobile processor - at least, Huawei says so. Well, wait and see.

There is no special complaint about the speed - all the more so since the developer does not position this smartphone as a “killer of flagships”. But the periodic lags in the interface, to put it mildly, confuse.







Support for LTE and NFC has been added to wireless protocols. An important point - if you dare to buy a gray model, immediately check the ability of the smartphone to work in 4G networks - some unofficial modifications of the P7 may not support LTE.

The smartphone has the latest version of the Emotion UI branded shell, which is characterized by the absence of the application menu - when installing programs and utilities, their icons are placed on one of the desktops - another reference to iOS. You can avoid cluttering by grouping application icons into folders.







A gift to lovers of minimalism is a mode that is called “simple”. It looks either as a grandmother's interface, or the main screen of Microsoft smartphones. What good is this mode - it is almost impossible to miss.



One of the victims, which had to bring in favor of a thin body - the battery capacity - 2500 mAh. Speaking figuratively, if you work in the office from 9 to 5, the smartphone charge will be enough for you, but here you will have to watch the latest episode of "Games of Thrones" at home.



Apparently, therefore, the firmware developers installed a fairly flexible power saving utility on the P7. Here you can analyze, monitor, optimize. Or immediately turn on the most economical mode - judging by the indicators, the smartphone in this case will be able to stretch twice as long.





Whether a pleasant care for the user, or the recognition of the inability to optimize the system - sorry for cynicism - the presence of the phone manager utility. There is a suspicion that the “placebo effect” is involved, but is it not enough - it is better to check once a day what program sucks the last juices from your processor.



In general, in the Emotion UI settings - above the roof. Tired of the standard interface — choose something quieter or more impressive. And you can just change the theme once a day - just enough for a week. Want something unusual? - Change the mode of navigation on desktops (there are about a dozen). The Association of Psychotherapists of Russia approves.

We’ll finish the story about the P7 interface on a useful-practical note: activate the "Control button" in the settings - some of the functions hidden under it will probably be useful to you in your daily work. The button moves freely along the left or right edge of the screen and does not interfere with the manipulation of the interface.



For a snack, we left the most interesting - built-in cameras. Another past model was able to pleasantly surprise with the quality of photos and videos. And P7, apparently, only consolidate this success.

If in numbers, the resolution of the main camera has grown from 8 to 13 megapixels, and the front one - oh, horror! - from 5 to 8 - not in vain in certain circles P7 is called “selfie-background”. Moreover, there is a place to turn around - the smartphone will not only tell you where to look, but also smooth out all the flaws of the self-portrait, even after hours of rave. Well, if you are a convivial person, you can use a “selfie-panorama”. All will fit.





In general, there are more opportunities for taking photos and videos - if compared with the P6 - but the quality, in fact, if you do not take into account the increase in resolution - remains the same. The main camera, for example, does a good job of well-lit objects, but it can save in a dark alley. If you do not find fault with trifles, then you can evaluate the photo-features of a smartphone as “suit everyone”. Well, or many.





Useful advice: if your friend is staring and is about to stick into a pole or a real helicopter flies out of your window - use the quick-shooting function. It is enough to press the volume down button twice so that the smartphone goes out of the lock mode and immediately takes a photo - one second and a little is enough for everything about everything. For the sake of speed, however, quality is set here - so the autofocus in this mode is often mistaken.



What is the bottom line? If you use the terminology of experts in the field of gadgets, then we have "strong middling". There are no special advantages, but there are no distinctly pronounced minuses either - a calm evolution without any shocks. The price of the Ascend P7 for a couple of months has dropped from 20 thousand rubles to 16, and we are not talking about gray models, with the purchase of which you will be able to save an additional thousand and a half. It remains to wish further success to Huawei, and to you pleasant and thoughtful purchases - I hope we helped you with this.

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