Huawei Ascend G300 Pro Reviews

Large screen and okay performance at a bargain price

I’d suggest this is the first budget Android phone that doesn’t require the user to sacrifice anything vital in the name of impecunity. The G300 does everything the majority of smartphone users will want, does them well, and is as cheap as chips. At £100 it’s the bargain of the year.

Huawei's Ascend G 300 has a few shortcomings in comparison to the best smartphones on the market - namely, a low storage capacity, an inferior build, a less-capable camera and only a single-core processor - but its performance is well above that of the budget models with which it competes. With an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich promised, a large 4in capacitive touchscreen and fantastic battery life, the G 300's £100 price tag is unbelievable. We recently reported that well-known smartphone brands would have a fight on their hands in 2012 against low-cost Chinese vendors; if the Huawei Ascend G 300 is a sign of what's to come, the bigger boys have every reason to be scared.

When you initially pull the Huawei Ascend G300 out of its box, or out of your pocket, the smart design brings a smile to your face, but it's not one that will last forever. The visually appealing HAP 5.1 custom UI is a nice addition to Android, but we wish Huawei had put a few more features in. The colours are bright and cheerful, as are the few custom widgets, but they are basic in what they do. The budget market is a difficult one to crack, with other offerings such as the Blackberry Curve 8520, and a few Samsung offerings like the Samsung Galaxy Y around, all competing against last year's higher end models. Elsewhere we have to mention HTC One V, baby brother to the HTC One X and HTC One S. Whilst being more than double the price (£230, around $370) on PAYG, the HTC One V does come in at very similar monthly tariff. Huawei has put in enough tech to make the stylish Ascend G300 very appealing at such a low price point, and with a promised late summer update to Ice Cream Sandwich, it even manages to keep up with future devices.

We love the G300. It might be a little lacking in power, but as a phone it ticks all the basic boxes. We can say, without doubt, that this is by far the best budget handset running Android that we've used. It has the feel and look of a far more expensive phone, and we really enjoyed using it. The screen is brilliant, and outshines those found on the Orange San Francisco II or the T-Mobile Vivacity. It's bright, colourful and detailed, and we really found it enjoyable to look at. We'd prefer the touchscreen were a little more sensitive, but it's not dreadful most of the time. The speed is good, overall, and we found the call quality to be excellent. If you're a person who uses a phone for phoning, you'll be very happy with the Ascend G300. We could live without the Vodafone customisations, and stupid game trials, but aside from that, this is a wonderful phone that would happily draw us to the Vodafone network, were we in the market for such a device.