Huawei launches Android Ice Cream Sandwich powered phone in South Africa

Leo Wang, managing director of Huawei Devices Eastern and Southern Africa Region, indicated that he believes the launch of the Ascend P1 represents a significant milestone for Huawei Device in South Africa.

He said: “We are sending strong signals of our intention to transform into a consumer-facing brand and extend our market leadership by strengthening our range of flagship products.”

For the South African market, the Huawei Ascend P1 is quite refreshing and a welcome difference from previous Huawei phones that have been made available in the region.
What is interesting as well is also the exclusive offer through Vodacom South Africa, which seems to be a trend amongst phone manufacturers to exclusively offer its phones through a specific mobile operator first, before making it available to the rest of the mobile operators.
This signals that it is not merely a phone battle amongst manufacturers but amongst networks as well.
In a statement to HumanIPO, Shalate Portia Davhana, Manager for Media and Corporate Affairs, said the Huawei Ascend P1 is being launched in South Africa at the moment and we will be notified should further launch announcements be made.
The phone features a dual-core 1.5GHz TI OMAP 4460 Cortext-A9 processor and measures 7.69mm thin and 64.8 mm long. With a 4.3-inch super AMOLED 960 x 540 touch screen with Corning Gorilla Glass, an 8-megapixel BSI rear-facing camera with AF and a Dual Flash, as well as Dolby Mobile 3.0 + 5.1 surround sound technology.
Although it doesn’t have the Samsung Galaxy S3 specific features, including the phone’s screen becoming bright when you look at it, the Ascend P1 runs the latest Android version 4.0 operating system — popularly known as Ice Cream Sandwich — seems to be amongst the best “entertainment” phones on the market.