I managed to take a look at the Huawei Ideos X5 that I first laid hands on at the TechXpo 2011. It is a very decent device at an affordable price of B$399. My only gripe is the lack of a front facing camera which means you will not be able to do normal video chats. If it had a front facing camera, this device would be one of the best budget Android phones. It has a bigger and higher resolution screen compared to the Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro and thus makes it a good size for thumb typing, even for those with fat fingers like mine. Overall a very decent device, with 450MB+ for applications (a lot of space for a budget device), but I fear that there will be no official Android version updates.
The Good
- A decent Android device at B$399 with larger and higher resolution screen compared to some cheaper phones
- High resolution 3.8″ WVGA (800×480) screen
- Support for Flash
- On customer request the device will be rooted and upgraded to Android 2.3 running CyanogenMod
The Bad & the Ugly
- No front facing camera
- There are cheaper phones with front facing cameras
- May not have Android updates
Specifications
- Android 2.2 / Android 2.3 (upgrade to 2.3 upon customer request)
- 3.8″ WVGA (800×480) capacitive multi-touch screen
- 1GHz CPU
- 460+MB available for apps
- RAM 350MB+
- 5 megapixel camera with flash (no front facing camera)
- microSD card slot
- Connectivity: WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS
- Micro-USB connector
Note: We would like to thank TenTen for allowing us to film this at their shop in Kiulap. TenTen offers many Huawei and they also have battery packs for your iDevices or generic battery packs with a USB output to charge for your phone
Sample Photo (max resolution: 5 megapixel 2592×1944)
Sample Video (max resolution: HD 720p, 1280×720, m4v with h264 and aac mono encoding)
(YouTube link to video)