Huawei Ascend P2 announced, touted as "world's fastest LTE handset"

Huawei has taken the stage a day before the official start of the Mobile World Congress and unveiled the Ascend P2, touting it as the world’s fastest LTE handset, thanks to the presence of LTE Cat 4 connectivity for theoretic speeds of up to 150 mbps.

The Ascend P2 sports a 4.7-inch IPS in-cell touch display of 1280 x 720 pixels resolution (312ppi), which is usable wearing gloves like Nokia’s Lumia 920. There’s a 1.3 megapixel camera on the front and a 13 megapixel shooter on the back that is capable of recording 1080p videos.

Underneath, there’s a 1.5GHz quad-core processor (the type wasn’t mentioned), 1GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage that is unfortunately not expandable, and a 2,420 mAh battery. On the software side of things, the Ascend P2 runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, customized with the company’s Emotion UI v1.5.

Connectivity wise, the device includes Wi-Fi, HSPA, Bluetooth, GPS, NFC, and the aforementioned Cat 4 LTE. The Huawei Ascent P2 also includes Huawei Quick Power Control and Automated Discontinuous Reception (ADRX) technology, which help in reducing power usage and charging times by up to 25 percent.

While not technically the most advanced Android smartphone out there, the Ascend P2 should be enough to help Huawei increase their presence in international markets. Devices like the HTC One, Sony Xperia Z or the Samsung Galaxy S4 will no doubt claim the spotlight for a major part of this year, but hopefully the Huawei Ascend P2 will be able to grab a piece of the pie as well.

The Huawei Ascend P2 will be launched first on Orange France in June 2013, followed by other markets. It will be available in black and white colour variants and is expected to priced at around 400-450 Euros.