When Samsung released the Galaxy Note range of gigantic-screened phones, everyone questioned the wisdom of such a product.
Of course, after tens of millions of units sold, it seems like many manufacturers are getting in on the action, with Huawei and its Ascend Mate being the latest.
Let's get one thing out of the way - the Ascend Mate is a gigantic beast of a device, blurring the lines even further between phone and tablet.
While the Galaxy Note II upped the ante with a 5.5-inch display, the Ascend Mate laughs in the face of such teensy dimensions, boasting a 6-inch screen. It's not quite as big as Samsung's new Galaxy Mega (with a 6.3-inch display), but it's still a gigantic size.
Specifications
Featuring a 1.5Ghz quad-core processor and 2GBs of RAM, the Ascend Mate handles graphically intensive games such as RipTide GP well, with no perceptible framerate hitches. This horsepower translated well to everyday usage too, with apps launching promptly and scrolling being very smooth.
There are two key areas where compromises were made however - namely in the storage and display departments.
The Ascend Mate only comes with about 5GBs of usable storage out of 8GBs total, as opposed to the Note II's 16GB base size. We quickly found 5GBs to be inadequate for an hour or two of 720p video recording (although it can do 1080p too), so you'll want to grab a microSD card sooner rather than later.
As for the display, it's got a resolution of 1280x720, which wouldn't look out of place on a mid-range handset. But on this gigantic screen, we expected a few more pixels. Anyway, in real-world usage, the display was bright and vivid, but nothing spectacular.
Speaking of "nothing spectacular", we also have to mention the eight megapixel camera. The snaps tend to look great in good light, but as soon as you're indoors or in a low-light environment, the quality drops dramatically. Video recording is hit and miss too, doing a good job but looking extremely oversaturated.
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