The T-Mobile exclusive Nokia Lumia 521 will soon have company in another WP8-powered device, as Huawei's Ascend W1 is also gearing up to retail via Walmart. Huawei announced Thursday (May 9) that the Ascend W1 will be available online and at select Walmart stores in the U.S. this month.
"We are proud to deliver a premium smartphone experience to customers at a competitive price point," averred Todd Greenberg, general manager, U.S. Windows Phone Sales at Microsoft. "The new Huawei W1 is a great addition to the Windows Phone 8 portfolio of devices in the U.S., with its impressive battery life and availability in Walmart stores."
"The Huawei W1 brings consumers a truly compelling alternative to what's currently in the marketplace — a device that is competitively priced with an unlimited *30-day no-contract plan," said Michael Chuang, EVP at Huawei Device USA. "The addition of the W1 to our smartphone portfolio in the United States gives consumers access to a wider range of Huawei smartphones at a competitive price that makes sense to consumers."
The Ascend W1 features a 4-inch IPS LCD with OGS Technology (800 x 480 pixels resolution) and 223 ppi. Under the hood it packs in a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8230 processor that is clocked at 1.2GHz. The Ascend W1, announced in January 2013 at the International CES, touts a 5-megapixel primary camera and a 0.3 megapixel front-facing camera.
The Ascend W1 measures 4.90 x 2.51 x 0.41 inches and weighs 4.59 ounces. The smartphone has 4GB of internal memory and the option to expand the memory further (up to 32GB) via a microSD card. It also packs in 512MB of RAM, a 1950mAh battery, and comes with WP8 out of the box.
Huawei is also slated to promote the handset on May 15 with the "Huawei W1 'Make it Yours' Music & Mobile Sweepstakes." Fans of the Huawei W1 and the Jonas Brothers will have a chance to win the Ascend W1, tickets to attend Jonas Brothers Tour concerts and a chance to meet the band in person.
The pricing and exact release date for the Walmart-bound Ascend W1 is not yet known. It will be interesting to see if the smartphone can do a Lumia 521 and be sold out.
