Hands-on with Huawei’s Ascend D2

The 5-inch Huawei smartphone boasts a 13-megapixel camera.

Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei released its new flagship smartphone at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Ascend D2 has a 5-inch screen and runs Android 4.1 on its 1.5 GHz quad-core processor. 

We got to play with the Ascend D2 today at Huawei’s booth. The phone is large but not quite in “phablet” territory and the 1080 HD resolution display is great for showing off the 13-megapixel camera.

The florescent lights of the show floor did not permit us to see the Ascend D2’s full photographic capabilities, but our initial impressions of the Ascend D2 were good. Huawei allows for locked focus and manual exposure as well as Hipstamatic-esque shooting filters. This being an Android phone you of course have the option to install third party capturing or editing apps if you're not happy with the pre-installed Huawei apps. 

On the unlock screen, the Ascend D2 offers super-quick camera access. If you drag the unlock tool up to the camera icon, the phone will automatically open to the camera.	Manual options in the Ascend D2 include ISO, white balance and different auto-adjusting scene modes.
On the capture screen, standard tap-to-focus will work for basic snapshots while a focus lock can help for more complicated compositions.	The focal range of the Ascend D2 is very close. Photos of Huawei's table display allowed me to get an intimate look at a shell. This photo was slightly zoomed on the phone to show the details of the shot. (I also cleaned up the levels inside the phone for this shot to better show the detail.)