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Huawei Ascend P1 XL hands-on
Knowing that Huawei's just announced the Ascend P1 XL for power users alike, we swung by the company's booth at Mobile Asia Expo to see how much bulk the 2,600mAh battery adds to the body. In fact, at 9.9mm thick, the Android 4.0-powered XL is almost as thick as the original P1's thickest point, and in terms of weight the extra 930mAh of battery juice adds another 25g on top of the P1's 110g, which isn't all that noticeable when we fiddled with the new phone. Leaving the thickness and the camera shape aside, the XL is otherwise identical to its sibling device. We'll let you see the external differences in our hands-on photos below. %Gallery-158848%
ZTE Grand X (U970 and N970) and Grand X LTE (T82) hands-on
You may recall that ZTE unveiled its Snapdragon MSM8960-powered Grand X LTE handset (pictured right) just a few days ago, but as it turns out, the original Mimosa X design is still very much alive under that new Grand X moniker, and we were able to play with both Android 4.0 devices at Mobile Asia Expo in Shanghai. In fact, there were three models in total, as the Grand X comes in two flavors in China: the U970 for China Mobile comes with 1.2GHz Tegra 2 (yes, Tegra 2), TD-SCDMA radio, 1GB RAM, 4GB storage and a five-megapixel camera; while the identical-looking N970 for China Telecom packs a 1.5GHz MSM8660A, CDMA2000 radio, 1GB RAM, 8GB storage, microSD expansion and an eight-megapixel camera. With all the phones attached to various cords we weren't able to get a good sense of their ergonomics, but they were all surprisingly light. In terms of build quality ZTE didn't disappoint, either (at least the casing is certainly a big step up from the Skate), and their 4.3-inch qHD LCDs looked good as well. Oh, and the vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich build flashed onto these devices ran smoothly during our brief hands-on, so hopefully they'll stay that way in the hands of buyers. Help yourself to our photos below. %Gallery-158837% %Gallery-158836%
Huawei brings out Ascend P1 2600 mAh XL for battery junkies, throws in E5151 hotspot
Huawei's presence at Mobile Asia Expo this year has a distinct flavor of RAZR Maxx about it. The Ascend P1 is getting a fresh 2600 mAh XL variant that does exactly what it says on the tin: throw almost 56 percent more battery power at the previously skinny Android 4.0 device. Along with this and a TD-SCDMA variant of the P1 for China Mobile fans, the other standout is the (not yet pictured) Mobile WiFi E5151, which brings a rare Ethernet jack to the 3G hotspot world for hoping onto the Internet in a more traditional form. It's radio silence on the E5151's release, but those in Huawei's native China can look forward to buying the lengthily-titled Ascend P1 2600 mAh XL in the summer -- just don't assume it will cross the ocean anytime soon.
Nokia Lumia devices now present in 54 markets, 44 percent of Windows Phone apps available in China (updated)
In case you want to check Nokia's pulse amid a mixture of good news and bad news, the company's decided to dish out some new stats on its Windows Phones at the first-ever Mobile Asia Expo here in Shanghai. Asia region president Olivier Puech announced the Lumia devices are currently available in 54 markets worldwide, courtesy of over 130 operators and over 80,000 apps (though our friends over at All About Windows Phone said the marketplace broke the 90,000 barrier last month). Sadly, there was no mention of market share or sales figures, but Puech did add that since the Lumia launch in China at the end of March, only 35,000 -- or about 44 percent -- of all those Windows Phone apps are available in the restricted marketplace, 5,500 of which are tailored for the local market. Of course, with Nokia's constant push in the country these numbers should, hopefully, only go up, so hang in there, Elop! Update: Interestingly, Microsoft's just announced at the Windows Phone 8 event that the marketplace now features over 100,000 apps! If the Chinese marketplace figure is still correct, make that 35 percent instead of 44. Someone should update Mr. Puech.