Huawei G300 (U8815) on special for $239

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lokhor

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#108827 6-Sep-2012 12:55

Just an FYI, Warehouse Stationery have the Huawei G300 (U8815) on special for $239 until 16/09/2012

You can take a look at the deal here http://www.warehousestationery.co.nz/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/WSL-B2C-Site/en_NZ/-/NZD/ViewOfferDetail-Product?ProductRef=213677@WSL-B2C

and check out the review over at AndroidNZ

Part 1 is here http://www.androidnz.net/2012/06/huawei-ascend-g300-u8815-real-user.html
Part 2 is here http://www.androidnz.net/2012/07/game-of-phones-huawei-ascend-g300-real.html

If you are interested note that this is Vodafone branded, however it will work perfectly fine on 2Degrees and an Ice Cream Sandwich update has been released globally and some people have started receiving it on the Vodafone NZ version according to here: http://forum.vodafone.co.nz/topic/10597-ics-coming-to-huawei-ascend-g300/page__st__20

All comments are my own opinion, and not that of my employer unless explicitly stated.

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#682578 6-Sep-2012 22:10

I've had this phone nearly 2 months, and am pretty impressed with it, given the price. I am new to android, actually new to smartphones really. Great fun tinkering around with. I ended up putting a cheap case on it, and a matte screen protector on it, cheap off ebay. I found the glare and smears on the screen distracting but am really happy with the matte protectors. I can't do everything but seems pretty good value at the low end.

bazzer

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#682589 6-Sep-2012 22:48

My wife and I have started getting frustrated with our U8150s. We don't want to go high-end, so I'm tossing up between getting this or just going with a custom ROM and see how that goes. Will this be a big enough step up or shall I just hold off? It's not that bad, just a bit slow sometimes.

lokhor

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#682649 7-Sep-2012 07:58

bazzer: My wife and I have started getting frustrated with our U8150s. We don't want to go high-end, so I'm tossing up between getting this or just going with a custom ROM and see how that goes. Will this be a big enough step up or shall I just hold off? It's not that bad, just a bit slow sometimes.

Trust me when i say this will be a huge step up. Especially now that ICS is available.

All comments are my own opinion, and not that of my employer unless explicitly stated.

bazzer

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#682689 7-Sep-2012 09:38

Just have to decide if it's really worth a $500 upgrade. I'd have to buy two after all!

lokhor

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#682717 7-Sep-2012 10:45

bazzer: Just have to decide if it's really worth a $500 upgrade. I'd have to buy two after all!

Ah true it gets much more difficult if you have to buy both.. any chance she'd go halves?

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Fred99

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#682779 7-Sep-2012 12:33

I bought one of these a few months ago, were on sale from Bond&Bond for $249 at that time.
Upgraded to ICS a couple of days ago. These will work on Vodafone and 2 degrees network - not Telecom.
The upgrade package is over 400MB total - will take a while over Wifi. Before upgrading a phone that you've been using for a while, clear caches, delete apps as needed and/or use a Micro SD card, as the firmware package needs to uncompress (to 800MB) - you need at least 1.2GB free.
Also if using Wifi, note that when you upgrade, you'll lose your wifi login and password, mobile data will be turned on by default when you power it up, and you could use up a lot of data before you realise what's happened.
I like this phone. The screen (IPS 4" 800x480) is clear and crisp, gorilla glass, so I don't bother with a screen protector. I''ve managed to drop it on to a concrete footpath, and it survived with only a scratch on the rear cover - it seems pretty well made. I haven't found any bugs with ICS. The GPS is superb - it acquires a fix very quickly, and unlike other phones, if you leave GPS on but no app is using it, it must shut down to a standby mode as it seems to have no impact on battery life, then when you fire up a GPS app, it is ready to go in seconds. The Sygic app I use (about $40) uses tomtom maps, and works brilliantly, smooth, fast, much better than a new Navman I used alongside it to trial the Sygic app before I paid $$. Battery life for the phone is excellent.
There are some reviews referring to low ring/notification volume - I think this was fixed in a firmware upgrade a few months ago - hasn't been an issue I've noticed. Camera is pretty ordinary. Sound output through headphone socket seemed a little bit buzzy when connected to a hifi system (Bluetooth sound seems okay though).

Edit: Lokhor - I just read the review on your site. Not 100% sure, but I think the responsiveness of the touch buttons may have been addressed in the firmware update which came as part of the ICS update. I agree that something didn't seem right with the buttons. Playing with the phone now, they seem to work perfectly - I don't think it's just that I've got used to it.

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lokhor

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#682794 7-Sep-2012 12:55

Its great to hear from someone who has successfully completed the ICS upgrade. I got my fiancee's dad to try and do it but he didn't have enough space. Does he need space on the micro sd thats inserted or the internal memory?

All comments are my own opinion, and not that of my employer unless explicitly stated.

Fred99

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#682805 7-Sep-2012 13:29

lokhor: Its great to hear from someone who has successfully completed the ICS upgrade. I got my fiancee's dad to try and do it but he didn't have enough space. Does he need space on the micro sd thats inserted or the internal memory?

I managed to do it by clearing caches, and shifting as much as I could over to the SD card, including all media files etc.
I deleted a lot of apps as well, as they'd need upgrading if you still want them.
I get the feeling that space is going to be needed on the internal SD storage - unless there's some way to change a setting - and it's too late now for me to go back and look. The update creates a folder "HwOUC" with the update zip file, 386MB. It expands to over 600MB (not 800 as I said above), so perhaps just under 1GB free would be okay...
If you've saved "contacts" on the "phone" (as I did), then look to see if you can export them in some format you can re-import them in before you update. "People" in ICS couldn't import them from the database file that was saved by the huawei backup app, and I couldn't find anything once ICS was installed as a "huawei restore" app - once ICS is installed, you're backing up to the google cloud. A heads-up anyway on this - could be very annoying indeed.

Linuxluver

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#682906 7-Sep-2012 18:48

It's about the same spec as the Nexus One, but with a slightly larger screen 4" screen.

1GHz uni-processor with 512MB of RAM.

They don't say how much internal app storage their is.

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Fred99

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#682931 7-Sep-2012 20:25

Internal storage is 2GB. MicroSD slot takes 32GB.

urban

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#682932 7-Sep-2012 20:25

Darn it.... I can't get Shadowgun to get past loading into a level after the ICS update.

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lokhor

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#682956 7-Sep-2012 22:09

Fred99: Internal storage is 2GB. MicroSD slot takes 32GB.

It actually supports 64GB Micro SDXC cards as shown here:
http://www.androidnz.net/2011/09/sandisk-64gb-micro-sdxc-cards-confirmed.html

All comments are my own opinion, and not that of my employer unless explicitly stated.

CutCutCut

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#682962 7-Sep-2012 22:29

I haven't done the ICS sandwich update yet, it's waiting there for me. What exactly should I be backing up? DO I need to root the phone so I can back up the app data? I'm a little confused as to what exactly I should backup and how to go about doing it.

Fred99

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#683006 8-Sep-2012 09:10

CutCutCut: I haven't done the ICS sandwich update yet, it's waiting there for me. What exactly should I be backing up? DO I need to root the phone so I can back up the app data? I'm a little confused as to what exactly I should backup and how to go about doing it.

The only "paid for" program I have is the Sygic GPS app. After update I needed to d/l the app again, but didn't need to reenter the registration code. It's probably safe to update without losing apps, but I'd make sure you've got registration codes saved elsewhere (not on the phone) first.
I'm not a game player, so any games I had on the device were free, and if any stored settings etc were lost, it wouldn't have bothered me. I just deleted all the free games anyway.

Use System Settings/Storage Settings/Apps to clear cache and shift data off the internal card to an SD card.
Some published specs say that available internal storage is 2.5GB. Mine says 2.05GB, I think someone may have made a typo.

As for my problem "losing" contacts etc - as they say "my dumb".
You are prompted to backup before installing the update.
They don't tell you that a Huawei app "All Backup" is installed as part of the upgrade. I looked - expecting to find something like this, but didn't see it until now. Open this, and you can restore all your contacts, messages, call logs, etc etc. It works - no problem, so forget my previous suggestions that this was a problem - it was my own self-created problem only.

bazzer

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#683060 8-Sep-2012 12:22

lokhor:
bazzer: Just have to decide if it's really worth a $500 upgrade. I'd have to buy two after all!

Ah true it gets much more difficult if you have to buy both.. any chance she'd go halves?

There's an idea! I'll get my wife to pay for hers herself!

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