14 DAY TRIAL // Canadian carrier SaskTel silently released two new Android smartphones aimed at entry-level segment of the market, Sony Xperia E1 and Huawei Ascend Y530.
Although Huawei Ascend Y530 seems to be the better device between the two, customers will be paying more for the Sony Xperia E1 if they decided to grab it off contract.
According to SaskTel, customers can now pick the Huawei Ascend Y530 up for only $120 (€80) outright, whereas the Xperia E1 is available for $130 (€90). However, those who can’t afford these amounts will be able to get any of the two smartphones for free on 2-year agreements.
It’s also worth mentioning that both smartphones ship with the same Android 4.3 Jelly Bean operating system out of the box, though at least one of them will receive a major upgrade.
Sony Mobile has already confirmed the Xperia E1 will get an Android 4.4.2 KitKat update sometime this month, along with other mid-range smartphones.
Huawei Ascend Y530 is less likely to receive a similar update, as the Chinese company is more concerned to bring major updates to its high-end devices.
Aside from the fact that Huawei Ascend Y530 sports a 4.5-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen display that supports 480 x 854 pixels resolution, while the Xperia E1 packs only a 4-inch display that supports 480 x 800 pixels resolution, there aren’t too many other differences.
In fact, there’s one more difference between the two smartphones and it goes in Huawei Ascend Y530’s favor once again. The Chinese handset maker included a 5-megapixel photo snapper on the back which features autofocus, LED flash and video recording. The phone also features a secondary VGA camera in the front.
Sony Xperia E1 comes with a 3.2 megapixel main camera that lacks autofocus and LED flash, but offers video recording capabilities. Sadly, Sony’s smartphone does no come with an additional front-facing camera.
Both smartphones are powered by 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processors, which are accompanied by Adreno 302 graphics processing units, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal memory.
They also offer a wide range of connectivity options, including HSDPA (21Mbps), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microUSB and GPS with A-GPS support. The Ascend Y530 and Xperia E1 also pack microSD card slots for memory expansion (up to 32GB).
Last but not least, the entry-level smartphones are powered by 1700 mAh batteries, which should offer more autonomy on the Xperia E1 given the much smaller display.