Huawei Blaze review

As far as the hardware is concerned, the Blaze looks incredibly good value. Its 320×480 screen may be less than half the resolution you’d get on a flagship smartphone, but it’s bright and colourful and we hardly noticed any jagged edges. The capacitive touchscreen is smooth and responsive, although the Blaze’s 600MHz processor often can’t keep up, especially with a few applications open. There’s also only 161MB of free app storage space, so you’ll be limited with how many you can install, even if you move as many as possible to the SD card.

Snaps taken with the main 3.2-megapixel camera were colourful and handled lighting well, but suffered from noise. Video was less impressive, and although the image was colourful, it jumped a lot when panning. Surprisingly for a budget phone, the Blaze also has a front-facing camera; sadly, this wasn’t recognised by Skype, so video calls are out of the question unless Huawei updates its firmware.

The Blaze’s 3.2in screen keeps the phone’s size down, and with its rounded edges it slips comfortably into any pocket. The plastic construction helps keep the weight down without making the phone feel fragile, and the rubberised rear makes it easier to grip. We were worried to find the small power button placed at the top of the handset, but thankfully you can use the large home button to wake the phone.

With a reasonably fresh version of Android, a good collection of preinstalled apps and a clear, bright screen, the Blaze is a decent budget smartphone. We’re happy to forgive its occasionally laggy performance and limited app storage space, seeing as it’s available for only £80 on PAYG. We’re also keen to see how Huawei develops its Social Club software, and we really hope it drops its gaudy custom icons, but these are small niggles: the Blaze is a great budget phone, and a worthy Budget Buy winner.