Huawei introduces 'world's slimmest smartphone'

IDG News Service - At about 6.8 millimeters thick, Huawei Technologies' Android 4.0-based Ascend P1 S is the thinnest smartphone yet introduced, the company said Monday.

The Ascend P1 S

Smartphone vendors are looking for ways to differentiate their products from the competition, and device thickness is an important feature.

Motorola's Droid Razr, for example, is just 7.1 millimeters thick, according to a Motorola spec sheet. That compares to the Samsung Galaxy S II at 8.5 millimeters and the iPhone4 S at 9.3 millimeters.

The Ascend P1 S also includes a Gorilla-glass-protected 4.3-inch super AMOLED screen with a 960-by-540 pixels resolution. The phone is powered by a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor from Texas Instruments and has 1 GB of RAM.

The smartphone also has an 8-megapixel camera with a dual-LED flash on the back and a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front. The camera on the back can shoot video at 1080p and the one on the front is capable of handling 720p. The available storage for images, videos and other content is 4 GB.

The company didn't specify what 3G network speeds it will support. The smartphone will initially be available in black, white and pink, but more colors are on the way.

Huawei also introduced the Ascend P1, which has the same specifications, but is 7.7 millimeters thick and has a larger battery -- 1800mAh versus 1670 mAh, according to a spokesman at Huawei.

The Ascend P1 and the P1 S will be available in Europe, Asia-Pacific, North America, Australia, Middle East, and China starting in April. Huawei didn't divulge any pricing information.

Send news tips and comments to mikael_ricknas@idg.com or editor@computerworld.com.

Want more on CES? See our roundup of everything you need to know from CES and our interactive chart of top CES product launches.

Follow our staffers live from CES in Las Vegas Jan. 9-12 on Twitter @Computerworld/CES or via our CES 2012 RSS feed.