Cheap Android Phone Hands On Review (Huawei Aviator u8100)

I’ve just purchase my first android phone, its Huawei aviator U8100 running on Android 2.1 (Eclair). Here is my review:

The Design:

Huawei Aviator U8100 Keyboard

The size it's perfect for me, it's not so big and not so small. The screen size is 2.8". It fit well in my pocket and I still can touch the keyboard on the screen in vertical position with minimal mistakes. (I can't imagine how to type using QWERTY keyboard in Sony Ericsson xperia X10 mini screen).

The phone has gravity sensor or accelerometer, so if you tilt your phone horizontal, the screen will automatically rotate. In this position the keyboard on the phone screen will become bigger and more convenient to type a letter.

Huawei Aviator U8100 Keyboard

The screen color is vivid if using it indoor but if I using it under direct sunlight, it will be pale but still readable if I set the backlight.

Huawei Aviator U8100 Screen

The Perfomance:
Even though its only using 528 MHz processor, but it perform well. I can open programs without hassle. I think it can perform well because the screen resolution is only 240x320 pixel. If the screen resolution is bigger than that, I think the processor will work harder to create better graphic.

The screen response is responsive even though the screen type is still resistive. My first concern of buying this phone is it will give me hard time if I want to type an email or just write some idea using my phone because it doesn’t have qwerty keypad. But after I bought the phone I can relieve because if I touch or swipe my finger on the screen, it will give immediate response without delay. Plus, it have haptic feature which mean if I touch the screen, my phone will slightly vibrate so I know whether I already touch the button or not. However this is my first android phone, so I don’t know how responsive is my phone if compare to other more powerful android phone. But for me is sufficient enough, it’s much better than my old HTC Apache running on windows mobile 6.0 professional. Update 27 Januari 2011: now I use Samsung Galaxy 551 (i5510) with capacitive screen, and it's a lot more touch friendly than this Huawei. Huawei Aviator is responsive but the difference is I need push the screen little harder than my Samsung.

GPS. It has built in GPS receiver. Locking the satellite takes time approximately 5 seconds up to 3 minutes if there are any blockage. I can lock the satellite on the back seat of my car in a cloudy weather. So the GPS function is quite good. The phone also has built in digital compass. To use the compass I have to install application named Compass v1.1 by snaptic. It really handy if the phone can't get the GPS signal. You can use the compass function in vertical position, not like traditional compass that require flat surface to operate the compass.

Huawei Aviator U8100 Compass

Messaging
I personally rare using this phone to send or receive email, but I using SMS frequently, and what I like from this phone is the SMS threaded view so you can know the history of your text messages. It's like the feature in Blackberry.

Huawei Aviator U8100 Threaded SMS

Wireles Tether Feature

Aviator Huawei U8100 has a wireless tether function. With this feature you can use your android phone as a Wi-Fi router. Now, I can connect my netbook to the internet using my android phone via Wi-Fi connection anytime anywhere, just like the slogan that printed on the box “every spot is a hot spot”. The salesman says it can connect up to 5 devices at the same time.

Android Tether

My netbook recognize my android phone as AndroidTether (you can change the name), when it’s not connected, the signal strength is very low, I don’t know why.

Android Wireless Connection

When already connected the signal strength is full, and the speed is 54.0 Mbps. The speed shown on my netbook computer is not the speed of my internet connection but it’s the connection speed between my computer and my android phone.

Android Phone Wi-Fi Router

The actual internet speed connection shown on android phone. The green writing means the amount of data that already downloaded, while below the green writing is the actual internet download speed. The red writing means the amount of data that already uploaded, while below the red writing is the actual internet upload speed.

Radio FM
The phone has radio FM feature. You must connect the headset to listen to the radio even if you use the loudspeaker, because the headset cable works as the antenna. The signal reception is good, and the sound is clear and loud if using headset or earphone, but if using loudspeaker the sound is clear because the speaker quality is quite good, however it’s not so loud. Just for the note, you can’t use the loudspeaker if using universal 3.5 mm earphone. If you touch the speaker button, the sound from the speaker is so small and barely unheard. If you want to use the phone speaker, you have to use the original headset that came on the package.

The camera and video
The phone has 3.2 MP cameras without autofocus, led flash and no secondary camera. The picture quality is so-so. You can view the picture result below. You can record the video, but it’s only 30 minutes maximum.

Huawei U8100 Aviator Camera Result

Games and Application.
This phone has Gravity Sensor, so you can use the phone to play the game that use G-Sensor such as Labyrinth. It is a classic game where you control a steel ball by tilting a wooden labyrinth.

Labyrinth in 3D

However, I try to install the 3D games such as Pirate Wings or Speed Forge 3D, the phone is not powerful enough to play it smooth, so it is full of lag. This phone also has no Java, so you cannot install Java games on this phone and until now, I cannot find a good and easy to use third-party application that I can use to install java on my phone. If you know some, please let me know. Anyways, if you buy this phone not for playing games, you don’t have to worry, because I never had a problem installing any of application that available on the market. All applications run good and perfectly.

Battery Performance
The phone comes with 1150 mAh battery. If I turn on all the goodies on the phone such as GPS, 3G network, sync feature, Wi-Fi and so on, I have to recharge my phone every day. A lot of people say that this phone battery performance is bad, but in my opinion, this is still reasonable for android phone. However, I agree that the battery performance could be better.

Conclusion
Huawei U8100 Aviator is a good Affordable android phone. It has it built in GPS, G-Sensor, WI-Fi tether, high speed internet connection and so on. You can say this phone has it all. The only drawback that I notice is the phone can’t play popular 3D games smoothly.

Phone Specification
Android 2.1 operating system
HSDPA/UMTS
2.8 Inch Screen 240x320 pixel
3.2 MP Camera
WIFI
G-Sensor
GPS
FM Radio
3.5 mm stereo headset
Bluetooth
SMS/MMS/Email
Micro SD card slot
528 MHz processor