Huawei Ascend P6 vs Apple iPhone 5

Without doubt, apple has had a lot of success with the slate design of their iPhones – from the iPhone 4 onwards, the design hasn’t really changed.

For rival manufacturers, the challenge has been to design hardware that is as appealing whilst also providing an easy to use yet functional user interface. In the Ascend P6, Huawei have aimed to do just that but have they been successful? Or does the design cross the fine line between excellent design and “taking inspiration from rivals”?

The Ascend P6 follows a similar design to the iPhone 5, with the candybar design dominated by the large display. With the same 4:3 aspect ratio on the screen, the Huawei Ascend P6 looks like a larger version of Apple’s current flagship smartphone.

The back of the Ascend P6 also looks almost identical to the iPhone 5 – from the camera in the top let hand corner to the Huawei logo beneath, the P6 follows an almost identical design style. The key differences are the positioning of the camera flash and the speaker grill – the iPhone speaker grill is at the bottom of the device.

In order to keep the Ascend P6 as slim as possible (and it’s really slim), Huawei have chosen to go with a unibody design. The SIM card and microSD card are accessible via a tray which requires a SIM removal tool. The removal tool is another key difference between the two – whilst Apple include a SIM removal tool in the retail package, Huawei have found a way to build it into the device itself.

When using a metal unibody design, manufacturers need to consider mobile signal and antenna strength. Apple was the first to incorporate small antenna strips into the build of their iPhones and with the Ascend P6, Huawei have done the exact same. The exact width of the antenna strip is almost identical as is the placing on the device itself.

Without doubt, Huawei have definitely taken inspiration from rival devices. Every manufacturer is aiming to produce an iPhone-killer device but the Ascend P6 takes this further, by trying to replicate the successful design of the iPhone in a slimmer device with better specifications.