Huawei U8510 IDEOS X3 Blaze review

Huawei is a name perhaps more usually associated with 3G USB modems, but it also makes smartphones — albeit as an OEM for other companies. It has been quietly selling smartphones under its own name for a while though, and the U8510 IDEOS X3 Blaze is the latest.

The Huawei Blaze is certainly cheap, but this isn’t a particularly pejorative description, since it still has a commendable specification for the price.

"Affordable" is certainly a diplomatic description of the Huawei Blaze, but a more meaningful one might be "cheap", since it’s currently available for an up-front price of £60 inc VAT (including a £10 usage credit) on a pay-as-you-go deal. This isn’t a particularly pejorative description either, since the Blaze still has a commendable specification for its low price.

Unlike the large-screen Android smartphones we’ve been seeing of late, the Blaze is a markedly more pocketable 3.2" device. The slender case is all plastic (including the metallic silver trim), but most of it has a pleasant rubberised finish and the whole thing feels very robust. At 104g though, the Blaze is probably light enough to mostly shrug most of the ill effects of a drop to the floor.

The power and volume buttons on the top and side are easily pressed, as is the wide lozenge-shaped Home button just below the screen. The Blaze has capacitive ‘soft’ buttons for the other three usual Android OS controls and these require a fair amount of pressure to activate, unlike all-to-easily triggered the soft buttons on some other Android smartphones we’ve used. SIM and micros card slots are found beneath the Blaze’s back panel; the former needs the battery to be removed to access, the latter does not.