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On your marks, get set, smartphone
Mon, 25th Feb 2013
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Huawei revealed the world's fastest smartphone at the 2013 Mobile World Congress this week, but is it a record worth breaking?

Unveiling the Huawei Ascend P2 in Barcelona, where everything is being unveiled lately, the new product provides download speeds of up to 150 Mbps.

While not as spectacular as running a mile in three minutes 50 seconds, step forward New Zealand's John Walker, technology's need for speed could prove distracting from other equally important features at hand.

"Ascend P2 is the perfect combination of elegance and power, and further proof that there's no need to compromise when desiring a perfect smartphone," said Richard Yu, Huawei CEO in a press release to TechDay.

"It is evidence of the outstanding smartphone experiences and great technology that we are committed to bringing to consumers globally."

Pats on the back aside, creating the fastest smartphone is akin to creating the fastest car, it's not the greatest point of difference.

While speed remains a crucial factor in the smartphone industry, things are already pretty lightning fast, so in terms of Huawei creating a point of difference - they effectively haven't.

Featuring a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor, the product is only 8.4mm slim with a 4.7-inch IPS HD in-cell touch display. And in fairness, if this release had come from Silicon Valley or South Korea, the press would be falling over themselves to praise the latest weapon in either rivals armory.

Truth is it hasn't, it has came from the third-largest smartphone maker who has a history of bug filled trouble with it's products.

The Huawei Ascend P2 will be on sale sometime between April and June for roughly 525 dollar bills, which ironically could eclipse the number of customers interested in jumping smartphone ship.

Is speed everything? What do you think of Huawei's smartphone? Tell us your thoughts below