Huawei Ascend P8 hands-on

Huawei announced its new flagship Ascend P8 smartphone at an event in London and we were there to bring you our hands-on experience with the new device, which Huawei claim offers a combination of style and features at a very affordable price point.

With a 5.2-inch IPS display with 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution and 424 pixels per inch density, the Huawei Ascend P8 measures just 6.4mm thick and has one of the nicest builds seen on any recent Android smartphone. On the front, above the display, there is an 8MP front-facing wide-angle camera which, from first testing, takes rather nice selfies, and Huawei has also added its Beauty Level feature to help accentuate your key facial features.

The Ascend P8 is powered by an octa-core 64-bit Kirin 935 processor with four cores clocked at 2GHz and 4 cores clocked at 1.5GHz in a big.LITTLE formation. The advanced processor should help ensure that the Ascend P8 can handle most tasks you throw at it, and with 3GB RAM and either 16GB or 64GB internal storage (see below) that can be expanded further, it won't struggle even with lots of apps open.

Despite the 6.4mm thickness, the 13MP rear camera sits flush with the metal unibody, and during the launch, Huawei made a special note to point out that unlike the iPhone 6, Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, it was able to remove the camera hump. Furthermore, the camera comes with Optical Image Stabilisation, and whilst we've seen the likes of Samsung, Apple, Nokia and LG create smartphones with OIS cameras that protrude from the rear, Huawei is the only one to fit OIS into such a small body without a visible camera hump.

The rear camera also comes with a couple of special effects. Huawei's new light painting feature allows you to capture light trails for impressive low-light and night photos; the Director Mode lets you create professional movies straight from your smartphone using multiple camera angles and the Timelapse feature lets you take photos at different intervals and stitch them together.

The Huawei P8 will be available in two versions: the standard version has 16GB of storage, will cost €499 before taxes and subsidies, and will be available in Titanimum Grey and Mystic Champagne.

The premium version has 64GB storage, will cost €599 and will be available in Carbon Black and Prestige Gold. Both versions should be available in 35 countries around the world when the P8 launches later this month, and Huawei plans to expand the rollout to a total of 100 countries a month later.

Overall, the thing most striking about the Huawei P8 is the design and the really slim body. As it's so slim, you may be thinking that it's fragile, but the metal unibody is built exceptionally well and the Huawei P8 picks up where the Ascend P7 left off.

Huawei will be hoping that the combination of strikingly beautiful design and a powerhouse specs list ensure that the Ascend P8 is seen as a flagship without compromise.

You can check out our hands-on review of the larger than life P8 Max here.