The first CAT4 phone to launch in Australia will be Huawei’s budget Ascend P2, which will be available from the end of the month for $60/month.
The P2 is in many respects a standard Android phone; Jelly Bean, 13MP camera sensor, 2420mAh battery, 4.7″ display and 32GB of sealed storage. What’s interesting about the P2 is that it’s CAT4 capable, which means when it’s on a capable network, it can hit a theoretical data ceiling of 150Mbps download, compared to the 100Mbps that existing CAT3 networks can manage.
The P2 is up for pre-order now, with the added carrot of early pre-orders also scoring a simple 8GB Huawei Mediapad tablet along with the phone. Huawei has shown off a few of its tablets in Australia, but never actually brought them to market to date — and apparently once the pre-order models go, that’ll be it too. The Ascend P2 will go on a $60/month plan, or outright for $504.
I had some brief hands-on time with the P2 at the launch this morning. I couldn’t accurately test its CAT4 performance, because Telstra’s only currently offering CAT4 LTE in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane, not in Sydney where the launch was held. It seems a solid enough handset if you’re after very fast Android-based downloads. Naturally, however, with Telstra and a very fast connection, it’d be a good idea to keep track of your data usage, otherwise you’ll feel it in the wallet.