In practice, the P1 LTE is a more rounded, comfortable smartphone than its peers, with a finely textured back and (on the black version we tried) just a slight hint of HTC One-like attention to detail through its red camera trim. The body is undoubtedly thicker than the iPhone 5 or other very recent 4G-toting smartphones, although we wouldn't call it portly; it's just thicker than we'd like given how little of a size penalty 4G carries these days. That does reflect the high-capacity removable battery we were missing before, though, and should satisfy data junkies who like to keep spare battery packs on hand. You'll still find the same 4.3-inch, qHD AMOLED screen, which unfortunately leads to visible pixels even as it still provides a reasonably bright display with good viewing angles.
Most of the spec sheet reads out like a photocopy of the P1. The LTE edition keeps its ordinary counterpart's 1.5GHz TI OMAP 4460 processor, 4GB of built-in storage (plus microSD), 8-megapixel rear camera and 1.3-megapixel front camera, all running on Android 4.0.4 with a variation of Huawei's very light custom skin. We did notice a few changes from the earlier formula in our tester. The navigation keys are noticeably closer to Google's official design in appearance and layout, with just the menu key as a giveaway that it's not completely stock. Huawei's new hardware runs about as quickly as the old, netting a reasonable 1,897ms in SunSpider web browser testing, and the unbranded, unlocked model we used had little in the way of bundled apps that weren't Google's own. That last point is likely to change if an American or Canadian carrier gets control.
