CES 2012: Huawei Ascend Out of Samsung's Galaxy

Seeking to wrestle away the Samsung Galaxy series' hold on the western Android smartphone market, Chinese tech firm Huawei has unveiled its latest top-end smartphone, the Ascend.

Unveiled at 2012's CES, the poetically named Ascend boasts some pretty impressive spec and is already being viewed as a key player in Huawei's 2012 Android army. Listed in Huawei's release as "the world's slimmest smartphone" the device is slick, measuring in at just 6.68mm while boasting a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED 960 x 540 touchscreen with Corning Gorilla Glass.

Yet, within this diminutive frame beats some impressive tech. Huawei lists the device as coming pre-loaded with Google's latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system and being powered by an impressive 1.5GHz dual-core processor.

Better still, the Ascend will come with both an 8-megapixel rear facing and 1.3-megapixel front facing camera, both equipped with dual flash LED and capable of capturing "stunning" 1080p HD video.

Set for release in Europe, Asia-Pacific, North America, Australia, Middle East, and China from April 2012, Huawei made it clear that it had high hopes for the Ascend. Already the Chinese tech giant had made clear its intention to expand its presence in the west - a market currently dominated by Apple and Samsung.

Studies from big-name research firms including Gartner, ComScore and the IDC nearly all uniformly peg Samsung as the leading Android smartphone supplier - some even going so far as to list it as outselling Apple.

The company's Galaxy range has been listed as one of the strongest brand names - along with Apple's iPhone - in the smartphone market, with Galaxy S2 and Nexus devices topping the list as its best-known devices.