The Huawei Ascend G300 lands in the UK this week, after previously launching in the U.S. The device is available for £100 on PAYG from Vodafone, exclusively, for three months.

The device is available from Friday the 13^th. If you don't want to pay £100, the phone is available for free at £15.50 per month on a two-year contract, which includes 100 minutes voice, 500 texts and 250MB of data. For first-time smartphone users, the data allowance could suffice.

The phone has a four-inch screen with a resolution of 480x800 pixels, which is to be expected with the low price tag. In CNET's hands-on, they said the display was "bright and sharp." The phone also comes with a 5-megapixel camera on the back and a 1GHz processor, along with support for 32GB microSD cards.

Android 2.3 Gingerbread is the phone's operating system, which largely runs stock Android. However, Huawei said that the device would release with a few UI changes. Huawei added Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich would come to the device later this year, and Vodafone have also said the budget phone will get the update this summer, though CNET wasn't convinced the update would land at that time because of the lengthy update process for Android devices.

However, Gingerbread is still widely used so developer support remains strong. The update later this year could come along with more Ice Cream Sandwich devices, so developers could be building for the update.

CNET also got to see the additions on a different device, with one allowing users to set particular apps or functions to a direction when unlocking the phone (similar to how HTC Sense allows users to drag the circle to set apps to open them).

The phone was previously announced back at Mobile World Congress in February as a mid-range alternative to the Huawei Ascend D Quad.

On the partnership, Vodafone UK and Ireland Director of Terminals - Dee Kaul - said that the phone would bring greater choice to consumers. "We believe that Huawei's innovation and design will make their handsets a compelling proposition for consumers," Kaul said.

(reported by Jonathan Charles, edited by Dave Clark)