. The conversation lacks a continuous flow and some occasional background noise occurs. The speakerphone also has very low volume. Even though Ascend is 3G capable it gives just 2.5G speeds most of the time. The included phone's 600 MHz processor makes it tad sluggish at times, but it is acceptable for phone's price tag, to be fair. The battery life is rated as 3.5 hours of talk time and 12.4 days of stand by time.