Vodafone has announced that it will bring Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) to the budget Huawei Ascend G300 smartphone.

Launched in April, the Huawei Ascend G300 is one of the cheapest Android phones on the UK market, costing just £100 on pay as you go. Customers will soon be able to upgrade their budget handset to Android 4.0 ICS, despite the phone having lower-end specifications than the HTC Desire HD.

Vodafone IT technical manager Kevin Ralph said, “It’s the first time we’ve seen Ice Cream Sandwich on a Huawei, and the first time we’ve seen them do this kind of upgrade – so it’s important we test everything and make sure the user will get the best experience.”

It’s unclear whether the G300 will get the entire Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich feature set, but we’re expecting the update to bring a redesigned interface with resizable widgets, an enhanced web browser and improved power management.

Vodafone was unable to say when the update will appear, but its head of terminals technology, Chris May had revealed why the updating process often takes so long.

“Typically software and firmware now goes through a two-stage testing cycle,” he said.

“After conducting a first round of tests we report back to suppliers with our recommendations for any improvements – and then we would expect to see that upgrade again before we could be confident that it meets the highest standards for our customers.

“Once we have tested and approved the upgrade it goes back to the manufacturer to review before being sent for approval by Google, in the case of Android.

“Once our testing’s completed we’re keen for the update to get through the remaining steps in the process smoothly and quickly so it’s in our customers’ hands sooner rather than later.