Honor Play (Navy Blue, 4GB RAM, 64GB Storage) mobile review

Honor Play (Navy Blue, 4GB RAM, 64GB Storage) mobile review

The respect Play has been released in India by way of Huawei sub-brand Honor. It offers specs including a HiSilicon Kirin 970 SoC and a twin digital camera setup at a price of Rs. 19,999 for the 4GB RAM version and Rs. 23,999 for the 6GB RAM configuration. The honour Play is likewise the first cellphone in India to characteristic GPU rapid, a technology that Huawei is touting to be the following massive revolution in cell gaming.

With a steel unibody, vertically aligned twin rear cameras, a 19.5:nine display, and Huawei's current flagship SoC, the honour Play looks promising on paper. Carrying a aggressive beginning fee tag, the phone has been positioned as a mid-variety flagship that takes on the likes of the Nokia 7 Plus (evaluate), Vivo V9 (assessment), Oppo F7 (overview), as well as the Xiaomi Mi A2 (overview). Is the respect Play well worth your cash? Read on to discover.

Honor Play layout

One among the largest highlights of the honour Play is its steel unibody, that's harking back to final 12 months's Honor View 10 (review). It's miles a departure from Huawei and Honor's latest fascination with glass backs, which we have visible a lot of with recent premium services inclusive of the respect 10 (evaluation), Huawei P20 Lite (evaluation), and Huawei P20 seasoned (assessment). Even as offering a chic and fashionable appearance, glass can not compete with steel in phrases of durability and durability. The honor Play feels substantially less slippery than, say, the honour 10, but surely does not look as top rate. The tall display and thin body also make the cellphone feel a piece too large to keep comfortably in smaller arms.

The honour Play borrows maximum of its layout language from the honor 10, with minimal borders to the sides of the display screen. The notch on pinnacle is plenty larger this time. The chin on the bottom is smaller, however still has an Honor emblem. The honor Play isn't always exactly cozy to preserve, even though it is compact for a telephone with a 6.3-inch show. In fact, this huge screen suits into the shape component of a 5.5-inch phone inclusive of the iPhone 7 Plus.

This telephone is available in navy Blue and middle of the night Black in India. We reviewed the former, although we located each the shade options to be understated. They do no longer appear flashy, and some would possibly bear in mind them rather dull. That is an strive with the aid of the Huawei-owned logo to offer its customers an expansion of design options to pick out from.

Thanks to the minimum bezel and aspect-to-part layout, the fingerprint sensor is at the back of the cellphone. The tall form element, yet again, makes the fingerprint sensor hard to attain. Users will ought to maintain the phone a certain way so that it will obviously attain it.

The volume buttons and the electricity key are located on the proper of the tool; we might have appreciated a piece extra tour or intensity within the buttons. On the left is a hybrid twin-SIM tray which could accommodate two Nano-SIMs or one Nano-SIM and a microSD card to enlarge the cellphone's 64GB of inbuilt storage by means of as much as 256GB.

There is a USB type-C port on the bottom, alongside a three.5mm headphone jack, the number one microphone, and a disappointing loudspeaker. We examined the speaker with audio files, YouTube videos and video games, and found the sound to be shrill and distorted at maximum quantity. The telephone has a thickness of approximately 7.5mm and weighs 176g.

Build first-rate is common and the respect Play picked up more than one nicks while it become by chance dropped at some stage in our testing duration.

Honor Play specifications and display

The respect Play is powered by the agency's own flagship HiSilicon Kirin 970 processor, which has previously been used in numerous models along with the honour 10, Honor View 10, and Huawei P20 seasoned. A refresh - called the Kirin 980 - is expected as soon as IFA 2018. As specific previously, the Kirin 970 has a custom NPU (Neural Processing Unit) for AI processing, that's said to enhance digicam performance, battery lifestyles, and app optimisation. Huawei has claimed that AI computations manifest domestically at the tool, without sending any facts to the cloud.

An exciting new feature of this processor is GPU turbo, a cellular gaming-targeted optimisation that claims to provide 60 percent better performance and 30 percentage higher battery existence for the duration of gaming classes on the telephone. More on this inside the overall performance section of our assessment.

There are  versions of the telephone, with 4GB and 6GB of LPDDR4X RAM, of which we tested the latter. It also has a non-detachable 3,750mAh battery and 64GB of onboard america2.1 storage. In phrases of connectivity, the honour Play capabilities 4G VoLTE, twin-band wireless 802.11ac, Bluetooth v4.2 LE, GPS/ A-GPS, GLONASS, a USB type-C port, and a three.5mm audio jack. Sensors consist of an accelerometer, an ambient mild sensor, an digital compass, a gyroscope, and a proximity sensor. This cellphone helps twin SIMs (Nano) and both can latch onto 4G networks simultaneously.

The 6.3-inch complete-HD+ IPS liquid crystal display panel has a decision of 1080x2340 pixels and a 19.Five:9 factor ratio. To assist conserve battery lifestyles, the honour Play gives the ability to toggle the screen resolution among FHD+ and HD+. That is to be had below display screen decision within the Battery section of the Settings app.

The show on the honour Play has top notch viewing angles and gives you exact shade duplicate. We had no issues with the decision set to complete-HD+. Out of doors legibility turned into average, because the display screen gets too reflective underneath direct sunlight.

Some third-party apps are not optimised for the display notch. This makes uniformity an trouble across the UI. Also, in video apps along with YouTube, the display just zooms out to create a black bar incorporating the notch. There may be a toggle to mask the notch, even though notifications and status icons are nevertheless proven within this space.

Honor Play overall performance, software, and battery lifestyles

There is absolute confidence that the Kirin 970 works awesome in actual-international overall performance. Whether or not it is heavy video games along with PUBG and Asphalt eight, extensive work sessions the usage of 4G connectivity, or social media multitasking, the honour Play's 6GB RAM variation that we examined did not stutter in any respect. Honor boasts of a new antenna design that says to enhance call nice. Indeed, calls had been superlative even in areas with poor connectivity. We had clearly no troubles with the earpiece, and it was fairly loud and crisp.

Benchmarks had been one region wherein the respect Play completely destroyed the opposition in its fee variety, particularly the Nokia 7 Plus, Oppo F7, and Vivo V9. It scored an outstanding 206,126 in AnTuTu 7. In Geekbench four, the phone got a single-core score of 1,898 and a multi-center score of 6,556. Some benchmarks consisting of the GFXBench T-Rex check maxed out at 60fps. The browser-primarily based Octane and Basemark net three exams gave us rankings of 10,790 and 203.Seventy seven respectively.

Gaming is touted to be one of the highlights of the respect Play. The cellphone is being marketed in its home united states of america of China as a gaming smartphone, however it's not the case for India where it comes as a premium mid-range imparting. That said, we positioned the phone's GPU turbo generation to test with one of  video games which have to date been optimised for it - PUBG (PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds) and cell Legends.

After playing a few on-line PUBG suits, we discovered that overall performance changed into easy, and there was a mild trace of frame drops. GPU faster can not be turned off, so it is hard to say what the experience could've been with out it. But, we stated that the battery level dropped by way of a giant quantity, which is not totally a surprise given the worrying nature of the sport. The phone additionally heated up barely after approximately 25-half-hour of non-stop gaming.

We even tested out the modern-day Asphalt 9: Legends, which presented fantastic results on the respect Play. Do notice that the this new cellular sport isn't but on the list of GPU faster optimised games. Honor India knowledgeable devices 360 that a force-remarks vibration function known as '4D Gaming' may be added to the honour Play with a future OTA replace.

The honour Play runs Huawei's custom EMUI eight.2 pores and skin on top of Android eight.1 Oreo. We believe that Emotion UI (EMUI) has matured lots over the last couple of years and is nearly geared up to compete with different custom skins along with Xiaomi's MIUI. There are some useful functions which includes one-passed mode (available with this form factor), navigation gestures, a issues catalogue, and wireless+, which makes switching among wireless and mobile networks less difficult.

That said, bloatware nevertheless stays an difficulty with numerous preloaded video games and apps. The telephone has seven preloaded video games, including Asphalt Nitro and Sonic grasp. It additionally has certain productiveness apps including replicate, Compass, smartphone Clone, Translator, and Quik, a number of which failed to appear specifically useful to us. The Settings app is cluttered and is in dire need of simplification.

An thrilling change to the UI is that the honor Play uses Android Messages as the default messaging app and Google Chrome because the default browser. This is a welcome departure from the past in which Honor had used its very own apps. Certain preloaded apps together with fb and Truecaller were eliminated as well.

As referred to earlier, the NPU beneath the hood is supposed to help EMUI make overall performance optimisations primarily based on person options. Whilst multiple weeks with the smartphone did now not appear like sufficient to be aware those changes, the software was fluid and supplied a stutter-free enjoy for the duration of our checking out duration.

The respect Play features face recognition, supported through the cellphone's 16-megapixel selfie digicam. We located face unlocking to be accurate and operable at a number of distinctive angles. However, with the dearth of infrared, Face free up won't paintings low light situations. As a substitute, the honour Play turns up the display's brightness at night time to be able to successfully stumble on your face. Registering your face within the Settings app is a breeze. We also had no complaints whilst the use of the fingerprint sensor, that's snappy and accurate.

While it has an above-average sized three,750mAh unit, our actual-international enjoy painted a one of a kind photo and battery existence on the honour Play became just about acceptable. With about half-hour of gaming, approximately a dozen calls through the day, short e-mail checks, and informal social media surfing, we have been pretty much able to closing a day. In our HD video loop battery check, the respect Play managed to remaining approximately 10 hours, 45 mins.

The telephone helps Huawei's very own rapid charging general, however it isn't always on par with the likes of OnePlus' sprint rate or Oppo's VOOC. The bundled charger took round 2 hours to rate the phone from zero to a hundred percentage.

Honor Play cameras

On the rear, the respect Play sports activities a vertically stacked pair of cameras. There is a sixteen-megapixel primary sensor with an f/2.2 aperture, and a 2-megapixel intensity sensor with an f/2.4 aperture, coupled with an LED flash. As has been our complaint with previously reviewed Honor smartphones, each cameras need severe paintings to be ranked at par with equivalently priced offerings from Asus and even Xiaomi.

Similar to the honor 10, the honour Play has an AI taking pictures mode, and it's miles nevertheless hit-or-leave out in most instances. Even as some of the low-light shots we took ended up with perfect color stability, different pictures taken in true lights turned out overexposed. It's an awesome issue that Honor lets you undo the AI enhancements even after the shot has been taken, letting you select among two versions of each shot. The Neural Processing Unit which is a part of the smartphone's processor, smartly detects while the smartphone is pointed towards a person to automatically spark off Portrait mode. Aside from that, we didn't see any use of AI processing inside the camera app.