Huawei’s been releasing some great smartphones in 2018, from the acclaimed flagship- the P20/Pro that sold more than 10 million units in 5 months, to several mid-range flagships and budget smartphones such as the Nova 3 or Nova 3i. Huawei is on a roll!
Thus comes a new device from Huawei’s subbrand Honor, a device marketed for the gaming-centric youth; The Honor Play.
Flagship Performace
There have been many “gaming” friendly smartphones released in 2018, such as the Asus ROG phone or the Razor Phone. The issue with such devices is that the gaming aspect is often over exaggerated with unique features and functions. Although not necessarily a bad thing – this does ramp up the costs of such devices, causing “gaming” centred smartphones to be inaccessible by many consumers.
That’s precisely where the Honor Play gets the advantage, it appeals to more casual gamers by offering great gaming experience – for its price by not hulking out like many other gaming smartphones.
The design of this device is fairly simple, a unibody metal construction that is reliable, simple and durable. The Honor Play is supported by the flagship Kirin 970 chipset and Mali G72 GPU – the same ones found in the higher-end P20 Pro. The device is then topped off with 4/6 gigs of ram with 64 gigs of internal storage that is expandable via MicroSD.
The Honor Play supports a massive “notched” 1080 x 2340 FHD+ 6.3 inch IPS LCD display of 19.5:9 aspect ratio. And to power such a massive screen, the Honor Play carries a 3750 mAh battery.
The Honor Play also comes with a dual rear camera setup of a primary 16 MP, f/2.2 sensor and a 2 MP, f/2.4 sensor purely for depth sensing. The front camera is a single primary 16 MP sensor of f/2.0 aperture.
Software, Pricing & Availability
The Honor Play comes out of the box with Android 8.1 Oreo with EMUI 8.2 on top of it. The gaming aspect for this device is further enhanced through software features such as GPU Turbo, which substantially improves frame rate and gameplay experience for users.
The device was launched in August in India and is expected to cost around 320 EUR with a wider market release across Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
