Honor Play Review: The Best Budget Phone for Gamers????

Honor Play Review: The Best Budget Phone for Gamers????

When Honor announced its gaming phone the Honor Play in China, I wasn’t too impressed at first, because it does not really look like a gaming phone, but then, I took a look at the specs and the price and that’s when it hit me that this could be the perfect budget phone for gamers. Well, the Honor Play is finally here india and at a starting price Rs.19,999 the Honor Play seems like the perfect “Play” from Honor, with high-end specs like the Kirin 970 and the new GPU Turbo tech. So, should you buy the Honor Play and is it the best budget phone for gamers? Well, let’s find out in our Honor Play review.

Note: The Honor Play is available in a 4GB RAM and 6GB RAM variant. We are reviewing the 4GB RAM variant of the phone.

Before we dive into our Honor Play review, here’s what the smartphone offers on paper:

Display	6.3 inch, Full View FHD + (1080 x 2340 pixels) IPS LCD
Memory	4/6 GB RAM
Storage	64GB ROM + MicroSD, up to 256 GB (uses SIM 2 slot)
Processor	Huawei Kirin 970, Octa-Core (4*2.36Ghz + 4*1.8Ghz) with GPU Turbo
Camera	16MP f/2.2 + 2MP f/2.4,  LED Flash, 4K Support
Front	16 MP f/2.0, Portrait Mode
OS+UI	Android 8.1 + EMUI 8.2
Battery	3750mAh with Quick Charge support
Sensor	Fingerprint sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor, compass
Bluetooth	4.2
WiFi	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band

What’s in the Box

The Honor Play comes in a usual box and there’s no special accessory here but here’s what the box offers:

• Honor Play (duh!)
• USB-C cable
• Huawei Quick Charge adapter
• SIM ejector tool
• TPU transparent case
• Manuals and pamphlets no one read

Design and Build Quality

When I first saw the Honor Play, I had a couple of thoughts. First was, hey, this does not look like a gaming phone, this looks like your usual smartphone. Yes, there’s no fancy lights, or anything fancy about the Honor Play. Anyway, the second thought was that although it does not have a fancy gamer design, this is a good looking phone. I mean, the Midnight Black variant that we have looks classy and premium. I like the fact that Honor has gone with a metal back on this phone because honestly, I am a little bored with all the glass back phones these days. Also, since it has a matte finish, the phone feels nice and grippy in the hands and that’s important because this is a large phone.

Display Looks:

The Honor Play comes with a 6.3-inch Full HD+ IPS LCD display, which results in a high pixel density of 409 ppi density. There’s no Gorilla Glass here but Honor says there is Huawei’s proprietary tough glass. Our unit has a few minor scratches, so it should be decent enough.

Performance 

Moving on to things which make this a gaming phone. Yes, the performance! The Honor Play comes with the Huawei’s flagship Kirin 970 chipset and 4 or 6GB of RAM and 64GB of UFS 2.1 storage. The Kirin 970 chipset is the most impressive thing here because this is a processor that you get in the honor 10, the Nova 3 and the P20 PRO, which is more than 3x the price of the Honor Play, so it’s impressive to see the flagship chipset on a budget smartphone. Anyway, let’s start off by taking a look at its benchmarks.

The real world performance has been impressive too. I have been using this phone extensively and there have been no issues whatsover. The app loading is fast, multitasking works like a breeze and the gaming performance is what you would expect from a flagship, which of course is enhanced by the GPU Turbo tech here.

Upgraded Software 

Now, talking about the software here. The Honor Play comes with EMUI 8.2 on top of Android 8.1 and ya, like most skins, this one is feature packed. First of all, I like the fact that EMUI lets you choose if you want an app drawer or not because I just hate not having an app drawer.

Cameras Set Up

Moving on to the cameras on the Honor Play. First, let’s talk about the dual camera setup on the back.

Rear Cameras

The Honor Play comes with a 16MP f/2.2 + 2MP f/2.4 dual camera 16MP primary sensor plus a 2MP depth sensor on the back with AI scene detection and a host of other features. Anyway, here are some shots we took from the Honor Play. As you can see, the Honor Play takes some very good photos when there is ample lighting. There’s also the AI option here, which oversaturates the photos and sometimes brightens things up. Honestly, don’t turn it. It mostly ruins the photos.

Battery

Lastly, there’s the battery. The Honor Play comes with a 3750 mAh battery, which is pretty good In my usage, the device would easily last a day. I’d usually start the day at 100% battery and at the end of the day, it would be around 50% on extensive usage which is very nice. The battery does drain quickly when you are playing games, but that’s the case with most phones. On moderate usage, you can expect the device to last you for 1 and a half days and that’s great. Plus, I like how fast the phone charges.

The New Honor Play

There’s Huawei’s Quick Charge fast charger in the box, which charges the phonefrom 10 to 60% in around 45 minutes, and charges the phone to 100 percent in 1 hour 35 minutes, which is really good, especially when you consider the fact that the Note 5 Pro that although packs a 4000 mAh battery goes from 10 to 100% in 2 hours 10 minutes with a fast charger.