The Honor Play follows in the footsteps of the Razer Phone and Asus’ ROG Phone as part of a new wave of gaming-focused handsets hitting the scene. It’s Honor’s attempt to enter into the fast-growing mobile gaming segment with a device that also promises affordability.
As the name implies, the Play has been built with gaming in mind. But take a look at the spec sheet and feature set, and it doesn’t seem quite as focused a device as you might expect. There’s no doubting that it’s a powerful device phone, primarily down to the fact that the beefiest chipset Huawei makes, the Kirin 970, is running the show. 4GB of RAM (for the version headed to markets including the UK at least) seems relatively conservative though, considering the competition comes with at least 6GB, and in some casesm, 8GB, depending on which device takes your fancy. However, the Honor Play should be priced much more competitively than its competitors so some sacrifices had to be made.
Honor has supplemented the chipset with the company’s recent GPU Turbo update, which promises up to 60% improved graphical processing whilst also delivering up to 30% greater power efficiency.
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Honor representatives showed me how the update allows the Play to outperform even fully-fledged flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus and iPhone X in both frame rate, when playing optimised games like PUBG Mobile, and battery longevity while gaming (it packs in a large 3750mAh battery too). What I was told makes sense, but we won’t know how accurate Honor’s claims are until we put the phone through its paces in our full review, though.
The Honor Play is an unassuming device to look at. Despite its large size the nicely rounded metal back sits comfortably in the hand. All the physical buttons are along the right side, the USB-C port and a headphone jack sit along the bottom and there’s a rear-mounted gesture-capable fingerprint sensor.
Honor Play in Midnight Black above and Navy Blue below
In its default Midnight Black and Navy Blue, it’s a rather generic-looking handset, but the market-specific Ultraviolet and Nebula Purple options are far more eye-catching, as are the two special black and red Player Edition options; which feature coloured accents and a laser-engraved back. Those latter two versions come tied into a partnership with Audi’s Le Mans team as a means of reinforcing the phone’s, “Crazy Fast, Crazy Smart” tagline but the connection seems tenuous at best.
A more tangible inclusion is the audiovisual experience, which centres around a wholly capable 6.3-inch Full HD+ LCD. Considering the phone’s expected low price, the display holds a lot of promise. Not only does its size make it great for watching videos and gaming but colours and viewing angles seem pretty respectable too.
The company’s Histen audio technology is also on-hand to offer ‘3D sound’ with support for 7.1 virtual surround sound and Honor’s even taken a leaf out of Sony’s book and graced the Play with ‘4D Smart Shock’, which promises dynamic vibration based on game audio. If this delivers, it’s one standout feature that we’d never expect on a handset at this price.
While cameras aren’t the focus on the Play, it still packs in solid specs, with 16-megapixels on both the front and back, plus a 2-megapixel secondary rear sensor that offers portrait shooting and the option of AI-enhanced imagery, as on the Honor 10. I’ll be testing these out thoroughly when fully reviewing the Honor Play, but first impressions hold promise.
GPU Turbo update aside, the Play’s software experience is fairly pedestrian. It’s nice to have Android 8.1 with the company’s EMUI 8.2 on top (the first phone to sport the updated user experience out the box) but overall it’s the same user experience that every Huawei and Honor phone has doled out over the last year.
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Game Suite keeps all of your games in one place, silences notifications whilst you’re gaming and tweaks performance when in-game to benefit from the aforementioned improved performance Huawei and Honor have clearly worked hard to bring about. The company even worked with the likes of Bluehole and Gameloft to ensure titles like PUBG and Asphalt 9 ran as well as possible on the Play’s hardware (and software).
Honor Play release date and price
Whilst the Honor Play has already been announced in China and various other Asian markets, including Thailand, Pakistan and India, it’s yet to make its way West. IFA 2018, the large annual consumer electronics show in Germany, is serving as the phone’s launchpad into European markets, with relevant pricing and availability being revealed on August 30.
In the meantime, we’re expecting pricing between £250/€280 and £300/€330 based on the price that comes attached to the phone in its initial launch markets; meaning it’s a seriously competitive option if you’re after a well-equipped alternative to the flagship gaming handsets already out there, or the newly launched Pocophone F1.
First impressions
In truth, there’s little that sets the Honor Play apart as a gaming-centric device any more so than many of the other Kirin 970-powered handsets in the company’s portfolio but that’s not to say it’s not equipped to deliver a great gaming experience.
Marketing message and branding will be key to framing this phone as a suitable Razer Phone, Xiaomi Black Shark or ROG Phone alternative, while the aggressively low pricing should entice customers who otherwise wouldn’t be interested in the notion of a gaming phone. This thing might even give the likes of OnePlus cause for concern.
The post Honor Play First Look: An affordable gaming phone with a flagship heart appeared first on Trusted Reviews.
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