Huawei’s sub-brand, Honor, is the newest player to compete in the hot gaming smartphone market with the launch of its latest smartphone, the Honor Play. Honor will be joining companies like Asus, Xiaomi, Nubia, and Razer in this rapidly developing market.
Honor Play was launched in China and is a mid-range priced phone. It is rocking a Kirin 970 chipset, Huawei’s top-end processor with NPU for AI capabilities. Honor has also developed GPU Turbo to provide a boost in performance.
The Honor Play will be available in two variants with either 4GB or 6GB of RAM, both the variants have 64GB of expandable storage. The phone has a 6.3”, 19:9 aspect ratio LCD screen panel with 1080x2280px resolution. It will be using Huawei’s Histen audio technology to provide 3D game sounds and 7.1 channel virtualization.
All these components are powered by a 3,750 mAh battery. The phone will be retailing with Android 8.1 Oreo and EMUI 8.2 out of the box.
Photography is handled by a dual camera setup featuring a 16MP f/2.2 lens along with a 2MP f/2.4 lens on the back and a 16MP sensor on the front. The rear camera does not feature Optical Image Stabilization. Apart from this, the camera has AI features and can recognize over 500 different scenes. The AI is powered by the NPU of Kirin 970. The front camera is capable of delivering 3D portrait lighting as seen on iPhones.
Other features include USB Type-C support, hybrid SIM-slot, and a headphone jack.
Pricing, as mentioned earlier, puts the phone in the mid-tier market. The base model with 4GB of RAM is priced at CNY 2,000 ($310 / INR 21,000) and the higher model with 6GB of RAM is priced at CNY 2,400 ($375/INR 25,000).
The Honor Play is available for pre-order, with retail sales starting from June 11.