Smartphone Honor Play 3 - advantages and disadvantages

The best manufacturers vying with each other offer new products, and Honor is not far behind them. The new model continues the Play series, but the Honor Play 3 is more of a powerful chipset and a few solid features in an economical package than a great gaming device. The Huawei sub-brand is not going to stop there. Honor fills the budget niche tightly so that the young buyer does not have to think about which company is better to buy a smartphone.

Unlike the original Honor Play, the Honor Play 3 isn't positioned solely as a gaming smartphone. The device is a budget device with some remarkable characteristics.

The device is powered by the mid-range Kirin 710F chipset. Buyers expecting a flagship-level chipset will be disappointed, but the feature set and price tag will make that impression a lot less daunting. The Honor Play 3 device is equipped with a triple rear camera.

The new Honor device comes out in China according to the plan in mid-September 2019 at a price of 999 yuan (~ 140 dollars). The average price of the Honor model is lower than that of similar devices. The rating of high-quality youth smartphones has expanded after the release of the device. Consumers have different selection criteria, which predicts considerable success for this model.

A few words about the brand

Honor is a smartphone brand launched under Huawei Technologies. The company was founded in 2013, the products are aimed at young people, in addition to phones, tablets and “smart clothes” are produced under this name. Thanks to the HONOR line, Huawei competes with mid-range devices, both in the Chinese and global markets. New items regularly delight consumers.

The company's sales are carried out mainly online, which allows to reduce the cost of the product. All those who join the HONOR Club are provided with discounts for the purchase of products in the future. Honor entered the international market in 2014, and in 2015 it was already widely represented in 74 countries, the popularity of models is high in Europe, India and Japan. Since 2016, the company has been coming to the USA. There are several series: flagship, Magic, C-, i-, X-, A-, S-series, Play, Note, Holly. The most popular brand models: Honor View 20, Honor 20, Honor 10.

External characteristics

Designers have developed a recognizable appearance of the phone.The devices are easy to distinguish from others, with a beautiful gradient back panel and a wide viewing angle of the display. The developers offer three colors of the back panel: black (Magic Night Black), blue (Aurora Blue), red (Charm Red). The materials used to create the body: plastic and metal.

Display

The device is equipped with a 6.39-inch LCD touch screen. The screen occupies almost 83% of the frontal surface, it is protected by durable Gorilla glass. The LCD screen is based on an IPS matrix with the ability to display 16 million colors. The display resolution is 720 x 1560 pixels, the pixel density is at an average level of ~269 ppi. Working with the device in the sun does not cause any inconvenience.

Camera

How does the device take pictures? This is the first question that a young buyer is interested in when choosing a smartphone. Honor Play 3 is equipped with decent enough cameras, with excellent performance. The triple rear camera has a main sensor capable of capturing 48 million pixels, one is 0.8 µm in size. The aperture width is quite adequate f / 1.8, the photosensor is 1/2″ in size. All in all, this is a high-resolution wide-angle sensor. The device includes a function - autofocus with phase detection. It does an excellent job of quickly adjusting focus when capturing moving objects. The demo photo example was of good quality. The presentation also showed how the camera takes pictures at night. A review of the first users will give an adequate idea of ​​the quality of the pictures.

The second lens is an ultra wide-angle lens with a resolution of 8 MP, each of which is equal to 1.12 µm, aperture f/2.4, photosensor parameters 1/4″.The third sensor is focused on depth reflection, equipped with 2 MP with f / 2.4 aperture, provides sharpness to the picture. The rear camera is complemented by a LED flash, HDR function, perfectly captures the panorama.

The front camera captures 8 MP, f / 2.0 aperture, auto focus.

Cameras on both sides shoot video with resolution

Battery

The developers declared a long-term autonomy of the device, which is possible thanks to a non-removable lithium-polymer battery with a capacity of 4000 mAh and energy-saving operation of the chipset. Without charging the phone is able to manage for two days of work of average activity.

Charging is standard, ensuring optimal battery life and increasing the practicality of daily use of the product. The fast charging speed is due to the parameters: 5 V / 2 A, which corresponds to a power of 10 W. The charger dynamically adapts the charging parameters depending on the battery charge level. A discharged battery can be charged faster without any risk. Cord length and micro USB connector are standard sizes.

IP5x protection for the body and contents of the phone

The international IP standard evaluates protection against the ingress of water and foreign particles, delineates the levels of sealing performance of a product. The IP rating provides much-needed clarity in an advertising-saturated market. While a rating is not a guarantee of the overall quality of a product, it does add transparency and help you decide which electronics model to buy. The standards are defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) headquartered in Switzerland.

Reliable protection against solid particles is rated as the first digit after IP on a scale of 0 to 6.The second digit in the IP code indicates the protection against moisture, which ranges from 0 (no protection) to 8 (fully waterproof to a depth of more than 1 m). If any of the numbers is marked with an "X", it means that the product has not been tested in that category.

The Honor Play 3 is IP5X rated, which means dust-proof. Dust ingress is not completely prevented, but substantial protection ensures that the product can operate in sandy conditions. A rating of 5 is sufficient for most consumer applications.

Internal characteristics

Chipset

The smartphone is equipped with the Hisilicon Kirin 710f chip system, which offers high performance and energy efficiency, ensures smooth operation and enhanced gaming experience. The chipset supports AI (artificial intellect) photo scene recognition, which makes it easy to take great pictures. Kirin 710 works with Dual SIM (Dual VoLTE) for stable high-speed connections, combined with TEE and inSE technologies, provides reliable protection for mobile users. The processor is manufactured using 12 nm technology and has eight cores, four of which are Cortex-A73 operating at a frequency of 2.2 GHz, and four Cortex-A53 - at a frequency of 1.7 GHz.

The chipset is equipped with a graphics processor (GPU) Mali G51 ARM. It's essentially a mid-range integrated graphics card for an ARM-based (mostly Android-based) SoC. This GPU was first introduced in mid-2018 in HiSilicon Kirin 710, it uses 4 clusters (hence the name MP4). The G51 is based on the Bifrost architecture and is widely used by low-end phones. ARM offers standard 650 MHz clock speeds. The GPU supports all modern graphics APIs such as OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.0, OpenCL 2.0, DirectX 12 FL9_3 (versus 11 in the G7x line) and Renderscript.

The main advantages of the chipset are scene recognition using artificial intelligence, good night shooting. Kirin 710f provides users with super sensitive smart phones with super performance power.

The GPU also uses Turbo 3.0 technology, a popular, relatively recent update. Turbo 3.0 GPU delivers enhanced gaming performance on Huawei smartphones and the company claims to deliver high performance during gaming sessions while conserving battery life.

The new technology reduces CPU consumption by up to 10% while optimizing the performance of the underlying system for a smooth gaming experience. Huawei says the technology also reduces frame loss, improves average frame rates, and improves touch response when compared to games with the feature disabled.

Huawei has announced the list of games that support and are optimized for Turbo 3.0 GPU:

• Fortnite;
• Knives Out;
• Battle Bay;
• Crazy Taxi;
• Real Racing 3;
• Into the Dead 2;
• NBA 2K19;
• Dragon Nest M;
• Duel Links;
• PES 2019;
• Dragon Ball Legends;
• FIFA Mobile;
• free fire;
• minecraft;
• helix;
• Plants vs. Zombie Heroes;
• Subway Surfers;
• Brawl Stars;
• Speed ​​Drifters;
• Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
• Vainglory;
• Arena of Valor;
• Rules of Survival;
• NBA 2K18.

Surprisingly, one of the most popular smartphone games of the moment - PUBG Mobile - is not mentioned in the list.

Memory

The smartphone has several memory options:

1. basic equipment is available with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal;
2. the smart version has 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal memory;
3. the third option is 4 GB + 128 GB.

The phone's memory can be expanded with a microSD card up to 1TB.

The most important! What is the price? Memory options determine phone prices. The base model starts at $140, while the maximum memory costs $185.

Interface

Honor Play 3 supports the latest version of Android 9 Pie, with the Chinese skin from Huawei - EMUI 9.1. The latest version of the operating system makes it possible to actively use the internal content of the smartphone. There is no fingerprint unlock.

Additionally

SIM

Honor Play 3 has the ability to operate with two SIM-cards (dual sim). Two nano-SIM cards work on the Dual Standby system. In the process of working one card, the second is in the process of waiting. The active phase is calls and the use of the 3G / 2G network. Please note that problems arise when downloading large files and watching online videos. If the uninterrupted operation of only one SIM card is important, and the second is of secondary importance, then do not think about some inconvenience.

Connections

Connectivity options on the Honor Play 3 include Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS and Bluetooth v5.00, 4G on both SIMs.The phone has sensors: accelerometer, gyroscope, ambient light, proximity and compass/magnetometer. The radio sensor is missing.

Not all characteristics are described in the presentation, for example, sound, its quality is still a mystery.

Advantages and disadvantages

For budget phones, it’s impossible to talk only about the merits, so let’s analyze the pros and cons of the Honor Play 3.

• the large diagonal of the phone is well suited for games, convenient for watching multimedia videos;
• productive processor;
• attractive design, colors look modern and stylish;
• high battery capacity for a budget model;
• good set of cameras;
• price.

• the average level of the video card for the Play series, not suitable for active games;
• low pixel density on the screen;
• no LED flash for selfies.

Conclusions are made according to the declared parameters, after the release of the model, the list of pluses and minuses will be supplemented. Consumer reviews are the best guideline.

Outcome

Budget devices with good "stuffing" will definitely find their buyer.The model will not suit active gamers, but fans of chats, viewing content on the Internet and social networks, the smartphone will appeal to. The smartphone does not have super characteristics, but for its price it has decent functionality. You don’t understand the intricacies of hardware, don’t know how to choose a smartphone for standard use? Do you need a reliable and convenient device? Honor Play 3 is the model that is definitely worth paying attention to. Online is the best option where it is profitable to buy a smartphone from Honor.