Smartphone Huawei Honor Play 8A: advantages and disadvantages

For a long time, one of the world leaders in the production of smartphones has undoubtedly been Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. This is a Chinese company that produces a huge range of devices, from inexpensive budget-class devices to high-priced models, including the popular Honor 8 and 10 models. With constant regularity, Huawei releases new device models to the market. So, in January 2019, the company officially introduced the budget but productive Honor Play 8A smartphone.

Device package

Huawei Honor Play 8A comes to the buyer in a simple white box, in the center of the front side of which is the model logo.In addition to the device itself, the package also includes:

• protective silicone case;
• manual;
• charger consisting of a USB cable and a power adapter.

Due to the fact that this model is a budget one, a special headset is not supplied with the smartphone.

Design

If we talk about the design of Honor Play 8A, then it is worth noting right away that it is unremarkable and similar to the appearance of many smartphones. The phone has a plastic body and a metal frame, and its body color palette is represented by classic black, blue, gold and red.

The developers did not pay much attention to the issue of appearance, so many details of the device are reminiscent of the iPhone X, for example, there is a standard cutout at the top of the screen, and a dual camera is located on the left side of the back panel. For comparison, the devices of the Honor 10 model look much more beautiful and interesting.

This is a very comfortable smartphone of relative lightness and placement of the device in the hand and, with all the minimalist design, has an expensive appearance. The dimensions of the device are 156.3 x 73.5 x 8 mm, and the weight is 150 g. Honor Play 8A also provides for:

• matte finish on the reverse side, which makes it convenient to use for active games;
• a fast-acting fingerprint scanner inside a small notch at the top of the screen;
• fast, though not particularly reliable, face unlock;
• headphone jack and a small speaker grill on the bottom side of the case.

It turns out that the simplicity of appearance is the distinguishing feature of Honor Play 8A, which is not particularly convenient for toy lovers, since, as a rule, devices for games are always equipped with various bells and whistles, lighting, etc.

Huawei Honor Play 8A Specifications Overview

Screen

Display type: Huawei Honor Play 8A has a high-quality IPS matrix that provides comfortable use of the device in the dark and in the sun, as well as good color reproduction, protection from negative effects on the eyes and a long service life.

The screen of the presented model is quite large with a diagonal of 6.01 inches and a resolution of 720 by 1560 (HD+). Its width is 73.5 mm, length is 156.28 mm, and the aspect ratio is 19.5:9. Also, the Honor Play 8A display is equipped with the following features:

• average (for smartphones) pixel density - 283 ppi;
• a significant set of color palette - 16777216 colors;
• depth - 24 bits;
• usable area - 78.8%.

It is important to note that despite the modernity of the device, the Honor Play 8A model is recognized as a budget one, and therefore all its characteristics, including the display features, are considered average in relation to most smartphones. So it is assumed that the built-in processor of the device would allow it to provide a higher Full HD + resolution.

Hardware platform

As a hardware filling, the manufacturer Honor Play 8A used an eight-core 64-bit MediaTek Helio P35 MT6765 with ARM Cortex-A53 cores, half of which operate at a frequency of 1.8 GHz, and the second half is able to cope with a higher frequency - 2.36 GHz . The smartphone is represented by a modern high-performance processor with a dedicated NPU and a PowerVR GE8320 graphics accelerator, whose frequency is 700 MHz.

The amount of RAM smartphone (LPDDR3) is 3 GB. For data storage, there is a built-in eMMC 5.1 memory, the dimensions of which can be 32 or 64 GB. The device allows you to use three types of memory cards: microSD, microSDHC and microSDXC, with a maximum capacity of 512 GB (dedicated slot).

Soft

A significant feature of the Huawei Honor Play 8A model is that, when it is classified as a budget technology, the operation of the smartphone is ensured using fresh software. It is the Android 9 Pie operating system + EMUI 9.0 shell.

User interface

The modern smartphone OS shell allows the user to make a large list of various settings. In other words, thanks to the software, the budget smartphone model becomes a productive and multifunctional device. As a result, the functionality of Honor Play 8A provides:

• setting up navigation buttons;
• control of the device with one hand and with the help of voice or gestures;
• the ability to set the time to turn on and / or turn off the smartphone;
• setting up the phone in gloves;
• blocking the device when in your pocket;
• using a virtual button that expands on the screen into a circular menu;
• selecting an effect when unlocking the device or when switching between desktops;
• choosing the style of icons, fonts, answering incoming calls;
• switch to silent mode by tilting the display down, and arrange widgets by tilting the device.

Unlike previous versions of Honor Play, the 8A has changed the appearance of the navigation bar, which the developers have divided into several tabs. One of them reflects a convenient timeline for marking events, and the other is a quick access menu to the main settings. In addition, there is also a call to a separate menu with the inclusion of a flashlight, a voice recorder, etc. using a swipe from the bottom up.

The interface of the Honor Play 8A provides for the use of themes installed by the manufacturer and the ability to independently download new ones, as well as a set of cute pictures for the screensaver of the lock screen. The smartphone has an automatic wallpaper change mode, by selecting them from a chaotic order by shaking the device.

As for applications, all smartphones of this model are equipped by default with:

• free applications Yandex;
• Clean Master utility;
• booking service Booking.com;
• the latest version of Sberbank online;
• logins to popular social networks Facebook (including Messenger) and Instagram;
• search engines 2GIS and Netflix.

Those who are fond of a healthy lifestyle should like the built-in program for monitoring proper nutrition and loads “Health”. There is no FM radio app.

cameras

Like any smartphone, Honor Play 8A is equipped with two cameras. The rear camera is located in the upper part of the rear wall of the device and assumes the presence of two modules:

1. Main with CMOS BSI (backside illumination) sensor type, f/1.8 aperture, 13MP photo resolution, phase focusing, LED flash and 4K and FullHD video resolution (30 fps, AAC stereo sound, 192 Kbps, 48 ​​kHz ).
2. An additional one with a lens aperture of f / 2.4 and a maximum resolution of 2 MP.

The main camera of the device is equipped with a number of important functions:

• autofocus;
• continuous shooting;
• digital zoom;
• geographic labels;
• panoramic shooting;
• HDR shooting;
• touch focus;
• face recognition;
• adjusting the white balance;
• self-timer.

Both modules are characterized by high speed, good quality, clarity and color reproduction of images in the presence of good natural light. In some cases, there is an incorrect operation of the bokeh effect, when the object being shot in the foreground is blurry. If we talk about how the Honor Play 8A takes pictures at night, then you should know that the photos are of lower quality, noise appears and clarity is disturbed.

The front camera of the smartphone of this model is characterized by an average photo resolution of 8 MP (3264 x 2448 pixels), f / 2.0 aperture and video resolution.

Battery life

For the autonomy of the functioning of the Honor Play 8A, a lithium-polymer (Li-polymer) battery with a high capacity of 3020 mAh is responsible. Thanks to it, the device can work without recharging with the screen on for about 10 hours. If you use your smartphone in the usual way (for calls, SMS and viewing pictures on social networks) with periodic switching to sleep mode, then it is able to work without power from the mains from 30 to 48 hours. If necessary, to save energy consumption, you can turn on the power mode. It takes 1.5 hours to fully charge the device from zero to 100%.

Multimedia

The presented model is equipped with a powerful multimedia speaker with increased volume.Given that the device is a budget device, the quality of the sound reproduced from the headphones corresponds to smartphones in this category: it is average, extraneous noise is possible when listening.

Honor Play 8A supports a huge number of audio and video formats. So, without installing additional applications on your smartphone, you can listen to the sound: AAC, AMR / AMR-NB / GSM-AMR, AMR-WB, eAAC + / aacPlus v2 / HE-AAC v2, FLAC, MIDI, MP3, OGG and WAV and watch movies and roles: 3GPP, AVI, DivX, H.263, H.264 / MPEG-4 Part 10 / AVC video, MP4, WebM, WMV, Xvid.

As for the speaker, its work can be evaluated at the highest possible rates, as it produces a loud and clear sound, both in normal mode and when the speakerphone function is connected. A big plus of the device is the built-in FM-radio.

Communication and external connections

The smartphone is characterized by the ability to work in a large list of wireless interfaces. It supports such formats as Wi-Fi 802.11b / g / n, Hotspot and Direct, as well as 2G, 3G, 4G communications on most Russian frequencies:

• GSM 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz;
• UMTS 850, 900 and 2100 MHz;
• LTE 850, 1800 and 2100 MHz;
• LTE-TDD 1900, 2000, 2300, 2500 and 2600 MHz.

With regards to navigation, the device has GPS, as well as A-GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou. The device is also equipped with standard cartography Google Maps.

Huawei Honor Play 8A belongs to the category of smartphones equipped with a built-in 3.5 mm jack for connecting wired headphones. When using a wireless headset, the connection is made via Bluetooth (version 4.2) using the aptX and aptX HD codecs. The installed version of the wireless connection is designed for the following options:

• A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile);
• EDR (Enhanced Data Rate);
• LE (Low Energy).

Like most smartphones, this model supports two SIM cards (dual sim function) nano size. At the same time, the device is equipped with only one radio module, so both cards are not able to work simultaneously in active mode, but either slot can be used both for calls and for working in Internet browsers.

Smartphone pros and cons

In addition to the fact that Huawei Honor Play 8A is characterized by a budget price, the presented model has a number of significant advantages over other smartphones. There are also some significant drawbacks.

• high build quality;
• large and convenient display;
• decent camera resolution, a wide range of options for photo and video shooting, high image quality in natural light;
• convenient multifunctional interface;
• high battery capacity;
• the presence of dual-band Wi-Fi and support for most modern communication networks;
• one of the latest versions of Bluetooth equipped with aptX and aptX HD protocols.

• minimalist design;
• decrease in photo quality in low light conditions and at night;
• lack of graphics and options for complex and voluminous games;
• lack of protection against water and a plastic case;
• combination of a slot for a SIM card and a memory card.

Device cost

To date, the model Huawei Honor Play 8A has already been officially presented. But, given that the appearance of a smartphone is expected at the beginning of 2019 and so far only in China, it is still difficult to establish how much it will cost on average in the Russian market.It is assumed that the average price of the budget model Huawei Honor Play 8A will be about 100 EUR (when translated into Russian currency in January 2019, this is about 7600 rubles).

Results

Summing up, it can be noted that when deciding which is the best smartphone model to buy, you should definitely pay attention to the new 2019 Huawei Honor Play 8A. It is a classic budget class device (no more than 10,000 rubles), albeit with a simple design, but with a number of distinctive advantages. First of all, it is a large display and a convenient multifunctional interface.

The advantage of the device can also be called how well it takes pictures, however, only in good natural light, as well as its performance and the ability of Wi-Fi to work on most Russian frequencies. The device is equipped with a battery with a decent capacity indicator, a powerful processor in MediaTek Helio P35 MT6765 and a modern Android 9 Pie operating system (+ EMUI 9.0 shell). Of the significant disadvantages of the presented model, one can name the low strength of the case, the lack of protection against water and the lack of technical characteristics for voluminous graphic games.