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. It is a Chinese company that produces a huge range of devices, from low-cost budget-class devices to high-priced models, including the popular Honor 8 and 10. Huawei regularly releases new device models to the market. So, in January 2019, the company officially presented the budget but productive Honor Play 8A smartphone.

Device complete set

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

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

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

Design

If we talk about the design of the Honor Play 8A, then it should be noted 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 presented in classic black, blue, gold and red.

The developers did not pay special attention to the question of appearance, so many parts of the device resemble 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 rear panel. For comparison, the devices of the Honor 10 model look much nicer and more interesting.

This is a very comfortable smartphone of relative lightness and placement of the device in the hand and, with all the minimalism of 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. The Honor Play 8A also provides:

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

It turns out that the simplicity of the appearance is the hallmark of the 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 technical overview

Screen

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

The screen of the presented model is large enough 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 its aspect ratio is 19.5: 9. Also, the Honor Play 8A display is equipped with the following characteristics:

• average (for smartphones) pixel density - 283 ppi;
• a substantial set of color palette - 16,777,216 colors;
• depth - 24 bits;
• useful area - 78.8%.

It is important to take into account that with all the modernity of the device, the Honor Play 8A model is recognized as a budget model, 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 provide it with 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 are clocked at 1.8 GHz, and the other 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 of the smartphone (LPDDR3) is 3 GB. For data storage, the built-in eMMC 5.1 memory is provided, the sizes 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).

Software

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

User interface

The modern shell of the smartphone OS 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 Honor Play 8A features:

• 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 the phone to work with gloves;
• blocking the device when in a pocket;
• using a virtual button that expands on the screen into a radial menu;
• selection of an effect when unlocking the device or when switching between desktops;
• choice of style of icons, fonts, answering incoming calls;
• switching to silent mode by rotating the display down and arranging widgets by tilting the device.

Unlike previous versions of Honor Play, 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 - a menu for quick access to the main settings. In addition, there is also a call to a separate menu with the inclusion of a flashlight, voice recorder, etc. using a swipe from bottom to top.

The interface of Honor Play 8A provides for the use of skins set by the manufacturer, the ability to self-download new ones, as well as a set of cute pictures for the lock screen saver. The smartphone has a mode for changing wallpaper in an automatic order, 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 Yandex applications;
• Clean Master utility;
• the 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 exercise "Health". There is no FM radio app.

Cameras

Like any smartphone, the Honor Play 8A is equipped with dual 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 BSI CMOS sensor type (backside illumination), f / 1.8 aperture, 13MP photo resolution, phase focusing, LED flash and 4K and FullHD video resolution (30fps, AAC stereo audio, 192 Kbps, 48 ​​kHz ).
2. Additional with aperture lens - 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 tags;
• panoramic shooting;
• HDR shooting;
• touch focusing;
• face recognition;
• white balance adjustment;
• 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, the bokeh effect does not work correctly, when the subject in the foreground is blurred. If we talk about how the Honor Play 8A photographs at night, then you should know that the photos are of lower quality, noise appears and the 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 a video resolution of 1080p @ 30fps. The selfie module allows you to take pictures with decent quality and provides settings for automatic filters and artificial intelligence algorithms to ensure the pictures are as natural as possible.

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 her, the device can work without recharging with the screen on for about 10 hours. If you use a smartphone in the usual way (for calls, SMS and viewing pictures on social networks) with periodic switching to sleep mode, then it can work without power from the mains for 30 to 48 hours. If necessary, you can turn on power mode to save energy consumption. It will take 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. Considering that the device is a budget device, the quality of the sound reproduced from the headphones corresponds to the smartphones of this category: it is average, while listening to it, extraneous noise is possible.

The Honor Play 8A supports a wide variety of audio and video formats. So, without installing additional applications on your smartphone, you can listen to 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 spoken speaker, its performance can be assessed at the highest possible rates, since it produces 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 with a large list of wireless interfaces. It supports formats such 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, but the device works with GPS, and also provides A-GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou. The device is also equipped with standard 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 capable of simultaneously working in active mode, but either slot can be used both for calls and for work in Internet browsers.

Pros and cons of a smartphone

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 disadvantages.

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

• minimalism of 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 plastic housing;
• combination of a slot for a SIM card and a memory card.

Device cost

To date, the 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 7,600 rubles).

Outcome

Summing up, it can be noted that when deciding which is the best smartphone model to buy, undoubtedly, you should pay attention to the new product of 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 is how well it takes pictures, however, only in good natural light, as well as its performance and the ability of Wi-Fi to work at 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 operating system Android 9 Pie (+ EMUI 9.0 shell). Among the significant disadvantages of the presented model, we can name the low strength of the case, the lack of protection against water and the lack of technical characteristics for volumetric graphics games.