Honor Play 5 Review, Pros and Cons – Honor recently launched a new smartphone called the Honor Play 5 smartphone. The main attraction of the Play 5 smartphone is the screen, camera, and custom UI. As this phone does not support the latest Android operating system, it is difficult to say whether it can compete in the current market. Without further ado, let’s begin the detailed review of the Honor Play 5 smartphone directly.
Table of Contents
Honor Play 5 Review
Highlights
- Honor Play 5 features a standard 6.53 inches screen with a standard OLED panel.
- Android 10 OS will prevent you from buying this phone, although the personalized Magic UI 4.0 allows you to do much more.
- Players will not be satisfied with the performance of the MediaTek Dimensity 800U chipset, but its visual distortion is noteworthy.
- With features almost similar to the V40 Lite, the rear panel displays a 64 MP quad camera.
- The 3800 mAh battery is not suitable for heavy users.
Design and Display
Whether you are meticulous with the design, you may find the Honor Play 5 smartphone to be very attractive because of the rays that pass through the rear camera board. The small square-shaped camera board contains a quad-camera with an LED flash at the center. The bright and shiny light shade on the back makes the phone look more attractive. The fingerprint sensor is located under the screen instead of on the side.
Today’s phones come with average weight and thickness. But this phone will give you a light feeling when it’s in your hands. It comes with 179g in weight and a very thin sidebar of about 7.5mm. Just because of that, you feel comfortable grip. Light blue is a great color for you, but you can also choose between black and violet.
The phone has a standard 6.53 inches screen with HDR10 certification. The OLED panel is less standard with this budget and may disappoint you. The phone also has a 1080p resolution display with a 20:9 aspect ratio. You may experience motion blur when watching a video and playing heavy games, as there is no specified refresh rate.
Memory and Internal
The Honor Play 5 smartphone comes with features almost similar to the V40 Lite, this phone does not meet the needs of the players. With the presence of Android 10 OS, performance is sometimes slow or you may experience lag compare to Android 11. There is a custom interface of Magic UI 4.0 that is quite surprising for users to do many tasks at the same time. This means that the phone must also be powerful, but keep in mind that you will not get services from Google Play.
Although the 7nm – MediaTek Dimensity 800U 5G chipset provides decent performance, players will not be satisfied with it. The processor offers a 2.4 GHz clock speed. With the presence of the Mali-G57 MC3 graphics, you witness wonderful video quality. As if your phone is built with 5G technology, it ensures that you are ahead of the game in the next generation.
On the other hand, the Honor Play 5 offers 8 GB of RAM with 128 GB and 256 GB storage. Unfortunately, as of the current information, there is no microSD slot specified for more storage.
Camera
If you’re looking for great camera features, Honor Play 5 can be your good choice. It is not the best because, with this budget, there are many alternatives that can compete with this phone.
However, the quad-camera offers a 64 MP main camera for great detail photography. There is no need to panic about blurring the background because the 2 MP depth sensor is just for solving your problem. In addition, you will have 8 MP ultrawide and 2 MP macro cameras for the best cinematic quality of your photos. For gloomy photos with sharp details, the main camera is enough to do that.
On the other hand, the 16 MP selfie camera is greatly improved in this budget, but it is not superior in the sector. When it comes to video recording, the main camera is capable of recording videos up to 4K with a gyro-EIS stabilization feature, but the front camera will provide 1080p videos without any stabilization. Video stability is very important because you can lose image quality when your hands are shaking.
Battery and Others
Nowadays people prefer to buy phones with a huge battery capacity because daily use has increased. The Hono Play 5 comes with Li-Po 3800 mAh battery and this feature is really disheartening. After a few hours of browsing and watching videos, your phone tells you to charge. With the help of the 66 W fast charger, you can charge 100% of the battery in 35 minutes which is a plus point. But there is no point in adding this feature if the battery is not solid.
Talking about other features, the phone comes with a fingerprint under the display, accelerometer, proximity, compass, USB Type-C 2.0, and USB On-The-Go. You can pick up the phone for $ 330 (RS 23,999) approx.
Honor Play 5 Specifications Detail
Down below you can see the full specifications of the Honor Play 5 smartphone.
| Specifications | Honor Play 5 |
| Network | 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G |
| Announced | May 2021 |
| SIM | Dual SIM |
| Dimensions | 6.36 x 2.94 x 0.30 inches |
| Weight | 179 g approx. |
| Size | 6.53 inches |
| Display | OLED HDR 10 20:9 ratio ~403 PPI density |
| Protection | No |
| Resolution | 1080 x 2400 pixels |
| OS | Android 10, Magic UI 4.0 no Google Play Services |
| Chipset | 7nm – MediaTek MT6853 Dimensity 800U 5G |
| CPU | Octa-core 2×2.4 GHz Cortex-A76 6×2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 |
| GPU | Mali-G57 MC3 |
| Card slot | No |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Internal | 128GB, 256GB |
| Camera | 64 MP (wide), PDAF 8 MP (ultrawide) 2 MP (macro) 2 MP (depth) LED flash, HDR, panorama, gyro-EIS Max – 4K@30fps |
| Selfie | 16 MP (wide) Max – 1080p@30fps |
| Loudspeaker | Yes |
| 3.5mm jack | No |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot |
| Bluetooth | 5.2, A2DP, LE |
| GPS | Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS |
| NFC | Yes |
| Infrared port | No |
| Radio | No |
| USB | USB Type-C 2.0, USB On-The-Go |
| Sensors | Under display fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass |
| Battery | Li-Po 3800 mAh Fast charging 66W |
| Colors | Black, Violet, Light Blue |
| Expected Price | $ 330 (Rs 24,000) approx. |
Honor Play 5 Pros and Cons
Down below you can see the list of pros and cons (advantages and disadvantages) of the Honor Play 5 smartphone.
Pros
- Tall screen with OLED display.
- Support for Magic UI 4.0.
- Decent camera performance.
- NFC and USB On-The-Go is available.
- Under the display fingerprint reader.
- Support 66W fast charging.
- 4K video recording.
- 5g support.
Cons
- No support from Google Play.
- Android 10 instead of the latest one.
- High refresh rate missing.
- The average speed of performance.
- Low battery capacity.
- No wireless charging.
- Without gorilla glass protection.
Conclusion
The Honor Play 5 phone is not for everyone, even, it is not suitable for average customers as well. Honor launched these phones with high budgets that are not demanding in the market. There are many smartphones that can compete and win this phone in all its features. There is no powerful battery, latest operating system, google play service, and processor if you judge the phone critically and carefully. But if you are a big fan of Honor and live in China, you will have no problem using it.
In our recommendation, you should definitely check for your alternative which is the Vivo iQOO Z3 smartphone with some extraordinary features.
