Honor Play 5 Youth Review – The Shenzhen-based Chinese brand has launched its new mid-range 5G smartphone. After the launch of the Honor Play 5 Youth smartphone in October 2021. HONOR is adding a new member to the Play Series, this smartphone was officially released on November 2021 in China.
The Play 5 Youth is also known as the Play 5 Vitality which has some very good attributes. It has a tall screen, a decent chipset, and battery capacity is also decent. This phone definitely surprises mid-range users. Let’s start with a detailed review of the Honor Play 5 Youth smartphone.
Table of Contents
Honor Play 5 Youth Review
Highlights
- In terms of display, the phone has to offer a large 6.67 inch IPS LCD display with a 120Hz refresh rate.
- The operating system of this phone is powered by Android 11, which is the latest, and it also has the Magic UI 4.2 custom UI support, which will provide an artistic, innovative, and friendly interface.
- The chipset is using the latest 6nm MediaTek Dimensity 900 5G technology. In addition, it supports Arm’s Mali-G68 MC4 graphics that enhance functionality.
- Talking about the camera, Honor Play5 Youth comes with a 64MP main camera lens. For the front or secondary camera, it offers a 16MP selfie camera.
- Last but not least, the phone has a Li-Po 4300 mAh battery. To charge the battery you get a 66W charger, which can make your battery from 0 to 100% in just 40 minutes.
Design and Display
The Honor Play5 Youth is the upgraded version of the Honor Play 5T Pro that comes in a gradient finish of two color variants, black and blue, and both colors have a very attractive look and a professional feel. The dimension of this smartphone is 8.5 mm and the phone weight is only 192 grams. The phone’s body is also made of plastic. So, for sure, the Honor Play 5 Youth phone will certainly provide a light and pleasant hand-holding experience when moving the phone.
The screen is quite big and demanding. It features a 6.67 inches full HD+ IPS LCD screen that offers a better viewing angle and no color degradation or blurring. It has a large screen-to-body ratio of 89%, which is great for multimedia and gaming. Speaking of the screen refresh rate, it’s a huge 120 Hz refresh rate, which is enough to provide smooth, crisp image sharpness and vibrant colors.
The screen resolution offered by Honor Paly 5 Youth is 1080p, which contains 391 PPI density. Without a doubt, you will enjoy good-quality images, streaming videos, or gameplay. A tall refresh rate will also allow you to multitask at a decent speed. The screen is not sunlight-friendly due to the default refresh rate, you may have a problem reading on the screen outdoors on a sunny day.
Memory and Internal
Honor Play5 Youth smartphone comes with 8GB of RAM although the base model of this smartphone comes with 128GB or 256GB storage. The phone doesn’t support any micro sd card slots, which is natural in Honor phone. Internal storage is more than enough to capture beautiful moments and store them safely.
Now, take a look at the performance of this phone. Firstly, the phone is operated with the latest Android 11 OS and it also gets the Magic UI 4.2. So definitely there will be a lot of customization with a smooth user interface.
By the way, this smartphone doesn’t have Google Play Services installed. Talking about the Honor Play 5 Youth processor has a powerful 6 nm MediaTek Dimensity 900 5G chipset. In addition, it has an octa-core processor with a speed of 2x 2.4 GHz. For gamers, this smartphone has the latest Mali-G68 MC4 GPU, released in 2021. So the high-end games like PUBG, Asphalt 9, and many others are pleasing to the eyes of the player.
Camera
While looking at the camera features, you’ll get a dual-camera only on the back and a single selfie camera on the front. The main camera is a 64MP PDAF lens, it has an aperture of f/1.9 which is pretty decent for capturing sharper photos. On the back, you also get a 2MP depth camera unfortunately it’s not as effective in a low-light environment.
The Honor Play 5 Youth’s camera setup is a square top center model at the back with an LED flash. On the front, the phone has a pill-shaped camera cut in the upper left corner for its 16 MP selfie camera along with the light sensor, which is suitable for capturing good portraits.
Talking about the resolution of the camera, the main camera on the back can capture detailed 4K video as well as 1080 pixels at a frame rate of 30fps. The rear camera has EIS-swivel support which makes your videos steady while you record them without any tripod, for example, while walking or cycling, as well as recording a vlog. However, the front camera does not have any gyro-EIS sensor.
Battery and Others
To run all features smoothly for a long period of time, the Honor Play 5 Youth smartphone offers a non-removable Li-Po 4300 mAh battery. That is charged via the 66W fast charger that can charge your phone within 40min. With this battery, you can get 5 hours of screen time and a full day of battery life in general uses.
As the phone’s screen is an LCD type, it does not support a fingerprint under the screen, which is offset as a side-mounted fingerprint that is integrated on the power button. The sound and speaker are good, support a 3.5mm jack, and have a USB Type-C 2.0 charging port. Let’s see the price tag, the basic variant of the Honor Play5 Youth smartphone will cost around $279 (Rs 20,999) approx.
Honor Play 5 Youth Pros and Cons
Honor Play 5 Youth Specifications Detail
Down below you can see the full specifications of the Honor Play 5 Youth smartphone.
| Specifications | Honor Play 5 Youth | |
| Network | 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G | |
| Announced | October 2021 | |
| SIM | Dual-SIM | |
| Dimensions | 6.37 x 2.94 x 0.33 inches | |
| Weight | 192 grams | |
| Size | 6.67 inches | |
| Display | IPS LCD 120Hz ~391 PPI density | |
| Protection | No | |
| Resolution | 1080 x 2376 pixels | |
| OS | Android 11, Magic UI 4.2 no Google Play Services | |
| Chipset | 6nm – MediaTek MT6877 Dimensity 900 5G | |
| CPU | Octa-core 2×2.4 GHz Cortex-A78 6×2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 | |
| GPU | Mali-G68 MC4 | |
| Card slot | No | |
| RAM | 8GB | |
| Internal | 128GB, 256GB | |
| Camera | 64 MP (wide), PDAF 2 MP (depth) LED flash, HDR, panorama Max – 4K@30fps (gyro-EIS) | |
| Selfie | 16 MP (wide) Max – 1080p@30fps | |
| Loudspeaker | Yes | |
| 3.5mm jack | Yes | |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot | |
| Bluetooth | 5.1, A2DP, LE | |
| GPS | Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS | |
| NFC | No | |
| Infrared port | No | |
| Radio | No | |
| USB | USB Type-C 2.0, USB On-The-Go | |
| Sensors | Side-mounted fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass | |
| Battery | Li-Po 4300 mAh Fast charging 66W | |
| Colors | Black, Blue | |
| Expected Price | $279 (Rs 20,999) Approx. |
Conclusion
The Honor Play 5 Youth smartphone is attractive with its 5G network support, extremely slim bezels, 120 Hz refresh rate, and decent chipset for multitasking and gaming. If these features look attractive and you have no problems without Google Play, you can go for the Honor Play 5 Youth smartphone.
However, there is no reason to deny that it lacks some modern features like the AMOLED screen, there is no support for NFC and the huge battery capacity could disappoint you at this price point. In addition, the phone does not support Gorilla glass and also has no IP rating. Ignoring these points, the Honor Play5 Youth can be a good smartphone for everyday use. If you are looking for an alternative option you can definitely go for the Vivo T1x smartphone.
