Ashish Narsale tells you why this phone's amazing features make it a great choice for non-gamers as well.
Honor has launched the Honor Play with AI, a phone built for mobile gaming.
The hardware is almost the same as that in the Honor View 10 and the Honor 10, which were released earlier this year. The Honor Play, however, is priced at ₹19,999, which makes it ₹10,000 lighter on your wallet.
The Honor Play comes with Huawei's flagship processor, HiSilicon Kirin 970, embedded with Mali-G72 MP12 and overhauled with Turbo GPU for an enhanced gaming experience.
Yes, you read it right!
The Turbo GPU is a software update to improve the GPU performance while playing graphics-intense games.
Otherwise, it has the same HiSilicon Kirin 970 processor found on the Honor View 10, the Honor 10 and as well as on Huawei's flagship Huawei P20 Pro and Porsche Design Huawei Mate 10.
The good news is that the Turbo GPU update will be pushed onto these phones as well as the Honor 9, Honor 8 Pro, Honor 9 Lite and Honor 7x.
What else does the Turbo GPU use?
Turbo GPU is Huawei's hardware and software based graphics acceleration technology.
It improves the GPU performance by 60 per cent and decreases the power consumption of the CPU by 30 per cent, using existing hardware.
The Turbo GPU is activated when high-end graphics rendering is required.
How does it work?
As you know, games run on a high frame rate to give smoother visuals.
The Turbo technology uses algorithms to check for details in the frame that have changed and renders only those bits instead of refreshing the entire frame.
This process reduces the CPU's power consumption and increases the graphics frame rate for a smoother gaming experience.
Let's walk through the phone.
Design and display
The phone has a metal clad uni-body and uses the notch display.
The 6.2 inch tall body encompasses a 6.3 inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels and an aspect ratio of 19.5:9.
Hardware
As mentioned earlier, the phone is powered by Huawei's HiSilicon octa-core Kirin 970 AI processor, with four cores clocked at 2.36 Ghz and remaining four at 1.8 Ghz.
The phone comes with an internal storage ROM of 64 GB and RAM of 4 GB. The memory can be expanded up to 256 GB using a micro SD card on a hybrid SIM tray.
The gaming experience is enhanced with AI based image and sound recognition, and vibration feedback based on the game play. It feels like you are using a high-end gaming console.
When you use earphones, you will find that the phone supports 3D sound effects.
It also has a party mode feature that allows you to sync up to seven devices to play same song at same time.
Camera
Though the phone is focused on gaming, Huawei does not disappoint in the camera department.
The primary camera has a dual camera setup at 16 + 2 MP with AI support.
The 16 MP camera supports the Electronic Image Stabiliser and the Artificial Intelligence Image Stabilizer. The latter will be available through an Over The Air software update.
It can click selfies with an Apple iPhone X like Studio lighting effect.
Using AI, the camera can recognise 22 types of scenes and optimise its settings for taking better pictures.
The 2 MP camera is used for depth sensing when shooting images with a background blur effect in portrait mode.
Battery
The phone consumes its energy from a 3750 mAh battery, which also supports fast charging.
It also supports smart power management based on AI.
Other AI features
The phone supports AI powered face unlocking.
You can also use AI to enhance your shopping experience using the Hi Touch 10 feature in the phone.
Just point the camera at the object or at its picture you wish to buy and the phone will search and take you to the object on Amazon, which is the only shopping site supported by the phone at present.
Verdict
At ₹19,999, the Honor Play packs in a smorgasbord of features, making it great value for money.
Though Huawei is marketing it as a gaming phone, its specs make it a formidable opponent against any other model available at this price.
