Done with my first ever smartphone review for Huawei with their Huawei GR5. Find out if I find the enjoymennt in their premium-looking midrange offering.
Huawei GR5 has the latest EMUI (before the Huawei P9 series) based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. I already got my first dibs of EMUI thru the Honor 6 Plus and another Huawei smartphone and I find it a-ok for me despite that it is not stock Android. Yes you are right, no app drawer and no use for 3rd party launchers like Google Now launcher but I already got the hang of it after a day.
I love that Huawei has put in real dual SIM with dedicated micro SD slot which I find it helpful. Both slots are LTE capable (juust do the normal mobile data switching). As expected in Huawei's expertise. I had a good time on calls, texts, WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G internet which is the strongest that I experienced. What brought me joy to this device is the 4G icon in the pulldown which you can put the LTE signal on even you are in GSM/WCDMA mode. I hope they will continue this option in future Huawei smartphones in all segments.
On benchmarks, I already knew that the Snapdragon 616 is almost as powerful as the 1.5 GHz Snapdragon 615 but better in battery management. The rest of the screenshots will tell the story
It was my first time to review a phone with finger print reader. Just like what my tech colleagues said, the brand has the expertise on it. From setting, using it as your primary unlocker to using it as a selfie button for selfies - it is easy to use.
On battery, I had my standard video battery rundown test and it got over 12 hours on 3,000 mAh battery with 5.5 inch IPS FHD AMOLED display. That was impressive. As I fell in love with the screen size and screen quality, I usually have 6 hours screen time on a 19 hour mixed usage. That was cool. On charging using the stock charger, it will go for 2.5 hours.
Out of 16 GB ROM, you can have over 10 GB of app storage. One bad thing though - it does not have OTG support.
On camera, I kinda disagree to some international reviews of it's counterpart aka Honor 5X. The camera is above average for me (of course, not as high as those flagship phones) but the quality speaks for what you paying for. Both cameras are at 4:3 aspect ratio. The main cam has f/2.0 aperture while it's f/2.4 for the selfies. I also tried some camera modes which worked wonders.
Normal mode
HDR
Food mode
Selfie
On the build quality, it is quite thin without the case but coz of it's prisitne look, I still used it for days with a provided protective case.
From what I observed, only the lack of OTG support and maybe a bit slow charging will be the minus points for this one. From the good points that I got plus the new, low price of Php 10,490 (in som stores, previously introduced at Php 11,990), the Huawei GR5 must be on your top of the list if you are looking for a premium looking midrange international smartphone brand and works almost fine in every department. I will gonna give give it a 4.5 out of 5.
