Two weeks passed and still it was still one of the hottest smartphones to date as the demand for either offline and online means are quite high (most of their partner physical stores are on pre-order status when you are about to inquire and can get the device after a few days)
At our first boot as we bought the unit from an online platform, glad that we witnessed the phone with two firmware versions with the latest at COR-L29- 8.2.0.110 (aka the EMUI 8.2 update) and the change of the appearance of Honor Play AI watermark (as you will gonna see the two watermark versions). Of course as we got it straight from the source, for those who will gonna ask it - has global ROM. The biggest difference that we saw is the better RAM management. Compared to the previous version at 1.9 GB remaining at first boot, this one and even almost a full day of usage - you can stretch it out up to 2.4 GB of 4 GB RAM
Display is near perfect for me with the right color accuracy and on angular viewing. It's no question that you cannot get an AMOLED in here. Very bright sunlight will be only your biggest enemy on this one as they chose IPS FHD+ LCD in here.
On connectivity with it's Kirin 970 processsor aside from it's gaming prowess, that was one of my priorities why I bought this device. Same with what happened to us on Huawei Mate 10, we got awesome experiences on calls, mobile data, WiFi and GPS. Something to share that it's Bluetooth has Qualcomm's aptX element which worked on my 4-year old LG Bluetooth earphones. With this, you will gonna get CD-quality sound
On battery life, we got it at 16 hours and 40 minutes on video battery rundown test with it's 3,750 mAh battery. Having this phone as a main driver for almost two weeks, I usually get an average of 1.25 days on 6 hours of screen-on-time with 20% brightness. Quick charge is better than nothing as it can fully charge at less than 2 hours
On benchmarks, the improvement was also evident on the Antutu numbers. The previous one got around 195,000+ while on the latest one, it jumped on to 205,000+
As for it's name and what they are promoting, it is a gaming phone with a high-end SoC with a high midrange pricing. With half hour of PUBG and Fortnite sessions, yes you can really feel the heat as expected as they it has a metal unibody at around 42 degrees but not as bad as that old Qualcomm Snapdragon 615. Of course with the given SRP, there's no liquid cooling tech in here. The provided silicone phone case is on the rescue to evade this issue
On extras - Others might not notice it but I am a bit disappointed in the default volume level of Honor Play. Unlike on my usual Spotify playlists as I can already have that desired loudness at 85%. This one? Already in full volume and still I am not satisfied even with the possible tweaks that you can touch on the Huawei Histen selection. For some reason, the speaker has more power. If I can only open it's engineering mode
Fingerprint is already a given in their camp (alongside Huawei), it's very fast and on the spot but the face unlock feature is something to praise on this, one of the fastest that I have seen so far
Color accuracy on the main camera is a hit or miss for me at around 7 out of 10 times. With it's f/2.2 aperture on the main shooter, it will be a bit of a problem on shooting low light and night time shots. For this, either the HDR or AI mode are on the rescue but I am glad that the latter does not give that aggressiveness compared to the P20 Pro. The selfie camera is a surprise package with better output either on auto or on portrait. For some reason, the portrait rear camera shot is not that good compared to the front camera
Normal, AI, HDR showcase:
Set 1
Set 2
Set 3
Set 4
Set 5
Honor Play rear camera samples
Honor Play front camera sample
When we already knew last July (2018) about it's official local release a month after, we were glad that we waited for this over the Honor 10 at Php 8,000 more with it's bigger display (but the differences will be better cameras) at possible less than 20k. Two weeks before it, the big price drop in China was the key to make the deal a lot sweeter at Php 16,000. If for SoC alone, it was already a killer against all of the midrangers near or at almost the Php 20,000 price bracket. The possible cons that people may face against this device? They chose the hybrid dual SIM path, no FM radio and possibly be a not-so-worthy auto shooter at night but it's full pledge pro mode might be the counter attack of it. Even with the rise of the Poco F1 (which up to this date, we will never know if that handset will land locally), the demand is still there mainly for the pricing. High-end SoC and price are the two brightest elements on why the Honor Play got this feat so far. It's 4.25 out of 5 for me on the Honor Play
