Honor Play India Launch Event: Highlights

Huawei brand Honor on Monday launched the Honor Play smartphone in India, and the event has now ended. The Honor Play price in India has been set at Rs. 19,999 for the 4GB RAM variant, and Rs. 23,999 for the 6GB RAM variant. Sales start today itself at 4pm IST via Amazon India and the HiHonorStore. A Vodafone launch offer will provide 10GB of data additional per month for a year, along with an Amazon Prime subscription, and more.

The company at the event detailed the GPU Turbo technology, which was originally unveiled at the China launch of the Honor Play. The company announced that the Honor Play will get an AI Gaming update in the near future, bringing features like 4D Gaming (with intelligent vibrations based on the game being played) and 3D Gaming Audio with surround sound. The Honor Play also features a 'Gaming Suite', which will allow users to manage calls and other notifications to prevent interruptions to their gaming session.

Honor is also touting the AI camera features of the Honor Play, including scene and object detection, apart from 3D facial recognition. The smartphone also comes with EIS for video stabilisation, Honor said at the event. The company reiterated that the smartphone's dual rear camera setup has a 16-megapixel primary lens with f/2.2 aperture and PDAF, and a 2-megapixel secondary lens with f/2.4 aperture. At the front, the smartphone has a 16-megapixel camera with f/2.0 aperture. Honor is also boasting of an AI Gallery app, that can classify and group photos. There is also an AR Mode.

The Honor Play bears a 3750mAh battery, the company revealed at the event, while also talking about its AI-based Face Unlock feature and Notification Safety feature. The EMUI 8.2-based smartphone has several AI features, including Hi Touch - an AI-based shopping experience that can find products on Amazon online simply by taking their photo. There is also a Party Mode on board, which allows users to sync music playback across 7 devices.

At the launch event, Honor revealed that the Honor Play has a unibody metal design, and despite being quite slim at 7.48mm, still bears a 3.5mm headphone jack. In India, the smartphone will be available in Navy Blue and Midnight Black colour variants.

Honor Play specifications

The dual-SIM (Nano) Honor Play runs EMUI 8.2 based on Android 8.1. The smartphone sports a 6.3-inch full-HD+ (1080x2340 pixels) with 85 percent NTSC colour gamut. It is powered by the octa-core Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 970 SoC along with Mali-G72 GPU and the built in NPU (neural processor unit). The handset comes in 4GB and 6GB RAM variants.

Honor Play First Impressions

In terms of optics, the Honor Play sports a dual camera setup with AI features. It has a 16-megapixel primary lens with f/2.2 aperture and PDAF, and a 2-megapixel secondary lens with f/2.4 aperture. At the front, the smartphone has a 16-megapixel camera with f/2.0 aperture.

The Honor Play is equipped with 64GB of inbuilt storage, expandable via microSD card (up to 256GB). Connectivity options include 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, and USB Type-C. Sensors onboard the smartphone are an accelerometer, ambient light sensor, gyroscope, and proximity sensor.

Meanwhile, the Honor Play is fuelled by a 3750mAh battery with fast charging support. The dimensions of the Honor Play are 157.91x74.27x7.48mm and weighs 176 grams.