Honor Play Reportedly Receiving Update That Brings GPU Turbo Fix, AIS

Huawei's sub-brand Honor launched the budget Honor Play in August in India. The smartphone is now reportedly getting a new update that brings along a slew of performance improvements tothe smartphone. The update claims to fix the hyped GPU Turbo feature and introduced artificial image stabilisation (AIS) as well. The update is reported to be of size 722MB, and it bumps COR-AL00 8.2.0.120 version to COR-AL00 8.2.0.125 version. The Honor Play price in India starts at Rs. 19,999 for the 4GB RAM variant, and goes up to Rs. 23,999 for the 6GB RAM variant.

At the launch event, the company made its GPU Turbo technology as the big highlight, and it was touted to increase performance by up to 60 percent while reducing battery consumption by up to 30 percent. Honor claimed that its GPU Turbo will benefit mobile games that require high graphics processing efficiency by enhancing the speed and optimising the gaming experience. The technology is also slated to bring support for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) in the future. However, GPU Turbo was plagued with bugs and didn't work as the company intended it to. In our review, we noticed slight hint of frame drops, a sizeable amount of battery level drop, and slight heating up of the device as well, after playing PUBG for about 25-30 minutes continuously. In the latest reported changelog, the company is seen to note that it has issued a fix for the GPU Turbo technology for the Honor Play, but doesn't provide any further details.

Furthermore, the AIS feature that was found in the Huawei P20 Pro, has been added to the Honor Play as well. This update includes the AIS feature which is touted to be better than EIS, stabilising both photo and video. The Android Soul reports that the update is rolling out via OTA, and it may take a day or two to arrive on all phones. Users are recommended to head to Settings > System > System update > Check for updates to see if the update has arrived or not. We've reached out to Honor to confirm the rollout of the above-mentioned update, and its changelog.

Honor Play specifications

The Honor Play is available in India on Amazon and the HiHonorStore in Midnight Black and Navy Blue colour options. The dual-SIM (Nano) device runs EMUI 8.2, based on Android 8.1 Oreo, and sports a 6.3-inch full-HD+ (1080x2340 pixels) display with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and a display notch. It is powered by the top-end Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 970 SoC (four Cortex-A73 cores clocked at 2.36GHz and four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.8GHz), that's coupled either 4GB or 6GB of RAM. Internal storage is at 64GB, expandable via microSD card (up to 256GB) in a hybrid dual-SIM configuration.

It sports a dual rear camera setup, with the primary 16-megapixel sensor sporting an f/2.2 aperture, and the secondary 2-megapixel sensor sporting an f/2.4 aperture, complete with support for phase detection autofocus (PDAF) and accompanied by a single-LED flash. On the front, the Honor Play features a 16-megapixel sensor with an f/2.0 aperture.

The smartphone weighs 176 grams, and measures in at 157.91x74.27x7.48mm. It is powered by a 3750mAh battery. Connectivity options on the Honor Play include 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac (dual-band, 2.4GHz and 5GHz), Bluetooth v4.2, USB Type-C (v2.0), GPS/ A-GPS, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Sensors on board include an accelerometer, ambient light sensor, digital compass, gyroscope, and a proximity sensor. It bears a fingerprint rear on the rear panel.