Alongside Huawei’s announcement of the gargantuan Honor Note 8, the Chinese phone manufacturer also announced the significantly cheaper Honor 5 Play, the latest in the existing Honor 5 line of affordable phones, GizmoChina reports.
Created as the successor to 2014’s Honor 4 Play, the Honor 5 Play features a 5-inch, 1,280 x 720 resolution display, with a meager 2-megapixel camera above it and the 8MP main camera with dual-LED flash around back. Some features of the camera software include a self-timer and lighting up the screen in order to provide illumination in darker environments.
The Honor 5 Play also includes what is called Easy Key, which we assume is similar to the Samsung Galaxy S7 Active‘s convenience key, in that it might launch multiple applications through a short tap, long press, or a quick double-tap.
Under the hood, a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6735P chipset and 2GB RAM power the Honor 5 Play, with the 16GB of built-in storage augmentable by up to an additional 128GB through the MicroSD card slot. Elsewhere, the 2,200mAh battery might not seem like much, but thanks to the display and low-power chipset, it should keep the phone running throughout the day.
Unfortunately, the Honor 5 Play runs the aging Android Lollipop under the also-aging Emotion UI 3.1 Lite, Huawei’s own take on Google’s mobile operating system. Other odds and ends include dual-SIM support, Bluetooth 4.1, and 4G support, though the latter seems to only apply to one of the two SIM card slots.
The most impressive aspect of the Honor 5 Play, however, is its 599 yuan ($90) price tag. Seeing how the phone is geared for the Chinese market, it makes sense for Huawei to aggressively price the Honor 5 Play. Even so, with such a low price tag, the phone certainly punches well above its weight, at least on paper.
The Honor 5 Play will be available starting August 2 in black, white, and gold, though it is unknown whether the phone will make its way into other territories. The Honor 4 Play, its predecessor, did launch in places like India, so we would not be surprised if the Honor 5 Play spreads its wings after its initial launch.
