The new Honor Play is business as usual for Huawei's under-brand. A marriage of surprisingly good specs, premium-esque design and a mid-range price tag is Honor's modus operandi, but the Play was created with a specific demographic in mind: The avid mobile gamer. While most phones are more than capable of running games, the Play has a couple of special features that are supposed to give you, the player, an advantage over the competition.
Gallery: Honor Play hands-on | 14 Photos
Gallery: Honor Play hands-on | 14 Photos
The first of these is called GPU Turbo, but you won't find this mentioned in any settings menu or performance-tweaking app. It's something that runs behind the scenes, but it isn't unique to the Play. The Honor 10 also has GPU Turbo built in, and a software update is going to add this hidden feature to some of the brand's other devices in the very near future. It's said to improve performance of the Honor Play's Kirin 970 processor by up to 60 percent and reduce power consumption by up to 30 percent. But Honor's arrived at these figures by comparing performance against the previous-gen Kirin 960, not the same Kirin 970 before the update, so they are pretty confusing statistics. What it's supposed to do for resource-intensive games, though, is to improve frame rate and keep it consistent.
The second feature designed to give you an edge is Huawei's Histen audio tech. This is something you do turn on in the settings, but as far as I can tell it only works with wired headphones. Strangely, there aren't any included in the box, but the combination of USB-C port and standard 3.5mm headphone jack means you're bound to have something lying around to plug in. There are various audio modes to switch between and it also asks you to specify what type (earbuds, over-ears, etc.) or even what specific Huawei model of earphones you're using, to personalize the profile accordingly.
The 3D surround sound setting is the important one here. In games where it's key to hear exactly what's going on around you like PUBG Mobile, this audio mode is supposed to improve your spatial awareness. So compared with regular stereo, the idea is you can pinpoint the direction of footsteps and gunfire a bit better, as well as the distance between you and a passing vehicle, etc.
The third special feature is specific to PUBG Mobile, though Honor says other games will be supported in the future. It's called "4D Smart Shock," and it makes the phone vibrate much in the same way a console gamepad does. It's situationally aware, too, so the vibration patterns are different depending on the gun you're firing, whether you have a silencer equipped, and how close you are to a grenade when it blows up and ends your game.
There are a couple of more general points about the phone that make it at least slightly better suited to games than other devices. The octa-core Kirin 970 chip was the best chip Huawei had to offer until all of five minutes ago. That said, it powers flagship phones like the P20 Pro, and there are no bottlenecks elsewhere with 4GB of RAM and 64 gigs of expandable storage to tap.
You also get a big 6.3-inch, full HD+ screen (2,340 x 1,080) to stare at, and the bigger the screen, the bigger the target. My first impression was this might be a double-edged sword -- the size and 176g weight (around 6.2 ounces) being a bit too unwieldy for serious play sessions -- but I quickly became comfortable with the dimension. A 3,750mAh battery means you don't need to worry about running out of juice too quickly, though the game you're playing, screen brightness, data requirements and the rest will of course affect rundown rates.
