Gaming on the go
Level up your game with Honor’s first gaming smartphone.
honoR Malaysia has launched a game-centric smartphone, the honor Play, aiming to cater to the burgeoning mobile games market.
honor Malaysia head Zhao Zhi Wei says the smartphone uses GPU Turbo to give it a 60% bump in performance, while running more efficiently, reducing SoC (System on Chip) energy consumption by 30%.
“This ensures it can deliver smooth 60fps (frames per second) video with less jitter than other gaming smartphones,” he claims.
For immersive gaming it uses histen 3D audio technology, which provides a 3D sound field for a cinematic experience that will also inform gamers where their enemies are coming from, he adds.
The software also supports headphones with 3D audio.
The third gaming feature is the AI-enabled Smart Shock 4D which vibrates the device like a console controller to simulate kickback from guns in shooting games.
The honor Play is powered by a huawei Kirin 970 processor – similar to the huawei P20 and nova 3 – and runs on Android 8.1 with the company’s eMUI user interface.
Speaking to the press after the launch at Sunway Pyramid, Zhao clarifies that GPU Turbo is optimised for a few titles, including Mobile Legends, a multiplayer online battle arena game, and PUBG Mobile, a battle royale shooting game.
The company says more titles will be made compatible soon.
The phablet-sized phone has a 6.3in full hD+ display with a 19.5:9 screen ratio and a notch on top.
For photography, it has dual rear cameras – 16 megapixels (f/2.2) and 2 megapixels (f/2.4) – and a 16-megapixel selfie camera.
Like other honor smartphones, the AI-enabled camera can add Bokeh effects, portrait lighting and is capable of recognising more than 500 scenes to ensure the right settings are used. The selfie camera can also be used to unlock the phone using facial recognition and there is also a fingerprint sensor on the back.
The honor Play packs a 3,750mAh battery with support for fast charging, and has a USB-C port and a 3.5mm audio jack.
It also has 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, which is expandable via the microSD card slot.
The smartphone has a metal unibody measuring 15.79 x 7.43 x 7.5cm and weighs 176g.
The honor Play will be available in two colours at launch – Ultra Violet and navy Blue – for RM1,249.