The honor Play is Malaysia’s latest sub-RM1,250 gaming smartphone

Today, honor launched a rather fascinating smartphone that takes a different approach to the idea of a “gaming smartphone”. While it doesn’t look particularly gamer-y, the honor Play is actually the company’s first proper gaming smartphone — and it’s a gaming phone designed for the masses.

Price

The honor Play is priced at RM1,249 and it will be available for purchase at all authorised honor retailers, hihonor.com or Shopee from the 10th of August 2018. It will come in two colours: Navy Blue and Ultraviolet.

In the meantime, you can pre-order the honor Play from now until the 9th of August 2018 on both Shopee and hihonor.com. Those who do will receive a phone case worth RM49, a low-friction screen protector worth RM39, an RM60 PUBG Mobile voucher and an RM100 hihonor voucher or RM100 Shopee Coin (depending on where you pre-order). You will also stand a chance to win a trip to Germany to experience Gamescom 2018.

From the 10-12 of August, if you purchase the smartphone from hihonor.com, you will receive a screen protector, case, RM100 hihonor voucher and a PUBG Mobile voucher. You can also buy the honor Play from Shopee and receive the same goodies except the RM100 voucher.

Finally, honor revealed that the honor 10 and honor View10 will also receive the GPU Turbo update sometime this month so you can look forward to better gaming performance on these handsets.

Specs

The honor Play is meant for gaming so that means they couldn’t skimp on the specs. As a result, this handset is powered by a flagship-level Kirin 970 processor mated to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage — very similar to honor’s own flagship honor 10 with the exception of the smaller storage.

In front it features a 6.3-inch Full HD+ notched IPS display with slim bezels, pushing a resolution of 2340×1080 pixels. There’s also a 3750 mAh battery inside that charges via USB Type-C with support for fast-charging.

But that’s not all because honor also equipped the honor Play with their brand new GPU Turbo enhancement that can boost graphics performance on supported games like Mobile Legends and PUBG Mobile. There’s also an AI-enabled Smart Shock 4D that simulates a dual-shock vibration effect when you’re playing games.

For photography, the honor Play packs a 16MP f/2.2 + 2MP f/2.4 dual-camera setup at the back with AI features. There’s also a 16MP f/2.0 selfie shooter up front with 3D lighting effects.

The phone itself is made of metal and features a full metal body and a fingerprint scanner at the back. You can also enable face-unlock if you prefer that.

You can learn more about the honor Play by reading our hands-on and first impressions.