The Chinese tech giant, Huawei has been manufacturing mobile devices since 1997. The company is best known for creating significant impact in the mobile industry with its economical handsets and having 80,000 of its employees also as the shareholders of the company. Since early 2018, Huawei was launching various flagship devices comprising of edge-to-edge displays, and it was only a matter of time before these fancy looking displays trickled down to budget phones. Now, Huawei, in its dedication to bringing newer technologies at lower prices than its competitors, is doing the same with it’s newest offering — Huawei Y7 Prime (2018).
The 20,000 PKR phone comes with a narrow bezel FHD+ screen and is ready to make an impression on the budget smartphone category in Pakistan. Let’s take a look at how the phone performs in regards to its amazing price tag.
Key Specifications
- 5.99-inch (1440 x 720) Full-View display
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 with Octa-core processor (1.4 GHz, ARM Cortex-A53, 64-bit, 28 nm) and Adreno 505 graphics processor.
- 3 GB RAM with 32 GB internal storage (microSD card slot of up to 256 GB)
- Dual 13MP + 2MP primary camera with f/2.0 aperture and LED flash.
- 8 MP secondary camera with f/2.0 aperture and Face Unlock.
- EMUI 8.0 on the top Android 8.0 Oreo
Pros
- Taller edge to edge 18:9 Full view display.
- Face Unlock feature is fast though not as secure as iPhone X’s Face ID
- Dual rear cameras work fine and offer bokeh effect
- Sleek and stylish design
Cons
- Front shooter for the selfies is not as good as expected
- No fast charging support
- Still using the older micro USB port
Design and build quality
Huawei Y7 Prime (2018) has a premium build quality and the moment you lay hands on the phone, you will have a feeling that you are holding a flagship phone. The smartphone features a tall 18:9 aspect ratio and 5.9 inches of the bezel-less screen much similar to the challenging mid-ranger Mate 10 Lite, the smartphone gives a pretty amazing look at first glance. The smartphone’s front portion is clean and has a Huawei branding at the bottom.
The device looks super sleek and, even with nearly six inches of screen, is fairly manageable in the hand. The back of the device is a complete Aluminium slab. This is what gives Y7 Prime (2018) the flagship feel as this isn’t something which is found in the budget smartphone genre.
The dual cameras are placed at the top corner of the rear on the phone with fingerprint sensor lying on the back, in the central upper part. The overall look of the device is very sleek and features a smart piece of hardware. It’s not common to see such things in this price range.
The placement of buttons is pretty standard for a smartphone. The power button is on the right side of the device and the volume buttons are above the power button. Using the buttons, I could easily say they are tactile and easy to reach with the narrow frame of the device.
Display
Huawei Y7 Prime (2018) has a display that is unmatched looking at the price of the smartphone. 18:9 ratio with a 720p display is one of the main attractions and most of the phones in this budget are not even close to the looks of it. The smartphone emits a bezel-less look at the first glance.
Camera
Huawei is touting the fact that this phone has three cameras in this price range, and frankly, Huawei does get boasting rights for the camera of this device after managing to install dual camera setups on the back of this device.
The quality of pictures taken from both the front and back camera certainly live up to the expectations. The pictures come out looking pretty good in most conditions. They have good colors and the post-processing doesn’t seem to add much noise after the picture has been taken.The images below are taken from the Huawei Y7 Prime(2018);
The portrait mode works fine most of the time in good lighting conditions but it does make a mess of edges if there is not a lot of contrast between the object and the background.
Software
Huawei Y7 Prime (2018) is shipping with Android 8.0 based on EMUI 8.0 out of the box. EMUI 8.0 is a very simple and lean version of Huawei’s custom Android skin.
It claims to be much lighter than other skins and the performance gains from the older versions of Huawei’s skins are clearly visible in day to day uses. There is no lag whatsoever when sifting through multitasking view or opening new applications.
Performance and Battery Life
Huawei has equipped the Y7 Prime (2018) with an Octa-core 1.4 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor. It is a budget processor and performs well according to its price. The Adreno 505 GPU is also adequate for the price range and runs most mid-level 3D games without any hiccups and issues.
There were no visible lag or performance hits while carrying out day to day tasks like opening/closing applications and multitasking a few tasks in the background. The benchmarks also show similar results with the scores lying in the middle of the spectrum. The Benchmarking results from Geekbench 4 application show better scores than some of Samsung’s old flagships. Screenshots attached below;
With a 3,000mAh battery, this phone provides a pretty decent battery life. It provides enough power to easily get through a day with moderate to heavy usage. I never experienced the phone dying before putting it on charge at the end of the day.
Verdict
When you go out to buy a smartphone, one of the most important things is measuring how much value does it provide for your money. If a phone is perfect in every sense and still costs way more than it should, it is not an intelligent purchase.
Huawei introduced the Huawei Mate 10 lite at the price of mid-range smartphones and now the company has gone an extra mile with Huawei Y7 Prime (2018). It’s asking price of nearly 20,000 PKR for this beautiful piece of hardware.
With this smartphone, you get a beautiful looking display, good performance, impressive design and excellent dual-setup cameras on the back. If you are a fan of big screens and want something which is still manageable in the hand, this might be the phone to look out for when you are in the market to get a new device.
Editor’s Note: TechJuice was provided with a brand new Huawei Y7 Prime (2018) courtesy of Huawei Pakistan. The author used the phone for a week and this review is based on one week’s usage of this phone. The views and opinion expressed in this review are solely based on the one-week usage of this phone and rest assured are unbiased.
First impression video of Huawei Y7 Prime (2018), posted at the time of the phone’s launch:
https://www.facebook.com/techjuicepk/videos/1415620541875798/
