Huawei Y7P Review: A premium device in a budget?

We live at a time when smartphones are as essential as having a home. We use it to communicate with loved ones and friends, and get ourselves busy and entertained during this time of crisis. For most Filipinos, a healthy 4G internet connection and an affordable but capable smartphone are enough to get new updates from our government and keep updated about current events.

Huawei Y7P, the 10,000 pesos smartphone that Huawei introduced earlier this year promises a ton of good things from how unique its software ecosystem is and to how powerful it is despite its affordable price.

Today, we’re going out of our way to give you our different take in reviewing the Huawei Y7P. We’re listing down 7 things we loved about it, and a few things that Huawei might want to take note of to improve it.

Are you ready?

Design

Huawei Y7P exudes a hip and vibrant design. Its gradient colorway is unlike anything we’ve seen in the market. It’s a huge fingerprint magnet though, which is probably the only thing that l that I don’t like about its design. The included case easily gets dirty over time, so do keep in mind that you will need to wipe it off every now and then.

Ports and buttons are located in places that you normally see: volume keys and sleep/wake buttons are on the right side, while the SIM tray is placed at the left side. If you’re a big fan of Type-C ports, then you better get prepared to NOT see it in the Y7P. It rocks a dated Micro USB port, which can bum some people out, including myself.

The display is – if I may say – somewhat impressive for the price it offers. It does not have any AMOLED flair since it’s only IPS, but it’s good enough for taking a look at the photos or videos you took or even watch movies on Netflix. If you’re into mobile photography, though, the colors that are displayed on screen would not look the same on monitors with better display configurations and even on print. Tweak at post, if necessary.

Software

Audio

Audio is loud albeit lacking bass. However, if there is one thing I really love about this is that they didn’t get rid of the 3.5mm headphone jack.

For someone who loves listening to lofi tracks while relaxing or working, having this hardware option is pretty useful. The Huawei Histen features made me maximize HiFi headphones that I own. The feature allows me to simulate several sound stages that fit my preference.

The Music app supports .flac playback too, and if you’re accustomed to using music apps for your library, you can explore using other apps that you may download via other 3rd party applications.

Camera

Huawei Y7P is among the more affordable smartphones with triple-camera setups. That alone is something that really got us very happy at the onset. It is pretty packed with camera features too like Night, Portrait, Pro, Slow-mo, Panorama, Light painting, HDR, time-lapse, moving picture and stickers.

The software and even the processing of photos are powered by AI too, depending on what feature you’re going to use. It is very much hardworking when using Portrait mode, and with the right amount light when taking photos, you’ll be very much amazed with the quality of the photos you can take.

Performance

Huawei Y7P’s performance for its less than PhP10,000 price point is insanely good. I managed to play some of my favorite mobile games right now like Black Desert and Dragon Raja without problems at low settings. You can refer to my article above about how I managed to install these apps on this device. Games ran fluidly and without issues, which are good indications of its performance.

If you’re into numbers, it got almost 156K in Antutu and 932 in OpenGL FutureMark 3D benchmark apps. Based on our monitor, it bested Redmi Note 8 and just a few scores versus Realme’s products.

Battery

Huawei Y7P’s 4000mAh battery surprisingly lasted for more than 13 hours in a single charge at medium to high usage. It is an impressive feat, but I would have wanted it to go beyond that.

Price

Again, if we zip back to how much this price is – PhP9,990 is a sweet spot for those who are looking for a smartphone that can offer premium features. We, however, honestly think that Huawei can still price this a little lower. If they reprice this to PhP7,990, then we can see here a total winner, which can easily go against Realme 5.

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Founded in 2009 by Gian Viterbo, Gadget Pilipinas is one of Philippines’ top sources for news, tutorials, reviews and tips about the latest trends in technology, gadgets, games, social and digital media and cyber culture.