Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 REVIEW: How Good Is This Budget Phone?

Huawei really produces budget phones, but the Chinese manufacturer is not very successful in this category. The most affordable series of smartphones from the company is Huawei Y. The price of the cheapest device starts from $90.

Today I want to talk in detail about new smartphone called Huawei Y5 Prime 2018. The smartphone literally just went on sale, so before you will run to buy it, we need to discuss specifications, as well as advantages and disadvantages.

In addition, Huawei Y5 Prime 2017 has many competitors, although today we compare it only with Xiaomi Redmi 6A. It is also recently went on sale, and it has the same price. But what about specs and features? Which one is better? What can you demand from the smartphone that costs only $100? Probably not very much, is not it? We will try to find out it in this review.

Where to buy Huawei Y5 Prime 2018?

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Huawei Y5 Prime 2018: Design

New Huawei smartphone has a simple plastic body with metal frame, as well as tempered glass on the front panel, which protects the display. The bezels around the display are not very small, but it is good for $100. For example, Redmi 6A has almost the same bezels, maybe even a little bigger.

As for the front panel, we should note that it doesn’t have 2.5D glass, so the edges are not rounded.

As for the built-quality, the plastic is really good. In some cases the plastic body is even better than metal. Also it is cheaper, which is very important for budget smartphone. Nevertheless, the Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 looks good, but it doesn’t offer something special. It has just good design and built-quality, nothing more.

Huawei Y5 Prime 2018: Display

The screen diagonal of Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 is 5.45 inches. It is a new favorite size among smartphone manufacturers. The resolution is also standard for budget devices- it’s HD+ 1440×720 pixels.

The screen itself is not bad. It has good color rendition, but not the best brightness – about 350 nits. At the same time, the minimum brightness is excellent – only 2 nits. It is great for reading at night. Aspect ratio of the display is 18:9, so we have a FullView display.

Huawei Y5 Prime 2018: Camera

The smartphone has 13MP main camera and 5MP front one. They make nice photos in good lighting conditions. There is only one sensor on the back, so you don’t have portrait mode or bokeh effect.

Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 Full Review: one of the most budget smartphones

Huawei Y5 Prime 2018: Sound

Also we should talk about speaker and microphone. There are only one piece of them, which is not very good. One microphone does not cope well with noises, so in public places the interlocutor will hear the whole palette of sounds and not necessarily the voice of the speaker.

The speaker is even worse, since there is only conversational speaker above the display. It is used for calls and multimedia. Because of this, the sound is poor quality, very quiet and flat. It will be very hard to listen to music or watch a movie on a smartphone without headphones.

Huawei Y5 Prime 2018: Performance

The smartphone has entry-level processor. It is quad-core chipset Mediatek MT6739 with a clock speed of 1.5 GHz. Fortunately, the last processors from Mediatek uses PowerVR graphics, instead of Mali. It is a little better for gaming performance. However, you should undestand that Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 is not a gaming phone. It will not run latest Android games, such as Asphalt 9.

2GB of RAM provides good multitasking, while 16GB of internal memory will be enough for storing personal files.

Huawei Y5 Prime 2018: Battery

A small disadvantage of this phone is 3020mAh battery. This is enough for one day of active use. Xiaomi Redmi 6A is also equipped with 3000mAh battery, but its technical process of the chipset is 2.5 times smaller, which has a positive effect on battery life.

Huawei Y5 Prime 2018: Specifications

Colors: black, blue, gold;
Body: tempered glass and plastic, metal frame;
Display: 5.45-inch IPS-panel with a resolution of 1440×720 pixels, format 18: 9, brightness 350 nits, contrast ratio 1000: 1, density of points 295 ppi, occupies 74% of the front panel;
Processor: Mediatek MT6739, 4-core, Cortex-A53 cores with frequency up to 1.5 GHz, 64-bit, technical process 28 nanometers;
Graphics: PowerVR Ge8100 with a frequency of 570 MHz;
Operational: 2GB LPDDR3, 1х667 MHz;
Storage: 16GB eMMC 5.1 + memory card;
Main camera: 13 MP sensor, f / 2.2 aperture, autofocus, backlight, video recording at 1080p @ 30 fps;
Self-camera: 5 MP, aperture f / 2.2, face recognition;
Fingerprint reader: not available;
Wi-Fi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac and Bluetooth 4.0, micro USB 2.0, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS;
SIM: micro-SIM, work in Dual SIM mode dual stand by;
Modem with LTE Cat 4 support, transmission speed up to 150 Mbps;
Battery: 3020 mAh;
OS version: Android 8.0 Oreo and proprietary EMUI 8 shell;
Antutu: 45,000 points;
Dimensions: 70.9 x 146.5 x 8.3 mm;
Weight: 145 grams;
Prices: from 105 $.

Huawei Y5 Prime 2018: Price and release date

The smartphone is already on sale, so it is very easy to buy. The price in Chinese online stores starts from $120, but you can find even cheaper – about $106. Given specifications and features, you should not pay more than $110 for this phone.

Huawei Y5 Prime 2018: comparison with Xiaomi Redmi 6A

We decided to compare Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 with Xiaomi Redmi 6A is only because they have the same price category and similar specifications. Naturally, Redmi 6A is far from perfect, but the smartphone looks even better than Huawei new phone. You can compare specifications of both smartphones.

Redmi 6A: Specifications

Colors: pink, gray, blue, gold;
Body: tempered glass, plastic;
Display: 5.45-inch IPS-panel with a resolution of 1440×720 pixels, format 18: 9, brightness 400 nits, contrast 1000: 1, density of points 295 ppi, occupies 73% of the front panel;
Processor: Mediatek Helio A22, 4-core, core Cortex-A53 with a frequency of up to 2 GHz, 64-bit, the process technology of 12 nanometers;
Graphics: PowerVR Ge8300 with a frequency of 550 MHz;
Operational: 2/3/4 GB LPDDR3, 1×933 MHz;
Storage: 16/32/64 GB eMMC 5.1 + memory card;
Main camera: 13 MP sensor, f / 2.2 aperture, phase autofocus, electronic stabilization, backlight, video recording at 1080p @ 30 fps;
Self-camera: 5 MP, aperture f / 2.2, face recognition;
Fingerprint reader: not available;
Wi-Fi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac and Bluetooth 4.2, micro USB 2.0, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou;
SIM: micro-SIM, work in Dual SIM mode dual stand by;
Modem with LTE Cat 4 support, transmission speed up to 150 Mbps;
Battery: 3000 mAh;
OS version: Android 8.1 Oreo and proprietary shell MIUI 9;
Antutu: 55,000 points;
Dimensions: 71.5 x 147.5 x 8.3 mm;
Weight: 145 grams;
Prices: from $110.

Redmi 6A: Pros

Powerful processor and more memory. In addition, Mediatek Helio A22 is more productive by about 50% compared to Mediatek MT6739. Xiaomi Redmi 6A is available in different models: 3/4 GB of RAM and 32/64 GB of ROM;
Better camera. The camera sensors of both smartphones have 13MP resolution, but in terms of quality, the photo of Redmi 6A are much better, since Xiaomi made a great job with software. Moreover, Redmi 6A has electronic video stabilization;
Battery life. Redmi 6A has a similar battery capacity, but due to more than 2 times smaller process technology (12 nm versus 28 nm), Helio A22 processor consumes less energy. With a lower battery capacity, Redmi 6A will be able to work about 25% longer.

Redmi 6A: Cons

Completely made of plastic. The smartphone does not look like metal, as Huawei smartphone. In general, Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 looks more expensive, than Redmi 6A.

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Of course, Xiaomi Redmi 6A is more expensive, but it also has more advantages, such as hardware and camera. However, if you do not like Xiaomi or MIUI, then Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 will be a good option for you.