The Honor Play 3 is the second new phone that the
brand unveiled today (the other being the Honor 20S). It’s an entry-level
device with a 48MP sensor in its triple camera and 4,000mAh in its battery. The 48MP sensor sits behind an
f/1.8 lens and is joined by an 8MP ultra wide camera with 120° field of view.
The third module is a depth sensor. The punch hole selfie camera packs an 8MP
sensor.
It’s surrounded by the 6.39” IPS LCD with 720 x
1,560px resolution. The screen is guarded by an unbranded scratch-resistant
aluminosilicate glass. The official numbers claim 90% screen to body ratio, in
part because Honor managed to reduce the size of the punch hole by 30% to
4.5mm.
The Honor Play 3 is powered by the Kirin 710F
chipset with four Cortex-A73 cores and four A53, plus a Mali-G51 MP4 GPU. The
base configuration has 4GB of RAM and 64GB storage, but the options are strange
– you can have 6GB of RAM with 64GB storage or 4GB of RAM and 128GB storage.
There’s a microSD card slot, so you can have the best of both worlds, but we
still feel that a 6/128GB version would have made more sense.
Anyway, the phone has a 4,000mAh battery with 10W
charging, which needs 2 hours 30 minutes to fill the battery completely.
Unfortunately, the phone has a microUSB port. Honor claims the phone is water
resistant, though it only shows an IP5x rating (meaning it’s dustproof). There
are three color options, all of them with an interesting triangular pattern on
the back.
The Honor Play 3 starts at CNY 1,000 for the 4/64GB
model (US$ 140/€125). Both the 6/64GB and 4/128GB versions cost the same –
CNY 1,300. Pre-orders will start on September 10 and the first units will be
shipped starting on September 17.
