The Honor Play10 is one of the cheapest phones on the market at under $100, but it’s also one of the best values for your money! This phone really holds its own in the budget category, and if you stick with me to the end of the review, you’ll see exactly why it’s so worth it.
Design
You can get the Honor Play10 in three colors: Midnight Black, Ocean Cyan, and Starry Purple. Right now I have the Ocean Cyan version in my hands. There’s also this feather like pattern on the back panel of the green and purple versions, which reminds me of the Infinix Hot 70, Realme C71, and Realme C85 Pro.
Up on the top left, there’s a camera lens inside a square island, right next to an LED flash. The camera bump is really minimal. Down at the bottom is the Honor logo. The design of this phone is super pretty in all its simplicity.
It’s 8.6mm thick and weighs 189 grams, which isn’t very heavy, and when you’re using this phone, you don’t get the feel of a heavy device at all.
The body and frame are plastic, which is totally normal for its price range. On the right side of the frame, you have the volume rockers and the power button, and this power button doubles as a fingerprint scanner that works okay. Plus, this phone is resistant to water splashes and dust.
Another important thing is that there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack at the bottom of the phone so you can use wired earphones or a microphone.
Display & Audio
Interestingly, the Honor Play10 has a 90Hz display in this price range, and its 6.74 inch panel is TFT LCD. The resolution is 720×1600 with a pixel density of 260 ppi.
The bezels on this screen are pretty huge. Of course, we see these large bezels on most budget phones, let alone this one which is an entry level device.
As I mentioned, the refresh rate is 90Hz, dynamically switching between 60Hz and 90Hz. That means when you’re using the phone and your finger is on the screen, it’s at 90Hz, and when you take your finger off the display, it drops to 60Hz, which is really nice.
Its max brightness in indoor environments is very good, and it really won’t bother you much under direct sunlight either.
The phone has a single mono speaker that doesn’t get very loud, and you can definitely notice the sound distortion. I can say its performance is just very average.
Performance
The Honor Play10 uses the Mediatek Helio G81. It’s a low end chip and not powerful at all. However, considering its price point, it’s one of the best you can find in this category. And this very chip makes the phone run smoothly without bothering you too much.
I played Call of Duty on this phone and saw a max of 40fps on Low graphics. I noticed some lag and occasional freezing during the game, but hey, let’s be honest, this phone wasn’t built for gaming at all.
The Honor Play10 comes with 3GB or 4GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of storage, which you can expand with a microSD card (using a shared SIM slot).
On the software side, it runs Android 15 (Go edition). You might not have seen this Go Edition on other phones and might not know what it is. Android has a simpler and lighter version that’s optimized for budget phones.
Battery & Charging
This phone is really good when it comes to battery life. The Honor Play10 has a 5000mAh battery. In my tests, an hour of Call of Duty drained 13%, an hour of web browsing took 8%, and an hour of watching YouTube videos also drained 8%. Though I should mention I tested this on Wi-Fi, and if you want to use it with mobile data, the consumption will go up a bit.
There’s a 10W fast charger and a clear case right in the box, so you don’t need to buy those separately. With this adapter, it gets to 20% in 30 minutes, roughly 50% in 70 minutes, and it takes about two and a half hours to fully charge. The charging speed isn’t fast by any means, but the battery life is acceptable.
Camera
This is where the Honor Play10 performed better than I expected, and it was genuinely interesting to me. Before testing the camera, I thought it would just take some low quality photos since it’s an entry level phone, but for its price, and I really want to emphasize for its price, it surprised me because the performance was better than my expectations.
On the back of the Honor Play10, it only has a 13MP camera with an f/2.2 aperture. Up front, there’s a 5MP selfie camera that also has an f/2.2 aperture.
Considering the phone’s price, the level of detail in photos from the main camera is genuinely impressive. The image is sharp, the dynamic range is acceptable, and the photos have nice contrast too.
I think the selfie camera actually takes better pictures than the main one. It captures good details, the image is sharp, and the dynamic range is decent, though its weakness shows up in places where the light intensity is too high. You’ll see noise in almost all of its photos, but then again, we see this much noise even in much more expensive phones.
In low light and at night, the performance naturally drops. When shooting with the main camera, which doesn’t even have a night mode, image noise gets high and the level of detail is low. But still, if the lighting conditions are okay, it captures usable photos.
The selfie camera has a similar performance to the main camera at night, and I really can’t find a major flaw with it since I’ve seen way worse night selfies on much pricier phones.
This phone maxes out at Full HD videos with its main camera, and it doesn’t have image stabilization. These 1080p 30fps videos have an acceptable level of detail, dynamic range, and sharpness.
Its 720p selfie videos during the day are pretty much like the main camera and they’re okay. Just don’t count on it at all for shooting video while moving around.
Filming at night with both the front and rear cameras is exactly like taking photos at night. The details drop and noise increases, but if you record in a well lit environment, the videos are actually usable.
Overall, if I had to give my thoughts on the Honor Play10’s camera, I’d say you shouldn’t expect flawless or extraordinary photos and videos from it. This is the cheapest, or rather one of the cheapest phones on the market. But for its price tag of under 100 bucks, the camera performance is genuinely good.
