Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 Unboxing and First Impressions

Huawei makes smartphones in wide range of budget/lower and upper-lower range, mid-range and then lower/upper classes in the mid-range segment, then the high-end and upper high-end devices. That’s quite a wide set of sequential ranges a company could offer

Huawei, though in top three companies, is probably the only smartphone maker which is making a lot of device every year for all segments of customers. This year Huawei brought the budget Y5 Prime to the market with a little improved design from its predecessor.

The new Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 costs PKR 15,500/- in Pakistan and replaces the last year’s Huawei Y5 2017. The new model has features like fullview display with 18:9 aspect ratio. The phone runs Android 8.1 Oreo and comes with 2GB of RAM along with 1.5GHz Quad-Core processor in a newer MediaTek chipset. Well that’s quite an upgrade from from last year’s Y5 in pretty much similar price.

Retail Package and Unboxing

New Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 comes in a white box with pop-out way that usually Huawei ships most of its smartphones in. This box style is pretty common among many other manufacturers. You get pretty much standard items in the box – the charger, the USB cable and the earphones along with the phone itself.

• The Device: Huawei Y5 Prime 2018
• 5V/1A Charger
• microUSB cable for connectivity and charging
• Earphones with 3.5mm pin
• User Guide and Warranty Card
• Add-on screen protector plastic
• Free Zong 4G internet

Like older Y5, Huawei kept from shipping an add-on back cover in retail box of Y5 Prime this year too. So you might need to buy it additionally if you want.

Quick Features

Looks like the new full-view display is now a compulsory feature for any smartphone no matter if it’s a budget phone. The top and bottom bezels are also reduced in Y5 Prime 2018 to make more room for the display, which now is wider 18:9 and supports HD+ resolution. That’s the first impression it gives but still the glass is flat to the edges – it’s not 2.5D curved glass.

If it doesn’t look like a budget phone then it also won’t look like better than a mid-ranger. Sure it stands out if put together with the older Y5 2018.

Design

Unlike the predecessor, the Y5 Prime 2018 does not have a removable back cover. But truly it was already not useful in the old Y5 to have a removable back cover as the battery was fixed inside. A removable back cover, only for the SIM card or memory card replacement, is really not better than having an in-body ejectable tray with a two SIM card slots and a dedicated microSD card slot. So definitely it’s good to go with Y5 Prime 2018.

The design is much similar to other mid-range devices from Huawei including the recent Y7 Prime 2018. The new Y5 Prime 2018 has enough to impress old buyers of the predecessor only from its looks. I am yet giving any inside performance detail which will be shared in a later review.

Hardware

As told above, Huawei Y5 Prime 2018 has some upgrades over the last year’s Y5 – Y5 Prime 2018 is improved a bit on chipset and comes with MediaTek MT6739 instead of the old MT6737 in Y5 2017. The phone’s 2GB RAM is also an upgrade to previous 1GB. The GPU is now PowerVR GE8100 which is newer but is clocked at lower speed.

It now has a 13-megapixel rear camera but 5MP camera remains intact on the front. But in a quick first tes, I didn’t find both of them any better than before.

The phone has 720p display with added pixels to the other dimension to make it HD+ resolution of 1440 x 720 pixels. This 18:9 display doesn’t cut the bezels out really well as the two, on the top and on the bottom still not that minimal as they were on Y7 Prime. So be it with a budget phone.

Y5 Prime 2018 gives you Android 8.1 Oreo software out-of-the-box. Battery gets a little bump from the old 3000 to 3020 mAh capacity. It’s up to the software optimization how well the battery lives up to the usage.

That’s the first look through the budget smartphone, keep an eye on the review coming in a couple of days.