Huawei Y7 In-depth Hands-On

Huawei is set to launch one of its latest budget smartphones in the Philippines, the Huawei Y7. Ahead of that, we were able to get our hands on this device! Priced under PHP 7K, here’s a short spin on the device, including sample shots and benchmarks. Check it out!

Huawei’s budget smartphone, the Y7, comes in two colors, namely Aurora Purple and Midnight Black. The entire body of the smartphone is constructed with plastic; the rear is glossy and smooth to touch, while the frame holding the device together has a matte texture all over it. As it is made of plastic, the Y7 is pretty lightweight, although it feels sturdy, and it doesn’t flex. The rear of the Y7 is also curved, allowing its users to grip it comfortably.

Upfront, we get a 6.26-inch display, with an HD+ resolution. It comes with a notch that Huawei dubs as a Dewdrop notch, housing the 8MP front camera. The side bezels of the device are pretty slim, while the chin bezel is rather thick, with the Huawei logo printed across it.

Located on the upper right of the rear is the device’s dual-camera setup, composed of a 13MP shooter and a 2MP lens. The circular fingerprint scanner can also be found on the back of the device.

On the right sits the volume rocker and the power button. The placement is just right, and they’re both clicky and tactile.

Situated on the left side is the dual SIM tray, along with a dedicated microSD card slot. Users can expand the Y7 up to 512GB.

Up top, one can find the 3.5mm headphone jack and a microphone.

Placed at the bottom are the device’s single downward-firing speaker, another microphone disguised as a speaker grille, and the micro USB port.

The Huawei Y7 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 450, coupled with 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage. We ran the smartphone through a couple of benchmarks, and yielded the following results:

• AnTuTu – 91,241
• Geekbench – 149 (Single-core), 887 (Multi-core)
• PCMark – 4,537 (Work 2.0)
• 3DMark – 438 (SSE – OpenGL ES), 484 (SSE – Vulkan)
• AndroBench – 297.89 MB/s (Read), 178.57 MB/s (Write)

The Y7 has no problem in executing basic tasks such as navigation, web and social media browsing, news reading, productivity tasks, and the like. Although, do take caution when running several apps simultaneously in the background as it slows the phone down. When it comes to gaming, we tried out Asphalt 9, and while we were able to run it on the highest setting, frame drops did occur here and there, though.

We also took several sample shots with the Y7. Using the rear cameras, the Y7 takes pretty decent shots in daylight, with the colors looking quite natural. There’s ample detail as well. Portrait-wise, subject-background separation is present; the blurring around the edges could use some work, but it’s passable enough.

Selfie-wise, the colors appear to be a little washed out. Similar to the rear cameras, details are ample under natural lighting but could get muddy in low-light situations. As the camera app will default to the Beauty mode when taking selfies, the skin looks smooth and still quite natural; however, going past level 5 will result in overly-processed and flat shots.

Keeping the Y7 juiced up is a 4,000mAh battery with 10W charging support, and it runs on EMUI 8.2 based on Android 8 Oreo. The Huawei Y7 comes with the brand’s AppGallery out of the box. Additionally, unlike Huawei’s more recent smartphones, it also comes equipped with Google Mobile Services.

The Huawei Y7 is priced at PHP 6,990USD 119INR 10,098EUR 113CNY 867. Stay tuned for details on its local availability and release date.

Huawei Y7 specs:
6.26-inch HD+ (1520 x 720) Dewdrop display
Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 1.8GHz octa-core CPU
Adreno 506 GPU
4GB RAM
64GB storage
Up to 512GB via microSD
Dual-rear cameras: 13MP f/1.8 + 2MP
8MP front camera
Dual SIM
Dual 4G LTE, Dual voLTE
WiFi
Bluetooth
Rear-mounted fingerprint scanner
Face unlock
MicroUSB
EMUI 8.2 (Android 8 Oreo) w/ Huawei AppGallery
4,000mAh battery w. 10W charging support
158.92 x 76.91 x 8.1mm
168g
Aurora Purple, Midnight Black