Huawei Y5 (2017): Full, in depth review

Name: Huawei Y5 (2017): Full, in depth review
Item: Huawei Y5 (2017): Full, in depth review
Rating: 2.00
Author: Fergus Halliday

Fergus Halliday

PC World

@Cvamped

21/09/17

Expert Rating

2.00 / 5

Pros

Easy Key
Camera is feature rich and decent for the price

Cons

Performance often drags
Mediocre battery life

Bottom Line

The Y5 is Huawei’s cheapest smartphone of the year, and it’s got the look, feel and performance to match that mantle.

Would you buy this?

Price
$ 199.00 (AUD)

Specs

The Huawei Y5 is an Android smartphone with a 5-inch IPS LCD display (720 x 1280 pixels) powered by a 1.4Ghz quad-core Mediatek MT6737T processor. The device comes with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of on-board storage, but is able to be expanded via MicroSD. It’s powered by a 3000mAh non-removable battery and runs on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) coated in Huawei’s own EMUI 4.1.

The Y5 features a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top-most edge of the device and a single MicroUSB port on the bottom. All told, it weighs about 150 grams and comes in five colors: Gold, Pink, Blue, White and Gray.

When it comes to the cameras, it’s got an 8-megapixel shooter (f/2.0) with autofocus and dual-LED flash on the back - matched by a 5-megapixel camera on the front, which boasts only a single LED flash and drops the autofocus.

Design

Design-wise, there aren’t too many surprises to be found in the Huawei Y5. It looks and feels like a dated but otherwise pretty conventional smartphone - with two exceptions. Firstly, it’s got a detachable textured plastic shell attached to the back. This design gives the Y5 with a pretty cheap feel-factor. Unfortunately, it makes the Y5 look right out of the mid-to-late 2000s when it comes to aesthetics.

Then, you’ve got the “Easy Key”. This extra button, located on the upper-left side of the device, can be customized as a shortcut to pull up an app of your choice. It’s a neat feature, even it's not entirely unique to the Y5, and doesn’t infringe on the device’s form-factor too much. However, it should be said that the potential of the Easy Key is kind-of going to rely on your ability to make use of it. You get out what you put in.