Review: Huawei Y3 II and Y5 II

Huawei Corp. who recently won the award for ‘Best Smartphone Brand in Africa,’ at the DIAA 2016, earlier this year in April announced the Huawei Y3 II and Huawei Y5 II to their Y-series generation of smartphones collections, which were made available in Uganda in July, during an exhibition held at the 5th Daily Monitor Thought Leaders Forum.

Jean Baguma; Marketing Manager at Huawei Device Uganda commented that the, the company continues to develop innovations, advanced technology, outstanding features and strong functionality based on customer needs with an aim of enhancing their experiences and creating maximum value on every single device.

The company pointed out that the two entry-level smartphones (Y3 II and Y5 II) are primarily meant for that first-time smartphone owners, or to that person that is upgrading from a feature phone to a smartphone and as well are meant for that person on a budget but would like a quick.

The phones have great features that are really meant for first-time smartphone owners. I might add that the Huawei Y3 II looks like the Huawei Y330 while the Huawei Y5 II resembles the Huawei P9. However, after a thorough testing of both smartphones, here’s our review:

Display
Huawei Y3 II features a smaller 4.5 inch FWVGA screen as compared to Y5 II that comes with a 5.0 inch HD display. The Huawei Y3 II’s 4.5 inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen show has 218 ppi of pixels thickness that gives the 854 x 480 pixels of screen resolutions. The Huawei Y5 II’s 5.0 inch of IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen show has 294 ppi of pixels thickness which gives the 1280 x 720 pixels of presentation resolutions.

On the front, the proximity sensor are present at the top front and on the bottom has nothing but Huawei mark, and the function keys are placed inside the Y5 II display panel while the Y3 II function keys were still left outside with the Huawei mark seen at the top just below the speaker.

Hardware
We did get a black Huawei Y3 II and a white Huawei Y5 II, but the phones also come in different colors including; Gold, Rose Pink, Sky Blue but only available in Black and White colors in Uganda.

The only buttons on the smartphones are the ‘Power Button and Volume Buttons’, ‘Easy Key Button’ which appear at the right side and left side of the phone respectively which comfortable enough to use and easier to locate by touch.

Both smartphone have a dual sim option and come with a 1GB RAM including 8GB internal memory that can further be expandable up to 32 GB with the microSD card and powered by a quad-core processor which is a good news for average smartphone owners.

Interface
When press on the power button, the phones start with the lock screen, time and date visible on the top of the lock screen for the Y5 II and bottom left for the Y3 II, and by default camera shortcut is present right bottom of screen user can use camera without opening the lock screen.

Slide as preferred to unlock the screen, attractive icons wait for you. The Smartphone has built in Google search bar on the top of the front screen stunning icons are optimized.

Drop down menu divide into two parts one is notification menu and other is shortcut menu.

Camera
Huawei Y3 II sports a 5MP rear camera and 2 megapixel front camera while the Huawei Y5 II comes with an 8MP rear camera and 2 megapixel front camera with flash.The Y5 II front camera comes with a flash adding a new dimension for selfies. And on the other side, the video camera can record 1080p videos at 30 frame per second.

Battery:
Huawei Y3 II Li-Po 2,100mAh and the Y5 II Li-Po 2,200mAh removable batteries provide better battery performance. The Smartphone battery performance calculate on its usage, the more you use the phone for playing games, web browsing, social messaging and use of 4G, more battery performance will be drained/consume yet it can work for all day long if you use 3G network for 4 hours daily.

Most first time smartphone owners would really want to use these phones to their fullest, since probably they’ve heard of their friends who own these phones and use them for social messaging, gaming, web browsing, to name a few,  they would really also want to use it for such activities, which will really be draining their batteries so fast.

Connectivity
Both phones are 4G supported devices, you can enjoy 4G network with them. They grant a facility of Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth v4.0 and have a built in function of Hotspot where users can share his mobile data with other users or perhaps on their other gadgets like laptops, tablets and so forth.

However, both smartphones don’t support NFC while the wired connectivity is handled by a microUSB of 2.0 which is used to transfer data to other devices.

What we liked

1. Just like any other Huawei smartphone, we really love the Ultra Power Saving mode for conserving what is left of the battery when you are running out of power, this can really save you when you need it the most.
2. We also loved the “EASY KEY BUTTON” which provides a shortcut to your designated application with a simple press, double-press or press-and- hold of which most smartphones don’t have.
3. The LED flash on the front camera, at least it’s in position to bring out a picture out of the dark (It’s a really good feature for the phone).

What we didn’t like

1. The battery life.
2. No notification LED.

Device Specs:

Both smartphones are affordable and available countrywide at all Huawei affiliated dealer shops and distributors, with retail prices ranging from 240,000 to 260,000 UGX for the Huawei Y3 II and 330,000 to 360,000 UGX for the Y5 II.

Finally
Huawei Uganda is set to release its latest Y-series entrant, the Huawei Y6 II, on Tuesday 4th October, 2016 at their head offices at Rwenzori Toweres, boasting as the only smartphone at the moment with unbeatable cut throat lightning speed in Uganda.

The Huawei Y6 II, with its premium features is targeted to the mid-range customer.