The dual camera setup might be expensive when you look at Huawei’s flagship device. A midrange device should address the cost issue of the Mate 9. That’s why GR5 is here. Stay tuned as we share Huawei GR5 Review.
Design & Build
Huawei has already perfected their craft in terms of designing their own devices. Whether in the flagship or in the midrange line up. The GR5 2017 has a metal body with a mix of high-quality plastic on the antenna band right on top and at the bottom. There are curves towards the edge including the corners which makes it nice to hold. On the front, while there is a 2.5G curved glass in place already, a screen protector is pre-installed already to add protection. There is a solid built to the device, however, it might easily slip off your hands because of the super fine finish. A transparent case will definitely help and improve the grip. It is also a lightweight piece of metal at only 162g
Display and UI
This device has a 5.5-inch display and has full HD resolution. The display is bright and clear and no viewing angle issues or anything that will degrade the display.
Apps icon are installed on the home screen. There is app drawer, therefore, you have to customize it yourself. Organizing it thru a folder. A theme app is pre-installed in case you want to change the mood of your device. There is a slew of pre-installed apps as well. But with 32G of built-in storage, you won’t mind it any longer.
Camera
This year will be the year of the dual cameras, both in front and on the rear. The GR5 2017 is equipped with two cameras in the rear. This was inherited from the Honor 6.
The advantage of this year’s model is the addition of a slew of other camera modes. The pro photo and video (manual) and the on-camera image adjustment are nice to have for photography enthusiasts.
The camera that blurs the subject’s background requires post processing. The apertures widest opening is F0.95. F16 is the max, but at this setting, the blurred background will be gone.
Obtaining that blurred background is a two-step process. Shoot first and post process later.
Also, I’d like to note that there is a notable delay in seconds when switching to the second camera and back.
Here are raw samples commonly called as SOOC (straight out of the camera).
Battery & Performance
There is a 3,340mAH non-removable battery which is filled up thru a microUSB 2.0 port. You need almost 2 hours to fill up the whole thing.
Just like the Mate 9, the GR5 2017 has Huawei’s own chipset, a Kirin Kirin 655, Octa-Core CPU is in tandem with 3G RAM. Casual usage returns smooth operation and no lags were observed. The device, however, turns warm when using the camera. It does not overheat, though. A case would solve this issue.
Also, the dual SIM is a hybrid tray. Either you use two SIM cards or use the second slot for additional storage.
Conclusion
As expected, the GR5 2017 model has a great design and premium looks to it. It doesn’t feel cheap at all with all the curves and metal casing. What’s powering the device including the storage has been improved as well.
But I don’t know if it is just me, but the overall performance of the GR5 2015 is kind of lacking. Most especially on the dual camera setup. I experienced some slow switching in the dual camera setup, plus I can’t change the aspect ratio once switched to the second camera that blurs the background. It is defaulted to 4:3.
Official SRP of the GR5 2017 is P13,990 but right now they already reduced this to P11,990.
