It has been a while since they last refreshed their sub-$100 lineup. A new phone was dropped in China today at a very low price. They are calling it the Honor Play 70C. There’s 4GB RAM and 64GB base storage here. And it runs everything on a Helio G81 Ultra chip.
This phone is made for very basic usage. The Play 70C cuts corners in almost every category to bring down that price tag. You’ve already heard the base storage and RAM. It’s 4GB with 64GB. Paying more will give you options with 4GB RAM + 128GB storage. There’s also a third 6GB + 128GB trim.
The display is also just a garden-variety 720p IPS LCD. It’s a 6.75” panel that can apparently push pixels at a 90Hz rate. It’s not as sharp, but the LCD will be smooth enough. No brightness figures were given for the Honor Play 70C.
We did find a notch on the screen where a 5MP selfie snapper is installed. If you are buying such a low-priced device, you should manage expectations as well. Honor has put the most basic hardware on this phone. And that also includes the chip.
The phone isn’t exactly built for performance with its Helio G81 Ultra. It’s a decent enough SoC for the price, and it gets the job done, as it runs almost everything an average user needs. If we are being technical here, it’s a 12nm platform with 2.0 GHz boost and Mali G52 GPU.
There’s only a 13MP main camera behind it. You can record 1080p 30 FPS videos from this lens. We won’t recommend doing it, but the phone does punch into the sensor for 10X digital zoom. Honor Play 70C doesn’t have the latest Android either.
You’ll be stuck with Android 15 (Magic OS 9) with no clear update path. The Play 70C is only 7.9mm thin and 186g. There’s a 5300mAh cell here. You can plug it into a 15W charger. The newcomer does not include a fingerprint reader, which is a reasonable trade-off for the base price of just $90 (~PKR 25,000).
