Sleek, strong and stuffed with sensors

A SLEEK but affordable 4G smartphone with good cameras and strong performance, the Huawei GR5 is a reasonable buy for anyone looking for a phone in the medium-price range.

Its aluminium magnesium alloy body is strong but at 158 grams surprisingly light and the phone boasts a 5.5-inch Full HD display with 1920x1080 pixel resolution, which is very good for viewing HD video clips and high-resolution photos.

The smartphone is powered by Qualcomm MSM8939, alias Snapdragon 615, which is an octa-core processor with four cores running at 1.5GHz and four others at 1.2GHz. It runs on the Android 5.1 (Lollipop) operating system. My only gripe is that it has only two gigabytes of working memory or RAM though that should be enough for handling most apps. The phone has 16 GB of internal storage, which is expandable with a microSD card of up to 128 GB.

The GR5 supports LTE 4G connection and I tested it on TrueMove H’s LTE network. The connection speed was really fast, and I was able to quickly download and install apps, post photos to my Facebook wall and back up my images to Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage.

I measured the speed with Ookla speed test app and found that GR5 achieved a download speed of 56.71 Mbps and upload speed of 20.67 Mbps when I tested it at Laem Taen, a tourist destination near Chon Buri’s Bang Saen beach. Do note though that connection speeds may vary according to cell sites or your mobile phone operator.

The phone performed well during the test. Menus and touchscreen were responsive and applications ran smoothly.

Although relatively cheap, the GR5 comes with a useful fingerprint sensor, which runs on the efficient Fingerprint ID 2.0. You’ll find the touch-type fingerprint sensor behind the camera lens at the back.

I had no trouble difficulty scanning my fingerprint samples, which I then used to unlock the phone and launch various apps and functions. The fingerprint sensor was effective and fast. You need to first set a pin or password as a back-up, just in case you somehow cannot unlock the phone with your fingerprint.

The Fingerprint ID 2.0 lets you scan several fingers and use different fingers for launching different apps or functions. For example, I scanned and used my right index finger for unlocking the phone. I set my right middle finger for calling a contact, my left index finger for starting the camera app and my left middle finger for launching the Music app.

The fingerprint sensor also has several other functions, depending on the app being used. For example, you can touch it to shoot a photo or touch and hold to go back to the home screen. You can also touch and hold to answer an incoming call, slide up to the print sensor to show the most recent app and even switch off the alarm with another touch and hold movement.

I had fun sliding down on the fingerprint sensor to display the notification panel and double-touching then sliding up the scanner to clear and close the panel.

The GR5’s main camera has 13 megapixels and it uses a f/2.0 lens. Its front camera has 5 megapixels.

Shooting modes include auto, beauty, good food, Panorama, HDR, All-focus, and Best photo.

The Best photo is useful. The camera will take multiple shots for you to choose the best one. The All-focus mode lets you take the photos first and select the focus later. The beauty mode lets you choose between a Perfect selfie or standard beauty. If you choose the Perfect selfie, the front camera will activate automatically and your selfie shots will be beautified with the camera’s app.

The GR5 has a large battery of 3,000 mAh that can survive a day of heavy use. The GR5 is available in gold, white and black and retails for Bt8,990.

 

Key Specs

- Operation System: Android 5.1 (Lollipop)

- Network: 4G LTE: 700, 800, 850, 900, 1700, 1800, 100, 2300, 2500, 2600 MHz; 3G HSDPA 850, 900, 1900, 2100; GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900

- CPU: Qualcomm MSM8939™

- Memory: 2GB RAM 

- Storage: 16GB ROM

- Display: 5.5-inch FHD IPS capacity touch panel with 1920x1080 pixels

- GPS: GPS/AGPS/Glonass

- Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.1, WI-FI 802.11b/g/n, 2.4G

- Sensors: Fingerprint sensor, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor, Digital compass, Magnetometer

- Camera: 13 MP AF camera+5 MP FF camera

- Dimensions: 151.3x76.3x8.15mm

- Weight: 158g