Pocophone F1 vs Honor Play : Who is the winner

The Participants

The Pocophone F1 is one of the most disruptive phones in an extensive time. It doesn’t have any foolish new game-changing features, but it offers honestly flagship specs at a very inexpensive price. Specifically, the base model — which costs around $300 — provides a Snapdragon 845 SoC, 64GB of storing, 6GB of RAM, and a 4,000mAh battery. Even more imposing, it does all of this without scrimping in any other big ways. As I supposed in my review, the Pocophone F1 really has a fairly decent camera for its price variety (particularly the 20MP front-facing lens), it uses the earpiece to generate a secondary speaker, and the build excellence — though plastic — is hardly bad.

Maybe they saved money on paying someone to come up with an improved name?

However, Pocophone is not the only smartphone assertive boundaries at a lower price point lately — this has really been something of a theme recently. We’ve seen mid-range devices complete more and more inspiring feats. The gap amongst the midrange and top end are closing fast, allowing brands like Honor to enjoy weighty success. In fact, you could say Honor is attractive much dominating the mid-range market accurate now, at least athwart much of Europe.

Pocophone is not the only smartphone to be aggressive the boundaries of what’s possible at a lower price point

One of its most new releases (the company seems to release a new phone every other week) perfectly demonstrates why.

Honor Play Gaming Suite

The Honor Play costs 239.99 pounds (~$315) here in the UK and boasts numerous of the same assistance as the Poco F1. The base model derives with 4GB of RAM and the company’s flagship (for a little bit longer at least) processor, the Kirin 970. It’s a souped-up 970, in theory, thanks to Honor and Huawei’s new “GPU Turbo technology,” which capacities to squeeze out even more performance through gaming.

You also get a double lens camera, decent build quality, and no obvious concessions. It also has a likewise sized 3750mAh battery.

Honor Play Camera

They’re both possible flagship challengers, but which is the greatest mid-range performance beast? Let’s twitch this Honor Play vs Pocophone F1 argument with the specs.

Performance

Honor Play Pocophone Specs

I’m starting this confrontation with the performance because I think that’s what most people are attentive in here, and it’s what actually stands out about these phones.

So, which would win in a fight?

The answer to that query is the Pocophone F1 — fairly easily. Apart from the detail that the Pocophone comes with larger RAM configurations (6GB or 8GB vs 4Gb or 6GB – the latter of which is only existing in some grounds for the Play), the Snapdragon 845 outstrips the Kirin 970.

Honor Play Pocophone Benchmarks

Firstly, the 970 is actually at least one incremental advancement behind the 845, more comparable to the Snapdragon 835. In fact, the 835 also outpaced the 970 for gaming and other GPU exhaustive tasks because its Adreno GPU is superior to Mali.

The Snapdragon 845 will outperform the Kirin 970

What about that GPU Turbo?

If you’re imagining the feature to make any actual difference in your day-to-day use, prepare for dissatisfaction. GPU Turbo basically allows the Honor Play’s chipset to antedate what’s going to be in upcoming scenes and thereby utilize its power more professionally. That’s cool and all, but it will only impact games exactly optimized for the involvement — currently just two titles (PUBG and Mobile Legends). Even in those games, the difference is actually quite minor, resulting in a little more frame rate constancy more than whatever else. Honor may have overhyped the feature a little.

GPU Turbo vs Snapdragon 845

The Pocophone’s liquid cooling system is more probable to make a big difference.

All of this is replicated in the real-world act. The benchmark scores for Pocophone F1 have been higher to those of the Honor Play (despite Honor’s best efforts to convince us otherwise) and I’ve also noticed to some extent better performance in games like Asphalt 9 and during GameCube emulation (which I tote don’t do btw).

Don’t get me incorrect, these are both inspiring performers and most people won’t notice much change. You can play pretty much the whole thing on the Play Store with more than suitable performance using even knowingly weaker devices.

Honor Play Pocophone Gaming

That’s why the whole tinkle around the Pocophone F1 is almost a little eccentric. People are over the moon to get the exact best specs conceivable on a $300 device, but eventually, why do they need them? If it’s just for arrogant rights, that’s cool, but why don’t people brag about their screen resolution or water confrontation rating?

The Pocophone F1 is a slight more performant… but so what?

    

If you’re only interested in performance, there’s an obvious winner watching at the Honor Play vs the Pocophone F1.

Build quality

So, this against is now heading in a dissimilar direction than I initially anticipated. The Pocophone F1 achieves a little improved, but so what?

The build class is a definite win for the Honor Play.

I said in my assessment I did not revulsion the plastic chassis of the Pocophone F1. In fact, I found the enterprise quite nice overall. However, the Pocophone positively does not stand up to the much more sustaining palm feel of the Honor Play, which has a lot to do with its matte metal design.

There’s nothing wrong with plastic

There’s nothing incorrect with plastic, but metal is nicer and it is more strong. I’ve already noticed some small areas where paint has come off of the Pocophone. The Honor Play is honestly understated for the most part, but I actually like the Play Edition which has more of a “gamer” appealing. It attracts oily remainder somewhat rotten, though.

Honor Play Pocophone Design

The Pocophone wins in a twosome of areas though. For one, it is splash resilient unlike the Play (no IP rating though). I also find the Play has a somewhat glossy screen — especially for a gaming phone — though it is superior at 6.3 inches vs. 6.18 inches.

It’s also worth stating some people have been reporting screen-bleeding problems with the Pocophone F1. I haven’t encountered this at all for myself, and the problem might be a little excessive on the web. It’s unclear just how extensive it is, and the bleeding doesn’t seem to worsen over time or be mainly visible during normal use.

Honor Play Pocophone Notch

It’s possible the Pocophone is facing some QA issues — something comparatively common for new hardware. Both devices originated with headphone jacks and fingerprint sensors.

Features and experience

Likewise, the Honor Play also has a slightly more packed under the top when it comes to features. In specific, it has a much more exciting camera.

On paper, the two setups aren’t that dissimilar. The Pocophone has a 12MP f/1.9 rear lens, backed up by a subordinate 5MP depth sensing lens, and a 20MP front-facing camera.

The Play temporarily has a 16MP f2.2 primary lens with a 2MP depth sensor and 16MP shooter around the front.

Honor Play Pocophone Cameras

That strength makes the Pocophone sound like the superior choice, but the companies have done very dissimilar things with those specs. The Pocophone F1 has a perfectly good camera capable of making some truly cool shots. It is contrasty, has great fullness, and only irregularly loses a little aspect when you zoom in. I would contend it manages to retain a little more detail than the Honor Play and has more reliable color reproduction even when you aren’t using the AI associate.

However, the Honor Play’s app is much improved, bringing a ton of exclusive features. They include things like the wonderful light painting and star stalking (which I talk about every time I look at Honor phones), as well as the compulsory pro mode, plenty of filters and belongings, and more.

The scene recognition has oversaturated the Honor pic, but it’s optimistic and punchy

What’s more, you also have the AI abilities of the Kirin 970, which uses scene gratitude to automatically alter locations like contrast and intensity for the best image of whatever is in the frame. The results are hit and failure, but I’ve noticed they have been receiving better and better. That’s mainly true of the portrait mode effects, which now kick in mechanically and actually create some attractive stunning shots under the right circumstances.

Honor Play Pocophone F1 Bottoms

To me then, the Honor Play victories in a camera shootout. It’s not that the camera is healthier — it sometimes makes images expression a little too warm — it just has more to play with and can put out superior images under ideal conditions. It’s a tough one, but I’d somewhat have the Play camera out of the two. It’s fun and stimulating, which is in keeping with Honor’s marketing this as a “lifestyle device.”

Software

The UI involvement is also a close call: the Honor Play has the unwelcome EMUI, while the Pocophone F1 brings us the similarly divisive MIUI. Neither is a contract breaker, but in this particular occurrence, MIUI is really the less obtrusive of the two (though I’m not a fan of how it handles multitasking). That said, the Honor Play also carries more sincerely useful features to its handset, which contains GPU Turbo, of course, better RAM optimization, and even some features for gamers, such as the aptitude to grab screenshots and turn off the onscreen steering buttons.

Honor Play Pocophone Software

Another disagreement facing Xiaomi lately is its latest practice of introducing ads into its OS.  This is something I’ve yet to meet myself, but reportedly some users have noticed ads popping up in pre-installed apps like the file boss, immediately after unlocking the phone, and now in the settings menu. They don’t look awfully invasive, but they eliminate that “new phone” feel a little, and it’s not great how Xiaomi silently snuck them in there. It certainly wins some points for Honor in this Honor Play vs Pocophone F1 showdown.

And the winner is…

These are both excessive phones given the pricing and specs. If you’re all around specs, the Pocophone F1 has a clear benefit. The Honor Play wins out in build superiority.

Honor Play vs Pocophone F1

However, I don’t need to stretch a wet “ooh they’re both good” kind of answer. If I had to buy one of these phones, I’d maybe pick the Honor Play. For me, camera and physique are just more important than pure gaming act, and it feels like a slightly more complete package. It also sensations a little less risky, given that Pocophone is a new sub-brand and has some kinks to iron out.

I think this will be right for most people, excepting gamers, who position to gain the most from the superior GPU performance and less glossy screen of the Pocophone F1.