Thursday, October 29, 2020

Huawei Y7a First Impressions, Hands-On

Huawei officially launched its latest mid-ranger to the Y-series, the Y7a. Some of its notable features include a huge display, a HiSilicon Kirin 710A chip, a 48MP main camera, and a 5,000mAh battery with 22.5W Huawei SuperCharge. We finally got our hands-on with the device, and here are our initial thoughts about it.

Checking the device itself, it’s no doubt that the phone looks pretty and elegant. Our unit comes in Blush Gold, but it also comes in Midnight Black and Crush Green colorway. Honestly, without knowing the name of the colorway, we already thought it looks like a blush with its faint pink tinge in the middle. However, it’s prone to fingerprint smudges due to its glossy coat, so you might have to wipe it now and then. The body is made up of plastic, but it feels very premium and solid. It’s got a slim profile with curved edges that makes it comfortable to grip, and we also like that it comes with quite a heft to it.

Checking out its rear, we get the vertically-stacked 48MP AI quad-camera setup, along with the Huawei branding.

Upfront, we see a rather large dot notch in the middle of the screen that houses the rear camera and the call speaker and sensors on top of it.

We have the volume keys and the power/lock button acting as the fingerprint sensor on the right side. The buttons feel sturdy and have a tactile feel to it.

On the left side, we have the triple card slot for the dual nano-SIM and microSD card.

Here up top, we get a secondary microphone.

Down below, there’s the USB Type-C port, the primary microphone, the 3.5mm audio port, and the single speaker grille.

Onto the display, the Y7a sports a massive 6.67-inches Full HD+ IPS display with a resolution of 2400 x 1080. The screen looks great with punchy colors. It has an expansive screen real estate, so watching content on this device is immersive and enjoyable. The audio quality is subpar, but that’s typical for smartphones nowadays.

For internals, the Y7a is powered with HiSilicon Kirin 710A chip coupled with 4GB RAM, Mali G51 MP4 GPU, and 128GB storage. So far, everything is working fine and smoothly. We’d also like to note that the face recognition works even when we’re wearing a mask, which is a big plus right now since we’re in a pandemic, although it’s not as fast as the fingerprint scanner.

Apart from that, it also packs a massive 5,000mAh battery with 22.5W Huawei Supercharge. We’ve yet to test the device’s performance and gaming capabilities in our full review.

In the software department, the Y7a is running EMUI 10.1 based on Android 10. As we tell countless times, Huawei doesn’t use Google Mobile Services. But there’s the Huawei AppGallery and the Petal Search Widget to download all the apps you need.

For cameras, we get a quad rear camera setup consisting of a 48MP f/1.8 main, an 8MP f/2.4 120-degrees ultra-wide, a 2MP f/2.4 depth, and a 2MP f/2.4 macro. Meanwhile, for selfies, it comes with an 8MP f/2.0 one. Here are our sample shots.

For its price of PHP 8,999, the Huawei Y7a is a well-rounded device that comes with a pretty and classy design, good display, and capable internals to handle everyday tasks. We’ll find out more about this device in our full review, so be sure to watch out.

Huawei Y7a specs:
6.67-inches FHD+ (2400 x 1080) IPS display
Kirin 710A octa-core CPU
4GB RAM
128GB storage
Expandable up to 512GB via micro SD
Quad rear cameras
• 48MP f/1.8 main
• 8MP f/2.4 120-degrees ultra-wide
• 2MP f/2.4 depth
• 2MP f/2.4 macro
8MP f/2.0 front camera
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 5.1
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou
3.5mm headphone jack
In-display fingerprint scanner
5,000mAh battery W/ 22.5w SuperCharge
USB Type-C port
Huawei MeeTime
Huawei App Gallery
EMUI 10.1 (based on Android 10)
165.65 x 76.88 x 9.26 mm
206 g
Midnight Black, Crush Green, Blush Gold