Huawei Y7a Review - Gen Z stunner, affordable feature packed smartphone
More than two weeks after its local launch, Huawei continuously impresses the Gen Z market with their latest smartphone, the Y7a.
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| Huawei Y7a |
As a quick overview, Huawei Y7a highlights a huge 6.67-inch 2.5D curved LCD (IPS) screen, 4GB RAM, 128GB internal storage, and a big 5,000mAh battery.
Spending quite a nice time with Huawei Y7a, we're now ready to share with your our full review! READ ON.
Multimedia Experience
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| Huge display |
For a Y-series smartphone, Huawei Y7a carries a huge display of 6.67-inch 2.5D curved LCD with FHD+ 2400 x 1080 resolution at 395 ppi. Even if it's not an AMOLED panel, the display is crisp, colors are vibrant, and are bright enough for outdoor use.
Also having a 1080p panel is considered a big bonus on phones priced under PHP 10K.
One of the most affordable with a top-center punch-hole FHD+ screen
It features both the eye and dark modes found in the settings. Huawei Y7a has 10 points of touch which translates to our real-life experience. The display is responsive, I can't remember having difficulty while touching or swiping.
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| Down-firing speaker |
The down-firing speaker is loud enough. It suits the price, but it isn't the cleanest around.
It sounds good up to 80 percent. The grain and minor distortion at 100 percent loudness are noticeable.
For Bluetooth audio, as long as you have good quality wireless earphones or headphones, you'll be able to enjoy it well.
Microphone recordings are clear and loud. It blocks noise nicely for a budget phone. The earspeaker works well too; it is decent for calls overall.
Camera
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| Quad rear cameras! |
As we all know, Huawei Y7a is equipped with quad rear cameras of 48MP f/1.8 + 8MP f/2.4 120-degree ultra-wide-angle + 2MP f/2.4 macro + 2MP f/2.4 depth with LED flash.
Its camera has the following in-app modes: photo, video, portrait, night, aperture, pro, slow-mo, panorama, light painting, HDR, time-lapse, moving picture (live), stickers, super macro, and high-res. It also has an AI mode.
The Pro Mode allows for manual control of ISO (50 to 3200), Shutter Speed (1/4000 to 30 seconds), AF, EV, and White Balance.
One feature that I really like about Huawei Y7a's camera is its ability to automatically take photos when the person smiles.
Rear Camera Samples
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| Outdoor daylight wide |
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| Outdoor daylight normal |
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| Outdoor daylight 3x |
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| Outdoor daylight 6x |
In daylight, Huawei Y7a can take beautiful photos with a generous amount of brightness, a good balance of contrast, and colors. I am overly satisfied with how the rear cameras delivered in this setting.
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| Indoor daylight wide |
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| Indoor daylight normal |
With a well-lit indoor setting, Huawei Y7a is able to produce images with plenty of details albeit wide or normal. It has strong contrast and nice colors.
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| Indoor close-up |
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| Macro (using aperture mode) |
For close-up shots, the images have plenty of details as well as accurate colors. The fall-off area is clean, too.
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| Outdoor lowlight |
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| Another outdoor lowlight |
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| Indoor low light |
We used the night mode of Huawei Y7a for the first two photos in this group of lowlight photos. As you can see, we're able to get beautiful photos with great sharpness and a generous amount of brightness given the challenging setting.
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| 8MP selfie camera |
For the selfie camera, the Y7a features a single 8MP front shooter. It has a beauty effect feature of up to level 10. It also has camera effects of circles, hearts, and discs.
Selfie Camera Samples
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| Outdoor daylight selfie |
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| Indoor daylight selfie |
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| Indoor portrait selfie |
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| Lowlight selfie |
For selfies, the 8MP front camera delivered well-lit selfies whether I am outside, indoors, or in a lowlight selfie. The selfies have plenty of details, accurate colors, and nice contrast.
Huawei Y7a can take up to 1080p videos, however, it has no EIS. The videos being taken might have noticeable shakiness.
Overall, Huawei Y7as rear and selfie cameras are great given the handset's price.
Performance
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| AnTuTu and Geekbench scores |
Inside the Huawei Y7a is the 14nm 2.0GHz Kirin 710A octa-core processor Mali-G51 GPU, 4GB RAM, and 128GB internal memory expandable via microSD card slot up to 512GB.
The device scored 160,562 in AnTuTu and 299 & 1321 in GeekBench's single-core and multi-core, respectively. These are decent scores for an under PHP 10K smartphone.
Kirin 710A is a good chip under PHP 10K
In games, we were able to load the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang at default graphics quality. Throughout the game, Huawei Y7a managed to stay cool as I play games, although I felt it warming up a bit after a few hours of straight gaming.
Overall, gaming with Huawei Y7a is pretty smooth and decent.
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| PCMark Performance and Battery Test scores |
In terms of battery, the Y7a's 5,000mAh battery can last for a total of 17 hours and 56 minutes according to our PCMark Battery Test. In real life usage, Huawei Y7a can sustain casual texting, calling, and surfing for almost two days! However, if you use it with a lot of gaming, it can last up to a day.
Big battery and SuperCharge for less!
Its 22.5W SuperCharge in-box charger can charge the 5,000mAh battery from flat to 100 percent in 1 hour or less.
Huawei Y7a connects via WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz), 700MHz 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.1 BLE, FM Radio, OTG, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS. Huawei Y7a is a dual SIM smartphone.
GPS acquires our location instantaneously and accurately.
Out of the box, the Huawei Y7a runs on EMUI 10.1 based Android 10 with a clean look and UI design. Icons and visuals look and feel modern while UI elements are easier to find and are intuitive to use.
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| EMUI |
One thing that I don't like about EMUI 10.1 is its bloatware. However, navigation is so easy, and multitasking is a breeze.
There are interesting features that we like such as taking a screenshot with a tap on the screen using your knuckle, two knuckle taps to prompt the screen record, Huawei AI assistant, and more!
As we all know, Huawei is no longer using Google Mobile Services. But they have built their very own Huawei AppGallery where users can download in-demand apps.
The Petal Search Widget allows users to install apps that are not yet available in the AppGallery. I installed Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and other apps using this feature.
Pros - Beautiful design, huge display, long battery life, good rear, and front cameras
Cons - No EIS, a few bloatwares
Huawei Y7a Specs
Display: 6.67-inch 2.5D curved LCD (IPS) screen w/ FHD+ 2400 x 1080 resolution at 395 ppi
CPU: 2.0GHz 14nm Kirin 710A octa-core processor
GPU: Mali-G51 MP4
RAM: 4GB
ROM: 128GB expandable via microSD card slot up to 512GB
Back Camera: 48MP f/1.8 + 8MP f/2.4 120-degree ultra-wide-angle + 2MP f/2.4 macro + 2MP f/2.4 depth + LED flash
Selfie Camera: 8MP f/2.0
Battery: 5,000mAh Li-Po w/ 22.5W fast charging
OS: Android 10 w/ EMUI 10.1
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz), 700MHz 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.1 BLE, FM Radio, OTG, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, dual SIM
Sensors: Accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic
Others: Fingerprint sensor, USB-C, Colors: Midnight Black, Crush Green, Blush Gold
Dimensions: 165.65 x 76.88 x 9.26 mm
Weight: 206 g
Price: PHP 8,999 (PHP 7,599 new SRP)
Verdict
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| Easily one of the prettiest handsets |
For PHP 8,999, Huawei Y7a has a lot to offer. This is one of the must-consider phones for Gen Zs and beyond at this price point.
We can't forget to reiterate how beautiful Huawei Y7a is! For us, it is easily one of the prettiest handsets we have around and the screen is big and crisp.
It is also one of the few with more than 22.5W of fast charging at this price point. Kirin 710A is reasonably responsive especially for an under PHP 10K smartphone as well.
For sure, you're thinking that not having Google Mobile Services is a downside of this smartphone, but we beg your pardon.
The Huawei App Gallery and Petal Search have a lot of apps to offer, even those that you think you can't install when you own a Huawei smartphone. It's not perfect, but having no Google is not the end of the world.
What do you guys think?
Build/Design - 4.75
Multimedia Experience - 4.5
Cameras - 4.5
Performance - 4.5
Average - 4.57/5
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