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During IFA this year we have seen a surprising number of phone releases with the two notable ones being the Huawei Mate 20 lite and Honor Play. While they are technically owned by the same company there seems to be a growing divide between the two brands and both of these phones make for an interesting comparison as they share some similar specifications while having some glaring differences. But which is the best phone?
The Honor Play is certainly the one that immediately seems like the most appealing, you get the flagship Kirin 970 from last year (now superseded by the Kirin 980) for an absolutely insane price of just £279.99. To put this into perspective, this is the same SoC found in the P20 which retails for over £470 or it is comparable to the SoC found in the Samsung Galaxy S9 which costs £700.
In comparison, the Huawei Mate 20 Lite costs quite a bit more at £379 though still affordable, the SoC is one level down but it is this years version. The octo-core A73 processor runs with almost the same specification as the CPU on the Kirin 970, but the main difference is the GPU with the Hisilicon Kirin 710 using the Mali-G51 MP4 and the 970 using the Mali-G72 MP12. So if you are a gamer then more affordable Honor Play may be the better option.
However, if you are more into photography then the Mate 20 Lite has a quad camera set-up with 20 MP, f/1.8, PDAF & 2 MP camera on the rear with a 24MP & 2MP camera on the front. This means this will be considerably better than the Honor Play for selfies.
Once you move away from the camera and SoC differences everything becomes largely the same. Both phones are 6.3 inches running at 1080 x 2340 pixel IPS display and a notch. They have the same memory and battery configuration with 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage upgradable with microSD and 3750mAh batteries.
Overall both phones make a great choice for anyone looking for an affordable phone with near flagship features and performance. I think it is quite difficult to overlook the price differences though, at £279 the Honor Play represents amazing value and I think there is a huge market of users wanting phones in the £250-300 price bracket. I regularly have friends asking for phone recommendations under £300.
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