I love visiting the Huawei Experience Store located at Shop No. 10 in Tropical Plaza Half-Way-Tree every other Thursday!!
It just seems that I am literally going both forward and backwards in time, rediscovering smartphones that were launched last year that still have so much to offer Jamaicans now slowly warming up to dual-SIM unlocked smartphones.
My latest reveal is for the Huawei GR5, also known as the Huawei Honor X 5, all is wrapped up nicely in its fire engine red packaging.
This is interesting, as I’d pointed out that the Huawei Honor 5C, a distant relative being launched in India, would be a hit in Jamaica as predicted in Huawei Honor 5C Made for India a Dual-SIM Caribbean Hit. Check out this ad from Huawei Indonesia’s YouTube channel listing out the various features of this honourable smartphone.
In fact, I’m predicting that the Huawei GR5 may find favour with a pro-photography Millennials in a manner similar to the Huawei Y5 as dissected in Huawei Y5 is a Smartphone Teenagers and Sports Fanatics will love.
So how does this Smartphone stack up against the others in the Huawei Experience Store where Earth meets sky?
Huawei GR5 – Octa-core Goodness with a brushed aluminium finish
Launched back in October 2015, the Huawei GR5 is a dual-SIM beauty that runs on Android OS 5.1.1 Lollipop which sets up an upgradable to Android OS 6.0.1 Marshmallow. The second SIM slot can actually be a Micro-SIM or Nano-SIM.
The package I reviewed comes with a microUSB charger as well as a pair of white headphones. Sorry smartphone fans, but no manual in this one but it does include the very easy-to-lose SIM Card removal pin!
The EMUI 4.0 is rendered beautifully on the 5.5″ IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen that has a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels.
It’s a full metal frame with a brushed aluminium finish that comes in the following colour options:
- White
- Black
- Gold
The Huawei GR5 has dimensions of 151.3 x 76.3 x 8.2 mm (5.96 x 3.00 x 0.32 in) and is a lot like the Huawei Mate 8 as noted in Huawei Mate 8 Review: The Whole Package.
It has power button and volume rocker on the right hand side, micro-SIM Card slots on the left.
It has an impressive speaker grille surrounding the microUSB port on the bottom and a headphone jack at the very top.
With a weight of 158 g (5.57 oz), it’s a little heavy for its size. The processor is an Octa-core that comes in two (2) configurations:
- 4×1.2 GHz Cortex-A53
- 4×1.5 GHz Cortex-A53)
There are also different RAM configurations, with the Internal Memory remaining the same:
- 2 GB RAM, 16 GB Internal Memory
- 3 GB RAM, 16 GB Internal Memory
This processor/memory configuration sits in a Qualcomm MSM8939v2 Snapdragon 616 chipset and gets graphics support from an Adreno 405 GPU. There is a dedicated microSD card slot that support up to 256 GB.
Huawei GR5 22mm Camera – Professional camera for videography and pro-photography
The Rear-facing camera is a massive 28mm 13 Megapixel deal with an aperture of f/2.0, autofocus and LED flash. It also has a fingerprint sensor located in the bevelled rounded square indentation that you can clearly in the review model I have in hand.
The Front-facing is also has a 22mm 5 Megapixel camera has an aperture of f/2.4. It’s location beside the headphone grille with another Red eye reduction filter is no accident!
Features such as Geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, panorama and HDR are now standard with the Huawei GR5.
The Huawei GR5 has a non-removable Li-Ion 3000 mAh battery, which is pretty huge for a camera of its class. Combined with the 22mm camera, these features will be attractive to Millennials who are camera buffs looking for a Smartphone that can double as professional camera for videography and pro-photography.
In fact, Huawei may even have plans to launch a dual-Camera Huawei Honor 8 in a Press Event set to take place on Tuesday August 16th 2016 in San Francisco, California as I’d reported in US$350 Huawei Honor 8 with Dual-Camera coming August 16.
Albeit the Huawei Honor 5C and the uppcoming Huawei Honor 8 aren’t made for the Caribbean region, know that many Jamaicans and Caribbean nationals will undoubtedly buy one based on their experience with the Huawei GR5.
So the apparently lowly Huawei GR5 as it’s called in the Caribbean and Jamaica is a smartphone with pedigree and traditions worth honouring in this article. Fitting that Huawei chooses to honour us with the Huawei Experience Store where Earth meets sky.
So, does the Huawei GR5 with its 13 Megapixel camera and fingerprint scanner protecting your nude selfies sound like the perfect Camera replacement from your hefty Canon Camera? Then join their Huawei Jamaica Facebook Page and check out the Huawei Experience Store as the Huawei Watch awaits you to make loving Huawei Smartphones Possible.
Huawei Experience Store
Shop 10 Tropical Plaza
Tel: 630-5009