The Huawei GR3 Review: Is This the Perfect Mid Range Smartphone?

The Huawei GR3 is one of the latest mid-range smartphones from the company to be launched in Kenya. It was launched in March this year together with the Huawei Y6Pro and GR5 smartphones. I have been using the GR3 for a few weeks now and I thought to out up this review to tell you what it is all about.

The Huawei GR3 is available in the country for Ksh 20,999 which is a fair price considering what it offers compared to what devices from other manufactures within the same price range can offer. By the end of this review, I would have told you if Huawei has been able to achieve what it set to and if this device should be on your list if you are looking for a new smartphone.

Huawei GR3 Specifications

Before we get into the review, let’s look at some of the specifications of the Huawei GR3.

Display: 5.0-inch, 720 x 1280 pixels

Processor: 1.5GHz Octa-core Mediatek MTK6753T

Memory: 16 GB expandable storage space, 2 GB RAM

Camera: 13MP at the back, 5MP in front

Operating system: Android 5.1 with Emotion UI 3.1 on top

Battery: 2200 mAh

Network: Up to 4G LTE

Available Colors: Gray, Silver and Gold

Look and Feel

Aluminum unibody design, Weight: 135g

The Huawei GR3 has an aluminum unibody that feels comfortable of the hand when you take it out of the box for the first time. You actually feel that you are holding a premium smartphone which is always a nice feeling. Since it has a unibody design, you cannot remove the back cover to access the battery and this is a good thing as this gives the phone a smooth design that am sure you will appreciate.

You get the usual buttons (power and volume keys) on the right hand side and these are textured giving them a more comfortable feel. At the back sits the 13MP camera with auto focus and LED flash with the speaker grille located on the bottom left corner.  Placement of the speaker grille on this position doesn’t affect sound quality as I had thought it would, I could hear it pretty well even when I had the phone on a flat surface.

The front section has the usual sensors (proximity sensor, light sensor) on the upper from section. This is also where you can find the 5MP front facing camera.

The Huawei GR3 comes with on screen capacitive buttons which am not a big fan of as they take up some screen space given that the phone’s display is just 5 inches in size.

Display

5 inch IPS display, HD resolution, Responsive, visible under direct sunlight

The Huawei GR3 has a 5 inch IPS display with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels. This display is responsive and quite bright so viewing it under direct sunlight presents no problems. Even with that said, I would have preferred a Full HD (1080p) display given that this is a mid-range smartphone.

Given the small size of the display, the phone is much easier to use with one hand which is something I know most people will appreciate. The viewing angles are great and as I have mentioned above, viewing what is on the display even when outside presents no serious issues. The screen can get as bright as you want it to and I set my brightness to adapt to the environment so that I don’t have to adjusts it every so often.

Software and Performance

Android Lollipop with Emotion UI 3.1 Lite, 2GB RAM, Mediatek MTK6753T (1.5GHz), Mali T-720 MP3 GPU

The Huawei GR3 comes with Android 5.1 Lollipop skinned with Emotion UI 3.1. Emotion UI (EMUI) experience is similar to what you get on any other Android smartphone with a few differences which you will quickly get used to if it is your first time using a Huawei device. The software experience has been good so far and EMUI feels like it is built for the GR3 giving you an awesome experience.

For the hardware, the GR3 comes with a 1.5 GHz Mediatek MTK6753T (64 bit octa core) processor used in combination with 2GB RAM. The overall experience has been good so far but there are some issues that I experienced that I thought need to be addressed.

First, Even though the phone is quite fast, there are some instances when it slows down and you are left wondering what is happening. One such case is when you take a screenshot, the phone takes about 6 seconds to save the screenshot. When this is happening, you can easily share or edit the screenshot while its saving and this is a cool thing to be able to do but I feel like it appears like the phone is slowing down for a few seconds. If I want to share or edit the screenshot, I will wait till it is saved and then open it a fresh, the screenshot floating on the screen for a few seconds while it is being saved doesn’t add any value to my experience.

The overall performance has been good; I did not have any serious problems using the the GR3. It is quite fast connecting to 4G if you are in an area with good coverage. Switching between different apps and multitasking does not slow down the phone. This is important these days since we use our smartphones for everything and we need them to be reliable (performance-wise) all the time.

One thing I liked about the GR3 is the call quality. The Kenyan smartphone market is flooded with devices some of which offer subpar call quality (I know this since I have used some of them) and in most cases you end up shouting at the person of the other side or you just can’t hear them properly and you start blaming your network provider. This is not the case with the Huawei GR3, you can clearly hear the person on the other side and the two microphones, one on the bottom section next to the micro USB port and the other one at the back next to the camera, ensure that your calls are clear and there is no shouting.

For storage space, the Huawei GR3 has 16GB of space that you can expand further using a micro SD card. Both the SIM card slots and the MicroSD card slot are on the left side of the phone. Still on the SIM cards, one slot is for a micro SIM and the other one is for a nano SIM card.

Camera

13 MP at the back, 5MP in front

The Huawei GR3 has a 13MP camera at the back and a 5MP unit in front. The 13MP back camera with Auto focus performs exceptionally well even when the lighting is not so good. The back camera is also equipped with LED flash for clearer shots in low light conditions and can record Full HD videos at 30 frames per second. Without going into much details about the camera, all you need to know is that it doesn’t disappoint in terms of quality. It has the usual features such as autofocus, continuous shooting, panorama, HDR, touch focus, face detection among others that allow you to capture images the way you want.

The front facing camera also takes some good shots but I felt like it didn’t live up to my expectations especially in low light situations. In most cases the images taken are quite good but they appear slightly washed out when the lighting is not so good.

Battery

2200 mAh non removable unit

The Huawei GR3 has a 2200 mAh battery which I did not find to be enough for me. I am a heavy user and I struggled to get it to last me through the whole day. With any phone that I have, the display is almost always on as I use my phone for almost everything and getting this battery to last through the day is not easy. If you are not a heavy user, you can get the battery to last about a day or even two but if you are a heavy user, be prepared to top up the battery before the end of your day everyday.

The positive thing is that the GR3 has the battery saving feature with a few different modes that can allow you to get a few hours of battery use by limiting performance.

Conclusion

The Huawei GR3 represents what a lower mid-range smartphone should be. It has the build quality you expect on a mid-range smartphone and its performance does not disappoint. This is a Ksh 21,000 smartphone and is worth it if you ask me. It has an all-metal unibody design that gives it a premium feel that am sure anyone will appreciate.  It has the occasional lags and slowing down but I have not experienced anything serious about its performance. I will go out of my way and say the Huawei GR3 is exactly what a mid-range smartphone should be. Huawei definitely achieved what a lower mid-range smartphone should be like and this is very impressive.

The phone competes very well with other devices within its price range. These include devices such as the Galaxy J5, J7 and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2. You should definitely have this phone on your list if you are looking for a smartphone within the Ksh 21,000 price range.

Read More: Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Review