Honor Play Update Brings '4D Smart Shock' for In-Game Vibrations, Bug Fixes, and More

• Honor Play was launched in India last month
• This is its first major software update
• Android 9.0 Pie beta programme is open

Honor Play is the company's gaming-focused smartphone and currently the most affordable to sport the HiSilicon Kirin 970 SoC in the Indian market. It has been priced starting at Rs. 19,999 in the country. The smartphone from Huawei-owned brand, Honor, has received its latest software update that brings a new feature dubbed "4D Smart Shock". This development comes after Honor India had informed us that a force-feedback vibration feature called "4D Gaming" will soon be added as part of an OTA update, a feature it had first revealed at the China launch. It adds customised vibrations to your user experience, while playing games. Build number of the update, which we received on our unit, is COR-AL00 8.2.0.120 (C675CUSTC675D1) and file size is about 327MB.

Changelog of the update for Honor's budget gaming smartphone includes a bug fix for a call recording issue, the new 4D Smart Shock feature, and merging Google security patches. First reported by The Android Soul, the 4D Smart Shock feature is said to be available initially only for PUBG and Asphalt 9: Legends. It is expected to roll out for more games soon. We've reached out to the company for more clarity on this front. While we see a smaller file, The Android Soul claims that the update has a file size of about 0.93GB.

The report also suggests that Android 9.0 Pie is already available as a beta update for select users under the Honor Play test programme. The programme is currently open only for users in Europe, and can be accessed here. This is one of the first Honor-branded smartphones to arrive with GPU Turbo technology, claimed to offer 60 percent better gaming performance and 30 percent better battery life.

Honor Play specifications

The dual-SIM (Nano) Honor Play runs EMUI 8.2, based on Android 8.1 Oreo out-of-the-box, and sports a 6.3-inch full-HD+ (1080x2340 pixels) panel with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and a display notch. The handset is powered by a HiSilicon Kirin 970 SoC, paired with 4GB/ 6GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage. In terms of optics, the smartphone sports a dual rear camera setup, with a primary 16-megapixel sensor and a secondary 2-megapixel sensor.

On the front, the Honor Play bears a 16-megapixel camera sensor with f/2.0 aperture. Connectivity options include 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth v4.2, USB Type-C, GPS/ A-GPS, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There is 3,750mAh battery under the hood.