Huawei Y5P

What is it?

A very basic, budget smartphone from Huawei.

It’s powered by the Mediatek MT6762R processor, with only 2GB of Ram. Internal storage is limited (only 32GB, of which 25GB is actually free to use), although you can extend this via the micro-SD card slot.

It’s a smaller handset than we’re used to seeing from Huawei, with a 5.5-inch LCD screen. There’s enough room to fit a 3,020mAh battery.

As you might expect from a phone at this price, features are limited. There’s a face scanner to unlock the phone, an FM radio and a headphone jack for plugging in your wired headphones. There’s no NFC (near-field communication) for making contactless payments, though.

What’s it like to use?

The instructions are clear and helpful, both in the printed quick-start guide and the tips section on the phone itself. However, the setup process is hindered by not having Google services, as many apps fail to transfer over from an old device.

Once you’re set up, the menu can be a bit slow to navigate, but it’s laid out in a logical format that’s easy to find your way around. The processor isn’t powerful enough to give you the seamless browsing experience of most other phones, so expect some lagging or glitching when you’re running apps.

The display is fairly low resolution, with a low refresh rate of 60Hz. It has a bluish tint and restricted readability from the sides, although colours do contrast nicely, and the brightness is good enough to counteract the sun’s glare when you’re outside. Watch out for fingerprints showing up easily on the screen, though.

The touchscreen is responsive, but it’s not quite as quick as others we’ve tested.

The face scanner unlocks the phone quickly, although it can struggle to recognise you in darkness or with glasses on.

You shouldn’t have too many issues making calls, but your voice does sound quite muffled when you phone from a busy room with lots of background noise.

How long does the battery last?

A fairly average 22.5 hours, although you can eke out eight more by turning the brightness down slightly.

It takes around three hours to fully charge, and we recommend waiting for the full time if you can, as you won’t get much from a quick charge – just three to four hours.

How good are the cameras?

It’s a pared-back camera setup compared with Huawei’s pricier handsets, with just one rear 8Mp wide and one 5Mp wide lens on the front. There isn’t much in the way of settings, either, with no portrait mode or filters, and limited options for adjusting the lenses.

Given this, it’s probably not a huge surprise that the picture and video quality fall far short of Huawei’s usual standard. Photos taken on the rear lens lose a lot of their detail, coming out too dark whether you’re in daylight or a dark room. There’s also a lot of blurring, particularly if you try to use the zoom.

Selfies aren’t good either. They look flat and a bit too pale, and the lack of image stabilisation leaves them much too blurry.

Videos on the rear camera end up blurred and shaky, and the autofocus doesn’t always work as it should. Front-camera clips are poorly contrasted, with random changes in the colour and brightness. Again, blurring and unclear movements are a major issue.

Is there anything I should watch out for?

The inbuilt speakers aren’t good at all, producing a thin, sharp sound, and it’s not much better through headphones. You might want to buy a separate MP3 player to do your music justice.

Is there anything else I should know?

Expect this to be a durable handset. The screen doesn’t scratch easily, and it doesn’t conk out if it gets caught in a sudden burst of rain.

Should I buy it?

Huawei’s phones don’t allow access to Google apps which, based on our surveys, are essential to most Which? members. As such, we don’t recommend buying this phone. See our expert guide on buying a Huawei phone to find out more.

Unfortunately, due to the age of this phone and the brand’s update policies, we suspect it will stop receiving important security updates in less than a year, so we can’t recommend that you buy. Find out more in our guide to mobile phone security.