Skip to main content

This $200 smartphone looks like a shockingly good deal

Honor Play 60 Plus smartphone.
Honor

Honor has introduced a new budget phone, the Honor Play 60 Plus, for the Chinese market. This phone is only $200, and you won’t believe the mostly impressive specs. Unfortunately, it will almost certainly never be released in the U.S. market.

The Honor Play 60 Plus features a 6.77-inch LCD panel with HD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. It has a Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 chipset and boasts a massive 6,000 mAh battery with 35-watt fast charging. Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 in August 2023 as an affordable mobile processor. As the first 4nm chip in the 4-series, it offers improved efficiency compared to previous generations.

The display’s peak brightness is only 850 nits, but it can be adjusted to as low as 2 nits in dim light. For cameras, the Play 60 Plus includes a 50-megapixel primary camera with an f/1.8 aperture, a 2MP depth sensor, and a 5MP front-facing camera.

You’ll find 12GB of RAM and 512GB of onboard storage inside. The phone is IP64-rated for dust and water resistance. The phone comes in Fairy Green, Magic Night Black, and Moon Shadow White.

The Honor Play 60 looks like an excellent choice for people seeking a cheap smartphone with a large display, long battery life, and a good camera. However, and not surprising at its price point, the phone’s processor is not the most powerful, and its display is only HD+ with a low peak brightness. Still, it’s an impressive-looking piece of kit at a great price.

For those who can’t buy an Honor Play 60 Plus (which is most of us), many budget-friendly smartphones are available worldwide. And yes, many of these are available for less than $250, including the OnePlus Nord N300 5G and Samsung Galaxy A14 5G. Motorola also specializes in lower-priced handsets, including the recent Moto G Stylus 5G (2024).

Bryan M. Wolfe
Bryan M. Wolfe has over a decade of experience as a technology writer. He writes about mobile.
Android is getting an AI overhaul. Here’s what it looks like
Android 15 on stage at Google I/O 2024.

At Google I/O 2024, Google has shown off a lot of new improvements coming to Android, thanks to Gemini. With Gemini, Android will be aware of the context on the screen in a variety of scenarios, which will make your life a lot easier. At least, according to Google.

Circle to Search, which was first shown off during Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event earlier this year, will be getting some new enhancements. Now, Circle to Search will be a great new study buddy for students. Why? Because it will be able to help with homework, like physics and math. You can simply circle a prompt on the screen, and it will give you step-by-step instructions on how to solve it.

Read more
The Vivo X100 Ultra might be 2024’s new smartphone camera champion
Vivo X100 Ultra color options

Vivo X100 Ultra color options Vivo

The Vivo X100 Ultra is the latest and greatest in the X100 and X100 Pro line, which was first announced in November 2023 in China. As the rumors hinted at, the X100 Ultra is designed to be a photography beast and the new flagship in the lineup.

Read more
AT&T just made it a lot easier to upgrade your phone
AT&T Storefront with logo.

Do you want to upgrade your phone more than once a year? What about three times a year? Are you on AT&T? If you answered yes to those questions, then AT&T’s new “Next Up Anytime” early upgrade program is made for you. With this add-on, you’ll be able to upgrade your phone three times a year for just $10 extra every month. It will be available starting July 16.

Currently, AT&T has its “Next Up” add-on, which has been available for the past several years. This program costs $6 extra per month and lets you upgrade by trading in your existing phone after at least half of it is paid off. But the new Next Up Anytime option gives you some more flexibility.

Read more