How do you make a budget phone?

Do you start with an empty slate and fill it up till you've met your price point?

Or do you start with your premium device and strip features off it until it's affordable?

Whichever way they did it, I'm here to tell you, Huawei have come up with a damn fine phone for $249...

 

There's a lot the Huawei Y7 doesn't do.

There's no fingerprint sensor. It doesn't charge wirelessly. In fact, it still uses a microUSB not USB-Type C. (how quaint)

There's no second screen on the back. It isn't waterproof.

As for the camera, well... Given Huawei was one of the dual-lens pioneers and has been producing handsets with amazingly high-specced cameras for years now, the lack of performance from the camera on the Y7 is surprising to say the least. For starters, the rear-facing camera is only single-lens and while it can shoot up to 12MP, I found the results merely average. Picture quality was adequate in good light conditions, but after dark things get a bit ropey. It's by no means the worst camera on a phone right now, but if photography's your passion, this is not the one for you.

So is the Y7 so bad, it's not even worth $249?

No.

In fact, I reckon you could pay three times that and you'd still be happy with the Y7's performance.

All the limitations I've just listed are really just optional extras that haven't been added on. When it comes to the way this phone actually runs, it purrs like a sports car.

As I always do, I used the Y7 as my personal phone, attempting to all the things I normally would with my phone every day. Usually with a device in this price range, I can't wait to get back to my go-to handset, frustrated by a lack of power and various shortcomings when it comes to what the phone is capable of, under the hood.

By stark contrast, the Y7 was a genuine pleasure. Somehow Huawei keeps managing to get more than seems technically possible out of the processors they install in their handsets. The Y7 isn't even equipped with the famed Kirin chip you'll find in Huawei's premiere devices. Instead, the more commonplace Qualcomm Snapdragon brain is running things here, but it's doing a stellar job.

Whether connecting to bluetooth and WiFi accessories or streaming video, there really doesn't seem to be any task too taxing for the Y7. I really think this may be the most powerful phone I've encountered in this price bracket.

Appearance-wise, the Y7 may not win first prize in a handset beauty pageant, but its metal casing, while slightly industrial, certainly lends itself to a solid, dependable feel.

The 5.5inch display is another plus-sized feature included for not much money. That's plenty of on-screen real estate for pretty much whatever you want to watch - and like Huawei's other 2017 handsets, you can run the Y7 in Te Reo if you prefer.

The other major feature is the massive 4000mAh battery. Again, this kind of battery life is something you hardly ever find below the $700 line, let alone below $250.

The only limitation that really bothers me is the Y7's lack of internal storage. 16GB is simply not enough these days. Sure you can easily store your music, video and pics on a microSD, but there are certain fundamental apps that run better when installed internally, and by the time you take away the space required by the operating system and other pre-installed software, you're not left with much room to move.

In saying that, I filled the memory up pretty chocka and things still kept ticking along smoothly, so perhaps adding in that microSD might be all you need to convince yourself the Y7 is a thousand dollars better than you paid for it.

Ask yourself, do you need a great camera? Do you have to have the prettiest phone on the table? If your answers are "no" and "no" give the Huawei Y7 a go.

Click here for more information and pricing on the Huawei Y7