Huawei Y5 2019: Features | Pricing | Specs

Alex Kidman

Last updated: Jan 6, 2020

The Huawei Y5 2019 provides a touch of style in the budget phone space.

5.71 inches

Display size

720 x 1520px

32GB

Internal storage

13 MP

Rear camera

3,020 mAh

Battery size

Finder rated as Average vs similar phones

We’re reader-supported and may be paid when you visit links to partner sites. We don’t compare all products in the market, but we’re working on it!

Display

Display Size

5.71 inches

Resolution

720 x 1520px

Pixels per inch (PPI)

294.55 ppi

Camera

Rear camera megapixels

13MP

Rear camera aperture size

f/1.8

Video recording

1080p

Front camera megapixels

5MP

Front camera aperture size

f/2.2

Physical Dimensions

Dimensions

147.13mm x 70.78mm x 8.45mm

Weight

146g

Connectivity

NFC

Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n

Network category speed

N/A

Power, storage and battery

Processor

Mediatek MT6761

RAM

2GB

Operating system

Android 9

Internal storage

32GB

External storage support

Up to 512GB

Battery capacity

3,020mAh

Device features

Headphone jack

Yes

Fingerprint sensor

Water resistance rating

N/A

Wireless charging

Launch price (RRP)	$199
Launch date	2019-04

Alex Kidman

A multi-award winning journalist, Alex has written about consumer technology for over 20 years. He has written and edited for virtually every Australian tech publication including Gizmodo, CNET, PC Magazine, Kotaku and more. He has also been the Editor of Gizmodo Australia, PC Mag Australia, CNET.com.au and the Tech and Telco section at Finder. Alex has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New England and a serious passion for retro gaming.

Where to buy

Buy at eBay

What's in this guide?

Design
Camera
Performance
Battery life
Early outlook
Pricing and availability
Pricing and availability
Specifications

When you're buying a cheap phone, you accept that you're not getting the cutting edge in phone design and technology. Increasingly, however, we're seeing budget phones that specialise in one particular area in order to stand out, often in cameras or battery capacity.

The Huawei Y5 2019 takes quite a different approach because its unique selling point comes from its design and, specifically, the use of a faux leather finish.

Design

5.71-inch LCD display
720p display
Faux leather rear
No fingerprint sensor

The Huawei Y5 2019 certainly doesn't have particularly impressive core specifications for its display. It's a 5.71-inch, 1520 x 720 pixel LCD with a simple teardrop style notch at the top and a prominent lower bezel housing a Huawei logo.
Flip it over – or pick it up – and you'll come face to face with the Huawei Y5 2019's selling point, which is the use of a faux leather finish. Leather – or, in this case, more cow-friendly faux leather – isn't a common smartphone material, although we have seen it in a few more premium-priced handsets over the years.
Huawei produces the Huawei Y5 2019 in a variety of faux leather tones, but here in Australia, it's available in Amber Brown only. Huawei says that it's fingerprint and wear resistant as well as being "anti-dirty", although we're yet to put one through its paces to see how durable that faux leather finish really is.
However, one of the consequences of that design choice is that there's nowhere for Huawei to place a fingerprint sensor for unlocking the phone. It instead offers facial unlocking via the front camera, but that's just simple image identification and nowhere near as secure as biometric authentication.

Camera

Single front and rear cameras

Huawei is responsible for some of our favourite camera phones of recent years, and even in the budget space, it has innovated with multiple camera arrays and some genuinely impressive AI-driven software to stand out.
That's not the Huawei Y5 2019's story because in camera terms, it's very basic indeed. At the rear, you'll find a single 13MP f/1.8 sensor, and at the front, you'll find an even more rudimentary 5MP f/2.2 sensor. It's a very bare bones phone camera for 2019, and you shouldn't expect anything but the most basic performance out of it as a result. Even within the Huawei family, you don't have to spend that much more to get a better camera experience.

Performance

MediaTek MT6761 is a very basic processor
Only 2GB of RAM
32GB of onboard storage
Runs Android 9, but might not see any more updates

Just as it does with the camera, Huawei keeps it rudimentary when it comes to the Huawei Y5 2019's internal components. It's running on MediaTek's entry level MT6761 processor with just 2GB of RAM, so don't expect anything but basic performance out of this phone. It's certainly outclassed here by a number of phones in this price bracket in specifications terms.
The 32GB of onboard storage is also small by 2019 standards, especially when you realise that the internal Android operating system, Huawei's own EMUI launcher and preinstalled apps will all eat away at that meagre offering. One nice feature here is that the Huawei Y5 2019 features a triple bay SIM card slot, so you can run 2 4G LTE SIMs and up the internal storage by up to 512GB via microSD if you need to. That's an uncommon feature across any phone, let alone a budget model.
The Huawei Y5 2019 runs Huawei's EMUI launcher on top of Android 9, which isn't surprising for a budget phone. The odds of seeing an upgrade to Android 10 given the current US ban on Huawei dealing with American companies are rather slim, however.

Battery life

3,020mAh battery

Rounding out the ordinary specifications trifecta for the Huawei Y5 2019 is its internal battery capacity. 3,020mAh isn't, as Huawei would put it, a "large" battery for this kind of phone, and while it's not terribly small either, at the most generous, you might call it "average".
The internal processor and smaller screen do give it some scope for all-day battery life if you're only a moderate user, but don't expect much more than that.

Early outlook

Interesting design hides a very average handset

If your budget is constrained and you want a phone that doesn't look the part of a budget phone, the Huawei Y5 2019 might be OK.
However, that's about as far in recommendations as we can go for this phone because in every other aspect, it's generally average at best and often below that. What you can get for budget money has moved on from the Huawei Y5 2019 in every way except for that faux leather back, so you'd have to like it a lot to make it worthwhile.

Pricing and availability

Price

RRP $199

Where to buy

eBayBig W