Kathmandu Budget phones have become more competitive these days offering flagship grade design and performance. Just roll back few years, and we see budget phones featuring a plastic body, lower resolution screen, and sub-par performance. Priced just at Rs 19,999, the recently launched Huawei GR3 brings metal body, but how well it fairs in other aspects? Let’s find out in this review. Design The Huawei GR3 is arguably the best-looking phone you can buy right now under Rs 20,000 in Nepal. It has a metal body on the back, however, the front is built from plastic. It’s light and feels sturdier in the hands. It’s a perfect phone for one hand usage too. Overall, the design of the GR3 is one of its biggest assets. Display The Huawei GR3 sports a 5-inch 720P display, which looks low compared to the increasing trend of 1080P display in this price segment. However, you will be really surprised with the overall quality of GR3’s 720P panel. It produces excellent colours, is bright and vibrant too. The viewing angles are splendid and the display doesn’t disappoint under direct sunlight either. The only weakness of the GR3’s display is the lack of gorilla glass protection. Software UI Software wise, it’s typical of what you expect from Huawei phones. It’s running the EMUI 3.1 Lite layered over Android Lollipop 5.1. There are a lot of features packed into EMUI; most of them are useful while some of them are no more than a gimmick. However, my biggest worry is if this model gets Android 6.0 or not. Performance The Huawei GR3 is powered by an octa-core CPU with cores clocked at 1.5 GHz. The phone performs fairly well for the price offered. While the UI is fluid without any lags opening heavy games and apps takes time to load, a typical experience you get from a budget phone. The multitasking is fast once the apps are fully loaded. A mediocre performance of the GR3 could be a deal breaker if you are a heavy gamer or multitasking wizard. Having said that, it knocks up well in everyday tasks such as browsing, chatting, and playing light-end games. Camera The Huawei GR3 has a 13MP primary camera with single LED flash. Images have accurate colours with lots of details but there’s some noise during low light condition. The video camera, on the contrary, performs fairly well. The 5MP front camera is also capable of taking good selfies and group photos thanks to its wide angle lens. Connectivity and Storage The Huawei GR3 has 16GB of onboard storage expandable by a microSD card up to 128GB. Connectivity wise, it has dual hybrid SIM slot with 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, and an FM radio. Battery The battery life of the Huawei GR3 is ordinary. The 2200mAh battery will barely last for a day under heavy usage. With EMUI many Power saving mode, however, it might just last a whole working day before requiring a charge in the evening. Conclusion The Huawei GR3 is a good phone for those looking for an excellent built and a decent camera at an affordable price.   Review Overview:  Design  5/5 Display  4/5 Software UI        3.5/5 Performance     3.5/5 Camera                4/5 Connectivity and storage              4/5 Battery 3/5 Overall score      3.9/5  ( The author is an Electronics Engineering graduate, a tech enthusiast  and has co- founded tech review company, Gadgetbyte Nepal)