Honor is a Huawei-owned brand, and its devices usually lack any mention of this, instead pitching the smartphones independently. The Honor brand allows the company to tackle in the crowded budget market, and offer high-quality, well-specified devices at affordable prices without affecting the’premium’ brand image that Huawei has built for itself in China and the other countries.
Following are the PROs and CONs based on my observations and comparison to my other phones.
PROs:
Build quality: Unimetal superb build quality with plastic only at top and bottom of the back panel to improve antennae reception. Gives a premium feel.
Battery life: Has been great for most of the part. With moderate to heavy usage easily lasts a day. Great optimization by Huawei. Even though the battery capacity is lower than Oneplus 2, the optimization makes it a much better deal. This being my primary requirement, I have been really impressed.
Camera: 20MP camera doesn’t disappoint. Good quality images under light conditions. Front 8MP camera with a light assist hits the sweep spot as well. Tons and tons of customisation options like food mode, slow motion etc. Low light condition snaps are a bit low quality.
Fingerprint sensor: The sensor is blazingly fast to response and the placement is perfect for the index finger. Besides unlocking it provides customisable functions like swipe down opens up notification panel etc. This sensor is supposedly the fastest in the smartphone market right now.
Sound quality: Sound from the speaker is pretty loud. Even the sound quality from the headphone has been amazing so far. Lack of an equaliser option does hurt but isnt a deal breaker as the DTS option makes for the most part of it.
Performance: Performance is fluid and RAM optimization is superb as well. Stutters rarely thanks to the’not so optimized EMUI’
USB OGT: Fantastic support. Phone was able to recognize my 1TB hard drive as well.
Slide up and there will be an app search page.
Pinch in with both fingers and there will be a hidden app drawer.
Can assign a fingerprint lock to individual apps.
Cons:
The biggest turn off has been the UI which Huawei calls’EMUI’. Even though it provides tons of customization options, lack of an app drawer does keep me wanting for more.
When it comes to updates, Huawei hasnt been the best of brands. Marshmellow update has been promised in 2016 first quarter. Lets see how that rolls.
Placement of the headphone jack at the top is not to my personal preference.
Phone does tend to get warm(No Hot) when using power intensive application.
Even though the build quality is great, the metal on back makes it slippery to hold(Get a case).
Specs do mention Fast charging, however I read somewhere that it happens by default with the supplied charger and a separate charger is not required. Could just be a software gimmick.
I was really confused among moto x play, oneplus 2 and Honor 7. For the price point and with the optimization it offers, it really is a no brainer to choose. One word of caution though, many are still ignorant of Huawei or Honor as a smartphone brand here in India. Deal breaker for the fanatics and flaunters, Perfect deal for the’Smartphone’ users.