Huawei impresses us again. This time, with a smaller, elegant handset, that’s priced competitively at Rs 23k. Hassan M Kamal gives it a workout
Huawei Honor 7
Huawei Honor 7
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Design: The Honor 7 is a looker. Available in grey and silver, the smartphone has a strong build with a metallic uni-body design. It has a non-removable aluminium body (with plastic parts on the top and bottom) that adds a premium touch to the phone, though prone to scratches. There’s no branding in the front, whereas, the back cover gets an embossed Honor logo. There are no home screen buttons, but there are power and volume rockers on the right, and a smart key on the left edge (similar to what we saw in the OnePlus 2). This key can be configured to launch three applications of choice via three modes — single press, double press and press and hold. We configured the double press to recording app, and were able to launch the recorder without unlocking the screen. However, it didn’t work with the camera app.
Rating: 8 / 10
Display: The Honor 7 comes with a 5.2-inch Full HD (1080x1920) display with a pixel resolution of 423ppi. Reading or watching movies is very comfortable; the touch works fine as well. We didn’t face any problems in reading under sunlight either. As for protection, the device gets Gorilla Glass layering, and passed our pin-scratch test.
Rating: 8 / 10
Connectivity: The Honor 7 is a dual-SIM smartphone with support for 2G, 3G and 4G LTE networks. It has a nano SIM tray, with a second slot being used for an external memory card. Other connectivity options include Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, and Wi-Fi Hotspot. It also comes with an IR blaster. This means you can control your TV/other gadgets with IR sensors using the pre-installed app, Smart Control 3.0, available on Play Store. It also supports Wi-Fi display.
Rating: 8 / 10
Camera: The device gets a 20MP rear camera with autofocus and flash. The picture quality of the rear camera is average, and though there are plenty of pre-set modes, you miss an AE/AF lock, especially during videos and close-ups. We love the 8MP front camera, which comes with auto focus and flash.
Rating: 7 / 10
Hardware & performance: The Honor 7 runs on its in-house octa core HiSilicon Kirin 935 CPU with Mali-T628 MP4 GPU. It performs well in all situations, be it browsing, video playback, games or picture and movie editing. Our benchmark tests revealed lower frames per second during gameplay. The built-in RAM is 3GB, and internal storage stands at 16GB, out of which 10GB is available for users. However, it’s expandable up to 128GB. It has two speakers at the bottom, with the micro USB port in between, that offer decent audio quality. There’s a finger print scanner at the back, under the rear camera with a quick response time (faster than the OnePlus 2); the positioning makes unlocking a device easier. We, however, wouldn’t recommend basing your purchase decision simply on the finger print scanner, as it can be easily bypassed by performing a system reset.
Rating: 8 / 10
Battery: The device gets a 3,100 mAh battery, which should last all day with regular usage. The battery lasted for over a day on several occasions while using only 3G mode with Wi-Fi.
Rating: 9 / 10
User Interface & OS: The Honor 7 runs a 64-bit Android 5.0.2 build with Huawei Emotion UI launcher. This launcher is similar to what we’ve seen before, but this time, you can disable random pictures that appear on the screen lock page. You can set apps for specific tasks, like messaging, calling, or camera. You can also set permissions for each app individually. The UI is simple and easy to use, and maintains all the functionalities of the Android Lollipop, and some more.
Rating: 8 / 10
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