Honor 7C looks nice, but not original - it looks just like Honor 7X and Huawei P Smart or any other “frameless” device.
On the front, everything is typical - rounded edges, an elongated screen with touch buttons on it. The only thing we can note is the slightly annoying Honor inscription on the bottom frame; there was still a place for it. It would be better if the phone really were frameless.
From the back, Honor 7C looks more expressive. But it differs from the older 7X only in that the flash has moved from the edge closer to the center. At the same time, the lenses of the dual camera themselves are designed a little differently, but they also protrude a little from the body. There are also typical features such as glass curved at the edges, a fingerprint scanner, there is a separate headphone jack, the “old” microUSB 2.0 and standard control buttons.
Model dimensions - 158.3x76.7x7.8 mm, weight - 164 grams. According to these parameters, it is approximately comparable to or flagship.
Huawei Honor The 7C can be purchased in four colors: blue, black, red and gold.
Screen
It's 2018 and an 18:9 screen like the Honor 7C is already perceived as something unusual. It seems that in just a little while there will be more such smartphones than ordinary ones. The resolution of this elongated screen is HD+ (1440×720 pixels). The pixel density for its 6 inches is not that high - 269 per inch. After high-resolution displays, it will not seem very clear. Nothing more is known about the screen, but you can expect wide color settings, as in other Huawei smartphones.
Cameras
One of the features of the smartphone is its dual camera of 13 and 2 MP, and they haven’t forgotten about the front one of 8 MP. You shouldn’t expect any unprecedented results from them, but from such a duo you can at least expect shooting with a blur effect, like that of . In defense of the cameras, we can say that the predecessor models took pictures quite well for their price. There are no specific technical characteristics; only phase focusing for the main camera, the presence of a flash and Full HD video shooting are stated. Even less is known about the front one - the same flash, but no longer autofocus.
Communications
Huawei Honor 7C is equipped with a typical set of communications:
- simple Wi-Fi b/g/n
- LTE support
- Bluetooth 4.2
- A-GPS.
There is a compass, whether there is a gyroscope - it is not yet clear. I would like to see another NFC chip and radio, but apparently not this time. For charging and connecting to other devices, the “old” microUSB 2.0 is used. But there is a separate mini-jack for and separate slots for three cards (two nanoSIM and one microSD).
Battery
The Honor 7C battery can be assessed as typical - 3000 mAh, the same amount you will see in almost any fashionable smartphone with such an elongated screen. ? 3100 mAh. ? 3200 mAh. ? The same 3000 mAh. Even the expensive one costs 3000 mAh. On the one hand, nothing interesting, but on the other, it’s good that the budget device is not inferior in this parameter to more expensive models. And taking into account the moderate resolution and entry-level chipset, you can even expect one and a half, if not two days of use on one charge.
Performance
Huawei Honor 7C promises to be powerful enough for both daily use and most games and applications. Interestingly, the company decided not to use proprietary processors - the smartphone runs on the Qualcomm SDM450 Snapdragon 450 chipset (eight Cortex A-53 cores, up to 1.8 GHz). The same one is used in Xiaomi Redmi 5, but he has less random access memory, here it will be either 3 or 4 GB to choose from. For graphics, there is an Adreno 506 accelerator. The same one was in and - that is, a fairly advanced level for a budget phone.
Peculiarities
Honor 7C should immediately, out of the blue, launch on Android 8 and with the latest version of the proprietary EMUI interface. Features of the phone include a fashionable, elongated screen format, a dual camera, face-style unlocking and the presence of a fingerprint scanner. None of this surprises anyone today, which is probably why Huawei is surprised by its price - at least in China it is very interesting and even allows it to compete with budget “frameless” phones from Xiaomi, which already sounds intriguing.
Memory
Huawei Honor 7C 32 will have 32 or 64 GB of storage and 3 or 4 GB of RAM. For your price category these are excellent indicators. And if that's not enough, you can add up to 256 GB using . Moreover, there is finally a separate slot for it.
Price
In China, the price of Honor 7C is 8,000 rubles for the 32 GB version and 11,600 rubles for the 64 GB version. For that kind of money, it will easily compete with Xiaomi Redmi 5, although here it will most likely sell for more.
The new flagship of the Honor family with a built-in fingerprint scanner and a metal body
Discussions about the latest flagship smartphone of the Chinese industrial giant Huawei (Mate S) had hardly died down when sales of another new mobile product from the same manufacturer began immediately after it in Russia. The new smartphone called Honor 7 can, in principle, also be called a flagship, because for its family it really is now the most important and most advanced device. However, we should not forget that the now separate Honor brand grew out of the Huawei smartphone line, which at one time received the title of “people's brand.”
The Huawei Honor series smartphones were dubbed this way by the users themselves, and rightly so: at first, the devices of this line really represented that rare combination of advanced characteristics and reasonable prices, so the Honor line became legendary literally from its first models. Later, the family grew significantly, smartphones became less accessible, and recently Honor spun off into a separate brand, so now Huawei is diligently positioning this name as an independent brand, whose smartphones are sold exclusively through online trading.
Be that as it may, Honor 7, released the other day, seems to have really managed to revive its former glory, demonstrating the continuity of generations. Once again, the combination of an attractive price and excellent technical characteristics ensured record sales: in just 10 minutes after the start of sales, the first thousand Honor 7 devices were sold out in the Huawei online store. Today we have the opportunity to understand in detail the reasons for this popularity using the example of our own copy of this unusual device that we tested. new items
Main characteristics of Huawei Honor 7 (model PLK-L01)
| Honor 7 | Huawei Mate S | Meizu MX5 | Zuk Z1 | OnePlus 2 | |
| Screen | 5.2″, IPS | 5.5″, Super AMOLED | 5.5″, Super AMOLED | 5.5″, IPS | 5.5″, IPS |
| Permission | 1920×1080, 424 ppi | 1920×1080, 401 ppi | 1920×1080, 401 ppi | 1920×1080, 401 ppi | 1920×1080, 401 ppi |
| SoC | HiSilicon Kirin 935 (8 cores ARM Cortex-A53 @2.2/1.5 GHz) | Mediatek MT6795T Octa-core (8 Cortex-A53 cores @2.2 GHz) | Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 (4 cores Krait [email protected] GHz) | Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 (4x Cortex-A57 @1.8 GHz + 4x Cortex-A53) | |
| GPU | Mali-T628 | Mali-T628 | PowerVR G6200 | Adreno 330 | Adreno 430 |
| RAM | 3 GB | 3 GB | 3 GB | 3 GB | 3/4 GB |
| Flash memory | 16 GB | 32/64 GB | 16/32/64 GB | 64 GB | 16/64 GB |
| Memory card support | microSD | microSD | — | — | — |
| operating system | Google Android 5.0 | Google Android 5.1 | Google Android 5.0 | Google Android 5.1 | Google Android 5.1 |
| Battery | non-removable, 3000 mAh | non-removable, 2700 mAh | non-removable, 3150 mAh | non-removable, 4100 mAh | non-removable, 3300 mAh |
| Cameras | main (20 MP; video 1080p), front (8 MP) | main (20.7 MP; 4K video), front (5 MP) | main (13 MP; video 1080p), front (8 MP) | main (13 MP; 4K video), front (5 MP) | |
| Dimensions and weight | 143×72×8.5 mm, 162 g | 150×75×7.2 mm, 159 g | 150×75×7.6 mm, 149 g | 156×77×8.9 mm, 175 g | 152×75×9.8 mm, 178 g |
| average price | T-12670591 | T-12840967 | T-12675734 | N/A | T-12742121 |
| Huawei Honor 7 retail offers | L-12670591-10 | ||||
- SoC HiSilicon Kirin 935 (64-bit), two clusters of four processor cores: ARM Cortex-A53 with a frequency of 2.2 GHz and ARM Cortex-A53 with a frequency of 1.5 GHz
- GPU Mali-T628
- Operating system Android 5.0.2
- Touch IPS display, 5.2″, 1920×1080, 424 ppi
- Random access memory (RAM) 3 GB
- Inner memory 16 GB
- Nano-SIM support (2 pcs.)
- Support microSD cards up to 128 GB
- GSM communication 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz; 3G WCDMA
- Data transmission LTE Cat.6 (FDD LTE Band 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 20)
- Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, point Wi-Fi access, Wi-Fi Direct
- Bluetooth 4.1
- USB 2.0, OTG
- GPS/A-GPS, Glonass, BDS
- Sensors for direction, proximity, lighting, linear acceleration, vector rotation, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetic compass (according to AnTuTu)
- Camera 20 MP, autofocus, LED flash
- Camera 8 MP, front
- Battery 3000 mAh, non-removable
- Dimensions 143×72×8.5 mm
- Weight 162 g (our measurements)
Contents of delivery
Our copy of Honor 7 arrived for testing without packaging and a set of accessories, so we cannot give a description of the package yet. It is only known that both the new functional book case with a mesh window and the branded headset are supported by the device; for this, in the smartphone settings you can find and use special functions for working with branded accessories.
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Appearance and ease of use
In terms of design, Honor 7 is no different from other modern Huawei mobile products in the Honor series of budget devices. This is still the same candy bar, quite simple in structure, without any special frills in appearance. To be honest, it is, of course, far from the beauty of the thin, light and elegant devices of the fashionable Huawei P series and just as far from the nobility from the massive, but expensive and impressive monoliths of the flagship Huawei Mate line.
Everything is simpler here: a trained eye can see that the quality of the materials is worse, and the structure of the body is significantly simplified. For example, instead of the socket that is usually cut into the back of the case so that the metal does not shield the antennas, or instead of thin grooves cut into the outer surface of the metal case for the same purposes, here simply entire pieces of the case are made of plastic and painted to look like metal . That is, the most vulnerable parts, the upper and lower ends, which peel off most quickly and in which, by the way, all the holes for the connectors are made, are made not of metal, but of plastic, with all the ensuing consequences. It is difficult to say yet how quickly the plastic will lose its original appearance, but over time, the ends that now look like metal will begin to differ from the rest of the surface of the metal case is quite possible.
The rest, the central part of the body, is actually made of real metal. The developers claim that an aluminum alloy with ceramic coating was used here. The surfaces of the back and side edges are absolutely not easily soiled, rough and matte, due to this the smartphone does not slip out of your hands and is held securely. When enough big screen The smartphone has received as compact a body as possible. Both the side stripes and the bars above and below the screen are quite narrow: the 5.2-inch display occupies 76.7% of the front panel area.
At the same time, the case feels rough in the hand: it has smooth, flat edges with right angles without roundings, the thickness of the case is not that small, and the weight is completely excessive. The developers even bashfully tried to brighten up this moment by slightly downplaying the real weight of the device, but our own measurements showed that the device weighs more than indicated in the official specifications. The entire smartphone creates the feeling of a sort of rough, weighty block, which still fits very comfortably in the palm of your hand.
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The front side of the case is completely covered with protective glass Gorilla Glass, it is absolutely flat here, has no sloping edges, but is significantly raised above the metal due to a wide plastic gasket. When viewed from the side, it seems that the body, like a sandwich, consists of two thin parts - metal and plastic.
The monolithic body is not collapsible, so cards are usually inserted here into the side slots, sliding into them on a metal slide. Unfortunately, Huawei has chosen an inconvenient option for organizing work with cards, in which even in such large cases there is only one additional slot, which can be used either for a memory card or for a second SIM card. Thus, the only side connector is used to install only two cards at a time - either these can be two Nano-SIM format SIM cards, or one SIM card is inserted, and a microSD memory card is placed in the second cell. Whether this is convenient or not, everyone decides for himself, but it is possible that the user of such a device may need to insert a second SIM card (for example, abroad), and then he will have to remove the memory card on which navigation maps were cached, leaving his favorite one audiobook, etc., many options may come to mind.
There are more elements on the Honor 7 body than usual. Firstly, in addition to the usual volume and power keys, another mechanical hardware button has appeared, installed on the opposite, left side edge. This button is responsible for quickly launching applications, and there are single and double clicks. The key works even when the screen is unlocked.
It is noteworthy that in smartphones for Russian market By default, the services of the Mail.ru company were preinstalled: a single click opens Mail.ru Mail, a double click opens social network"Odnoklassniki", with a long press - News Mail.ru. Some Russian Internet users, in general, already thought that there was “too much Mail.ru” in their lives, and now there will be even more of it. However, if desired, the user can change the list of applications for quick access to others.
The buttons themselves are made of metal, protrude from the body to a sufficient height, and have a soft stroke. True, all three buttons have a completely different appearance: one has longitudinal notches, the other has corrugated textures, the third is completely smooth, and all of them are chaotically scattered along the edges without maintaining any symmetry - the designers from Huawei clearly lack the perfectionism of their employees Apple.
In addition, an infrared transmitter is located on the top end; it is usually responsible for emulating a remote control; for this purpose, the smartphone has a pre-installed program. In practice, the device confidently recognized even an old Philips TV and took control of all the equipment in the house. In reality, such a software and hardware complex can be very convenient, especially if branded remote controls are lost or their batteries are dead.
It is also worth noting the camera module protruding strongly on the back side with the dual LED flash attached to it, as well as the fingerprint scanner located right next to it. The sensor is of very high quality; it uses the same advanced Fingerprint Sense 2.0 solution as in the flagship Huawei Mate S. The scanner clearly responds to any touch and recognizes a fingerprint placed at any angle. You can use it to unlock your smartphone with one touch, although the pad does not have a mechanical button underneath it. In addition, using the sensor you can control some functions of the smartphone: for example, scroll through photos in the album, call up the navigation panel and clear the list of recent events, take selfies, receive a call and turn off the alarm. And all this can be done even without registering a fingerprint. The sensor area is quite large in size, its surface is rough and matte, control using the sensor is clear, and there are practically no false positives. At the same time, the smartphone implements a learning algorithm, so that over time the recognition accuracy will also increase.
The main speaker of the smartphone is located at the bottom end. Like the flagship Mate S, here two symmetrical arrays of small oblong holes are cut right into the plastic, but unlike the beautiful metal “radiator” of the Mate S, in plastic it all doesn’t look so impressive. Naturally, the sound actually comes out only through one of the grilles, and the second serves only for decoration (or the speaking microphone is hidden behind it).
On the opposite, upper end there is an audio output with a diameter of 3.5 mm for headphones, an auxiliary microphone, as well as the above-mentioned infrared port peephole. It is also worth noting the presence of an event indicator light on the front panel: in this case, the LED is located directly under the speaker grille.
The smartphone is not protected from dust and water, and there is no strap mount on the case. Honor 7 goes on sale in only two color options: graphite gray and metallic silver. In this regard, the metal flagship Mate S looks more advantageous; there you can even find a pink color option, which, apparently, will become a fashion hit of the new season.
Screen
The Honor 7 smartphone is equipped touch screen IPS combined with protective glass Gorilla Glass. The physical dimensions of the display are 65x116 mm, diagonal - 5.2 inches. The screen resolution is 1920×1080, the pixel density is 424 ppi. The frame around the screen is quite narrow, only about 3 mm on the sides, 13 mm on the top, 15 mm on the bottom.
The display brightness is automatically adjusted based on the light sensor. There is also a proximity sensor that blocks the screen when you bring the smartphone to your ear. Multi-touch technology allows you to process 10 simultaneous touches. Supports working with the screen while wearing gloves.
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A detailed examination using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the “Monitors” and “Projectors and TV” sections, Alexey Kudryavtsev. Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the sample under study.
The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface that is scratch-resistant. Judging by the reflection of objects, the anti-glare properties of the screen are no worse than those of the Google Nexus 7 (2013) screen (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photo in which a white surface is reflected in the switched off screens (on the left - Nexus 7, on the right - Huawei Honor 7, then they can be distinguished by size):
The screen of the Huawei Honor 7 is even a little darker (brightness according to photographs is 107 versus 114 for the Nexus 7). The ghosting of reflected objects in the Huawei Honor 7 screen is very weak, this indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen (more specifically, between the outer glass and the surface of the LCD matrix) (OGS - One Glass Solution type screen). Due to the smaller number of boundaries (glass/air type) with very different refractive indices, such screens look better in conditions of strong external illumination, but their repair in the case of cracked external glass is much more expensive, since the entire screen has to be replaced. The outer surface of the screen has a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating (better in efficiency than that of the Nexus 7), so fingerprints are removed more easily and appear at a slower rate than with regular glass.
When manually controlling the brightness and displaying the white field in full screen, the maximum brightness value was about 460 cd/m², the minimum was 10 cd/m². The maximum brightness is high, which means, given the excellent anti-glare properties, readability even on a sunny day outdoors should be at a good level. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable value. In stock automatic adjustment brightness by the light sensor (it is located to the left of the front camera eye). In automatic mode, as external lighting conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases. The operation of this function depends on the position of the brightness adjustment slider. If it is 100%, then in complete darkness the auto-brightness function reduces the brightness to 125 cd/m² (a bit too much), in an office illuminated by artificial light (about 400 lux) it sets it to 325 cd/m² (it could have been lower), in very bright environment (corresponds to lighting on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or a little more), the brightness increases to 460 cd/m² (to the maximum - this is how it should be); if the adjustment is approximately 50%, then the values are as follows: 11, 130 and 460 cd/m² (ideal combination), the regulator at 0% is 10, 34 and 240 cd/m² (the last two values are slightly underestimated, which is logical). It turns out that the auto-brightness function works absolutely adequately and allows the user to customize their work to individual requirements. At any brightness level, there is virtually no backlight modulation, so there is no screen flickering.
IN this smartphone An IPS type matrix is used. The microphotographs show a typical IPS subpixel structure:
For comparison, you can see the gallery of microphotographs of screens used in mobile technology.
The screen has good viewing angles without significant color shift even with large viewing deviations from perpendicular to the screen and without inverting shades. For comparison, here are photographs in which identical images are displayed on the screens of Huawei Honor 7 and Nexus 7, while the screen brightness is initially set to approximately 200 cd/m², and the color balance on the camera is forcibly switched to 6500 K. There is a white field perpendicular to the screens:
Note the good uniformity of brightness and color tone of the white field. And a test picture:
The colors on the Huawei Honor 7's screen are oversaturated (note the tomatoes) and the color balance varies slightly. Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:
It can be seen that the colors have not changed much on both screens, but on Huawei Honor 7 the contrast has decreased to a greater extent due to the strong highlighting of blacks. And a white field:
The brightness at an angle of the screens has decreased (at least 5 times, based on the difference in shutter speed), but the Huawei Honor 7 screen is still lighter (brightness according to photographs is 237 versus 234 for the Nexus 7). When deviated diagonally, the black field brightens greatly and acquires a reddish tint. The photographs below demonstrate this (the brightness of the white areas in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the screens is the same!):
And from another angle:
When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is not ideal, since closer to the edge the black is lightened in places:
And with a different arrangement of on-screen buttons:
The contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is high - about 1400:1. The response time for the black-white-black transition is 23 ms (12 ms on + 11 ms off). The transition between halftones of gray 25% and 75% (based on the numerical value of the color) and back takes a total of 34 ms. The gamma curve, constructed using 32 points with equal intervals based on the numerical value of the shade of gray, did not reveal any blockage in either the highlights or the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 2.21, which is close to the standard value of 2.2. In this case, the real gamma curve almost does not deviate from the power-law dependence:
In this device, apparently, there is no dynamic adjustment of the backlight brightness in accordance with the nature of the output image, which is very good.
The color gamut is noticeably wider than sRGB:
Let's look at the spectra:
They are atypical, but we have already seen them in the case of, for example, Sony Xperia Z2. Sony indicates that these screens use LEDs with a blue emitter and green and red phosphors (usually a blue emitter and a yellow phosphor), which, in combination with special matrix filters, allows for a wide color gamut. Most likely, this statement is also true in the case of Huawei Honor 7. For a consumer device, a wide color gamut is not an advantage, but a significant disadvantage, since as a result, the colors of images - drawings, photographs and films - are oriented to the sRGB space (and the overwhelming majority of them are most) have an unnatural saturation. This is especially noticeable on recognizable shades, such as skin tones. The result is shown in the photo above.
The balance of shades on the gray scale is good, since the color temperature is not much higher than the standard 6500 K, and the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) is below 10, which is considered an acceptable indicator for a consumer device. At the same time, color temperature and ΔE change little from hue to hue - this has a positive effect on the visual assessment of color balance. (The darkest areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since color balance there is not very important, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)
This device has the ability to adjust the color balance by adjusting the tint warmer or cooler.
The curves in the graphs above Without corr. correspond to the results without any color balance correction, and the curves Corr.— data obtained after moving the correction slider to the “warm” side all the way. It can be seen that the change in balance corresponds to the expected result, since the color temperature approached the standard value, but ΔE, unfortunately, increased noticeably, although it still remained below the critical value of 10 units. Perhaps it doesn't make much sense to make the correction. Note that, judging by the entire set of characteristics, the Huawei Honor 7 has exactly the same screen as the Huawei P8.
Let's summarize: the screen has a fairly high maximum brightness and has good anti-glare properties, so the device can be used outdoors without any problems, even on a sunny summer day. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable level. It is also possible to use a mode with automatic brightness adjustment, which works adequately. Also, the advantages of the screen include the presence of an effective oleophobic coating, the absence of an air gap in the layers of the screen and flicker, high contrast, as well as a color balance close to standard. The disadvantages are the low stability of black to the deviation of the gaze from perpendicular to the screen plane and an excessively wide color gamut. Nevertheless, taking into account the importance of characteristics specifically for this class of devices, the quality of the screen can be considered high, although you should be prepared for strange and not entirely natural shades.
Sound
Honor 7 sounds good for its level, but it is not on the same level as the flagship Huawei Mate S with its truly outstanding sound, although the advertising brochures mention the presence of a separate second-generation NXP Smart PA audio chip. The sound of Honor 7 is simpler, the external speaker produces a rather modest monophonic sound mainly on high notes, it does not shine with a richness of colors, low frequencies It’s practically inaudible, although the volume reserve is enough for almost any situation. The situation is better with headphones. Here it becomes possible to additionally enable DTS technology, and it is worth using it. This makes the sound in the headphones brighter and louder, although even here you can’t help but feel that the sound is not crystal clear, there is some background noise intertwined. In general, for a mid-price smartphone, the sound of Honor 7 is quite acceptable, it’s just not top-level, which is generally logical.
At telephone conversation interlocutors do not note any special distortions, except for a slight hiss on the most high frequencies. In the auditory dynamics, the voice and intonations of a familiar interlocutor remain recognizable.
There is an FM radio in the smartphone; it only works with connected headphones; there is no function for recording programs from the air. A built-in voice recorder with several operating modes (meeting, interview, concert) uses both built-in microphones and a noise reduction system for better recording. However, in practice, no supersensitivity of microphones or special quality of sound recording on a voice recorder was noticed, everything is the same as with others modern smartphones appropriate level.
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Camera
Honor 7 is equipped with two digital camera modules with a resolution of 20 and 8 megapixels. The front camera is equipped with an 8-megapixel module with an f/2.4 aperture lens. You can take pictures with the front camera by touching your finger to the touch pad of the fingerprint scanner located on the back side. When the screen is locked, you can quickly turn on the camera and then take pictures using the hardware volume down key. Smile tracking feature supported. Among additional modes You can note the “Perfect Selfie”, which allows you to apply additional facial embellishment effects to already taken photographs, as well as the ability to take panoramic shots with the front camera.
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The front camera copes with its tasks adequately. The color rendition is natural, the pictures are bright and detailed. This quality is quite enough for selfies. With default settings, the front camera gives the shooter a couple of seconds to take the best position, while an audio countdown occurs. It is curious that the front camera here is equipped with its own flash, but it is not quite ordinary. A large round LED shines with a dim, soft yellowish light so as not to dazzle the eyes. There is even a virtual slider for smoothly changing the backlight intensity. Note that this is not the same diode that is responsible for the status indication and incoming messages - it is smaller and hidden under the sound grille of the speaker. That is, Honor 7 has two LEDs built into the front panel. The front illumination is not at all bright, but in principle it is enough for taking selfies in the dark.
The main 20-megapixel camera is equipped with an f/2.0 aperture lens. It has fairly fast autofocus with support for PDAF technology, which, according to the developers, allows, in most cases, to reduce the focusing time to 0.1 second, and also has an object tracking function. There is no optical stabilization, but there is electronic stabilization for video shooting. There is also a dual multi-colored flash on the back of the case. Quick start camera is possible by double-clicking the hardware volume down key, even if the smartphone is unlocked. It is possible to detect a smile.
The settings menu here is exactly the same as that of the older Huawei flagship. In addition to the automatic mode, here you can also select panoramic, HDR, selective focus mode, night shooting, good photo and even more specific modes such as text recognition, watermark, etc. Unlike the Mate S, there is no separate manual control mode, called “Pro,” but manual adjustment of some parameters can be done directly from the main list of settings menu items. A separate menu is responsible for entertainment modes for working with light at night: Huawei developers found this such an interesting innovation that they installed the “light painting” mode in all their new smartphones. But here they went even further and added fast access as one of the main modes for photographing food.
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The Honor 7 video camera can shoot only up to Full HD resolution; Huawei is in no hurry to add the ability to shoot in 4K or record at 60 frames per second. There is a Slo-mo mode, which shoots at 720p resolution and 120 fps for later playback in slow motion in the video player of the smartphone itself.
Test video shooting showed that the camera copes with it quite modestly: the image often comes out overexposed, loose, and not always sharp, although there are no complaints about the smoothness of the picture. The sound, despite the built-in noise reduction system, is also not very clear and pleasant to the ear, this is especially noticeable on a noisy street. The noise reduction system also does not always cope adequately with the noise of strong winds.
- Video No. 1 (43 MB, 1920×1080 @30 fps)
- Video No. 2 (52 MB, 1920×1080 @30 fps)
- Video No. 3 (52 MB, 1280×720 @120 fps, slo-mo)
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Sharping on the wires is practically absent. |
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The license plates of nearby cars are distinguishable, although it can be better, and at a lower resolution. |
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In the shadows, sometimes the camera captures details better than in the light. Often, blurred areas appear in the most unexpected places. |
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The colors of the sky and walls are quite even. |
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Despite a high resolution, the foliage in the background merges. |
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The camera works well with shadows. The number plate of the nearest car is visible. |
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The foliage is done well, but there is a large area of blur on the left side of the frame. |
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The camera also copes well in HDR mode. |
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The camera copes well with macro photography. |
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The text is well done software processing almost invisible. |
We also tested the camera on a laboratory bench using our method.
Still, an irresponsible increase in the number of megapixels has never brought anyone any good. All these points do not coexist very well in such an area, and therefore, in order for them to give a good result, you need to either be cunning, like Sony and Nokia, or work hard on the software, which Chinese manufacturers for the most part do not like. However, in this case, they can still be praised for their work, since bringing a 20-megapixel sensor to this level is also not an easy task. But the optics here are clearly rather weak and, coupled with noise reduction, lose details. Perhaps the manufacturer should have cheated and reduced the output resolution by at least half. This way we would get a smaller size and better clarity, and with proper processing, also less noise. And 20 megapixels is a lot even for an expensive point-and-shoot camera, let alone for a smartphone. In addition, this camera is not without such drawbacks as soapiness and the periodic appearance of out-of-focus zones, especially at the edges of the frame. At the same time, the noise reduction works well, and its grain is quite fine. Sharping is practically absent. Despite the fact that the camera will cope well with most scenarios, it cannot be called a flagship due to the abundance of blur zones and the not very practical use of such a sensor and optics.
Telephone and communications
In terms of communications, there are no differences from the flagship Mate S model. The smartphone works as standard in modern 2G GSM and 3G WCDMA networks, and also has support for fourth-generation networks LTE Cat.6 with a maximum possible speed of up to 300 Mbit/s for reception, frequency aggregation is supported if there is appropriate support from the operator’s network. It is also reported that the smartphone uses a double antenna: “Two antennas are located in the upper and lower parts of the body and solve the problem of blocking the signal with your hand. If the signal deteriorates, the smartphone switches to an antenna that provides better reception. At the same time, no additional energy is wasted on signal amplification.”
Six FDD LTE bands are supported, while the hero of the review will function in the three most common bands among domestic operators (B3, B7 and B20). In practice, with SIM cards from Beeline and MTS operators in the Moscow region, the smartphone was confidently registered and worked in 4G networks. The quality of signal reception is not satisfactory; the device confidently maintains communication indoors and does not lose the signal in areas of poor reception.
There is support for Bluetooth 4.1, NFC, Wi-Fi Direct is supported, you can organize a wireless access point via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth channels. Smart Wi-Fi+ lets you automatically switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data networks. Micro-USB 2.0 connector supports connectivity external devices V USB mode OTG.
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The phone application supports Smart Dial, that is, while dialing phone number A search is also carried out immediately using the first letters in contacts. It is possible to reduce in size not only virtual keyboard, but also the entire working area of the screen for ease of operation with one hand (in order to reduce the working area of the screen, you need to slide your finger across the panel with virtual control buttons at the bottom of the screen). The method of continuous input using a stroke from letter to letter (Swype) is supported.
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The smartphone supports dual SIM cards. All work with them in the menu is conveniently organized on one page, the settings are conveniently combined into groups, you just need to check a couple of boxes - and the choice is made. Everything is clear and intuitive. Perhaps this menu for managing work with two SIM cards is the most convenient of all possible options.
Any of the SIM cards can be designated as the main one for organizing voice calls, transferring data and sending SMS messages; When dialing a number, you can also select the desired card using the corresponding buttons. A SIM card in any slot can work with 3G/4G networks, but only one of them can function in this mode at a time. To change the assignment of slots, cards do not need to be swapped - this can be done directly from the phone menu. Work with two SIM cards is organized according to the Dual SIM Dual Active standard, when both cards can work in parallel and at the same time, that is, the smartphone uses two separate radio modules - this is a very rare and, of course, very user-friendly option.
The interface here is exactly the same as in the flagship models Huawei Mate S and Huawei P8 that we tested earlier. Among the features: there is support for working with gestures - you can, for example, draw a certain letter of the English alphabet with your finger on the screen to simultaneously unlock the smartphone and launch a program associated with the gesture. Here, by the way, you can also use a touch with your knuckles - for example, to take a picture of part of the image on the screen. It is assumed that with a knuckle you can quickly circle the desired sector, cut out and save this segment as a screenshot, but in practice the screen turned out to be so poorly optimized for working with knuckles that you have to circle dozens of times until this function Finally, it won’t work - on the flagship Mate S this technology, called Knuckle Sense, works many times faster and more conveniently. It is also possible to voice unlock the smartphone, but only in English.
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Performance
The Honor 7 hardware platform is based on the same eight-core HiSilicon Kirin 935 single-chip system (SoC) that is used in the flagship Huawei Mate S. The configuration of this solution includes two clusters of four Cortex-A53 processor cores with a frequency of 1.5/2, 2 GHz and GPU Mali-T628. That is, Kirin 935 acts as a competitor to such SoCs top level, like Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 and MediaTek MT6795.
The smartphone's RAM capacity is 3 GB, of which a little more than 2 GB is initially free. The device has 16 GB of its own memory, of which 9.85 GB is initially available to the user for his own needs. The amount of internal memory can be increased using microSD cards; cards up to 128 GB are supported. In practice, our 128GB Transcend Premium microSDXC UHS-1 test card was reliably recognized by the device. It is also possible to connect external devices to the Micro-USB port in USB OTG mode.
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According to the test results, Honor 7, as expected, demonstrated the same results as the flagship Mate S. In comprehensive tests such as AnTuTu, the Kirin 935 platform’s performance is close to that of the competing Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 and MediaTek MT6795 platforms. In graphics tests, everything is not so rosy: in specialized gaming benchmarks, the platform is noticeably inferior to its main competitors and is even more far from the currently leading Exynos 7420, used in the most powerful modern devices Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 edge/S6 edge+.
However, if you move away from the dry numbers of synthetic benchmarks, the Honor 7 user will not feel a lack of performance. This mid-price smartphone in terms of performance is currently at the level of modern flagships, which, in fact, has attracted such close attention from the public interested in mobile technology. In any case, the hardware capabilities of this smartphone are still for a long time will be enough to complete any task, including not the most demanding games.
Testing in the latest versions of comprehensive tests AnTuTu and GeekBench 3:
All the results we obtained when testing the smartphone in the most latest versions popular benchmarks, we have summarized them in tables for convenience. The table usually adds several other devices from different segments, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry figures). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison it is impossible to present the results from different versions benchmarks, so many worthy and relevant models remain “behind the scenes” - due to the fact that at one time they passed the “obstacle course” on previous versions test programs.
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Testing the graphics subsystem in gaming tests 3DMark, GFXBenchmark and Bonsai Benchmark:
When testing in 3DMark, the most powerful smartphones now have the ability to run the application in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).
| Honor 7 (HiSilicon Kirin 935) |
Huawei Mate S (HiSilicon Kirin 935) |
Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ (Exynos 7420) |
Meizu MX5 (Mediatek MT6795T) |
OnePlus 2 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 810) |
|
| 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme (more is better) |
6922 | 6292 | Maxed out! | Maxed out! | Maxed out! |
| 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited (more is better) |
12113 | 12553 | 23125 | 16390 | 22179 |
| GFXBenchmark T-Rex HD (C24Z16 Onscreen) | 13 fps | 16 fps | 37 fps | 27 fps | 46 fps |
| GFXBenchmark T-Rex HD (C24Z16 Offscreen) | 12 fps | 12 fps | 57 fps | 27 fps | 48 fps |
| Bonsai Benchmark | 3310 (47 fps) | 3396 (48 fps) | 4237 (60 fps) | 3966 (57 fps) | 4169 (59 fps) |
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Browser cross-platform tests:
As for benchmarks for assessing the speed of the javascript engine, you should always make allowance for the fact that their results significantly depend on the browser in which they are launched, so the comparison can only be truly correct on the same OS and browsers, and this is possible during testing not always. For Android OS, we always try to use Google Chrome.
Thermal photographs
Below is a thermal image of the rear surface obtained after 10 minutes of running the battery test in the GFXBenchmark program:
It can be seen that the heating is slightly more localized approximately at the center and closer to the right edge of the device, which apparently corresponds to the location of the SoC chip. According to the heat chamber, the maximum heating was 36 degrees (at an ambient temperature of 24 degrees), which is relatively little. Apparently, the metal body of the device helps to delocalize the heating area. The pictures show that the plastic inserts at the back at the top and bottom have a lower temperature due to their low thermal conductivity.
Playing video
To test omnivorousness when playing video (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, for example subtitles), we used the most common formats, which make up the bulk of the content available on the Web. Note that for mobile devices It is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is most often impossible to process modern options using processor cores alone. Also, you shouldn’t expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it. All results are summarized in a single table.
According to the testing results, the subject was not equipped with all the necessary decoders that are needed to fully play most of the most common multimedia files on the network. To successfully play them, you will have to resort to the help of a third-party player - for example, MX Player. True, it is also necessary to change the settings and manually install additional custom codecs, because now this player does not officially support the AC3 sound format.
| Format | Container, video, sound | MX Video Player | Standard video player |
| DVDRip | AVI, XviD 720×400 2200 Kbps, MP3+AC3 | plays normally | plays normally |
| Web-DL SD | AVI, XviD 720×400 1400 Kbps, MP3+AC3 | plays normally | plays normally |
| Web-DL HD | MKV, H.264 1280×720 3000 Kbps, AC3 | The video plays fine, but there is no sound¹ | |
| BDRip 720p | MKV, H.264 1280×720 4000 Kbps, AC3 | The video plays fine, but there is no sound¹ | The video plays fine, but there is no sound¹ |
| BDRip 1080p | MKV, H.264 1920×1080 8000 Kbps, AC3 | The video plays fine, but there is no sound¹ | The video plays fine, but there is no sound¹ |
¹ sound in MX Video Player was played only after installing an alternative custom audio codec; The standard player does not have this setting
Tested video output features Alexey Kudryavtsev.
We did not find the MHL interface, like Mobility DisplayPort, in this smartphone, so we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see “Method for testing video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices)”). Screenshots with a shutter speed of 1 s helped determine the nature of the output of frames of video files with various parameters: the resolution varied (1280 by 720 (720p) and 1920 by 1080 (1080p) pixels) and frame rate (24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 frames/ With). In the tests we used the MX Player video player in the “Hardware” mode. The test results are summarized in the table:
Note: If in both columns Uniformity And Passes Green ratings are given, this means that, most likely, when watching films, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and frame skipping will either not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect the viewing comfort. Red marks indicate possible problems related to the playback of the corresponding files.
According to the criterion of frame output, the quality of playback of video files on the screen of the smartphone itself is very good, since frames (or groups of frames) can (but are not required) be output with more or less uniform alternation of intervals and without skipping frames. When playing video files with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels (1080p) on a smartphone screen, the image of the video file itself is displayed exactly along the border of the screen, one to one in pixels, that is, in the original resolution. The brightness range displayed on the screen corresponds to standard range 16-235 - in the shadows, only a couple of shades of gray do not differ in brightness from black, but in the highlights all gradations of shades are displayed.
Battery life
The capacity of the built-in non-removable battery installed in Honor 7 is 3000 mAh, which is even larger than that of the flagship Mate S. Accordingly, the duration testing results battery life The device demonstrated expectedly higher results. The autonomy of Honor 7 is at a quite decent, although far from record level. It should be noted that testing was carried out without using any energy-saving functions, although there are energy-saving functions in the smartphone settings.
| Battery capacity | Reading mode | Video mode | 3D Game Mode | |
| Honor 7 | 3000 mAh | 13:00 | 10:40 a.m. | 3 hours 50 minutes |
| Huawei Mate S | 2700 mAh | 12:30 pm | 9:00 a.m. | 3 hours 20 minutes |
| Sony Xperia C4 | 2600 mAh | 11:30 am | 9:00 a.m. | 4:00 am |
| Samsung Galaxy A7 | 2600 mAh | 22:10 | 12:00 pm | 3 hours 20 minutes |
| Alcatel OT Idol 3 (5.5) | 2910 mAh | 17:00 | 8:30 a.m. | 3 hours 20 minutes |
| OnePlus 2 | 3300 mAh | 14:00 | 11:20 am | 4 hours 30 minutes |
| LeTV One | 3000 mAh | 10:30 a.m. | 8 a.m. 20 p.m. | 3 hours 50 minutes |
| Meizu MX5 | 3150 mAh | 15:00 | 11:00 am | 4 hours 10 minutes |
| HTC Desire 820 | 2600 mAh | 13:00 | 7:40 a.m. | 4 hours 10 minutes |
Measurements showed that continuous reading in the Moon+ Reader program (with a standard, light theme, with auto-scrolling) at a minimum comfortable brightness level (brightness was set to 100 cd/m²) lasted almost 13 hours until the battery was completely discharged. Without the auto-scroll feature in FBReader, these numbers will increase even further. When continuously watching videos in high quality (720p) with the same brightness level through the home Wi-Fi network The device lasted more than 10.5 hours. In 3D gaming mode the device worked for just under 4 hours.
In this case, the smartphone is charged in exactly the same way as the Mate S. The first 20% is gained in 20 minutes of charging, within half an hour the battery is filled by 28%, but later the speed drops noticeably, and in the end you will have to wait at least 2 hours 40 minutes before it is fully charged .
Bottom line
According to the already familiar scheme, smartphones of the now separate Honor brand are sold only through the Huawei online store, which allows the manufacturer to maintain the most attractive prices. True, in the case of Honor 7, buyers will also be able to purchase this model and in the M.Video online store. The price in both cases is 22,990 rubles. It is curious that Honor 7 is promised to be delivered to online store customers throughout Russia free of charge by Huawei’s partner, SPSR.
“This is not the first time we are convinced that we have chosen the right strategy for developing and promoting the Honor brand in Russia,” Sam Yuan, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group in Russia, comments on the sales results. “But the most important thing is the continued interest of customers in our devices, which is confirmed by the sales results of Honor 7. It is very valuable for us to be able to give people what they really want, to develop and produce devices that users really like.”
As a result, the buyer, for almost half the price of the flagship Huawei Mate S, gets an interesting smartphone in many respects with an attractive metal (albeit not solid) body, good screen, a good camera, satisfactory sound and a decent set of communication interfaces. The presence of an advanced fingerprint scanner and an infrared transmitter complement the already rosy picture. Time will tell how practical this combined Honor 7 case with plastic inserts will be. In the meantime, the happy owners of the new product enjoy all the delights of a powerful top-level productive platform at a price even lower than that of the flagships of previous years before the price increase.
The main question that involuntarily arises in your head when getting acquainted with technical characteristics the brand new Huawei Honor 7: why was it necessary to release it if there is an almost identical one? Seriously, analyze the right two columns of the table below - you will see that the Honor 7 and Huawei P8 are very, very similar. The fact is that in its homeland, China, Honor is already a separate brand, aimed at young people, and distributed exclusively via the Internet, due to which it is possible to reduce the final cost of the devices.
The line of devices, which was previously called Huawei Ascend P, and now simply Huawei P, was the top one in the company’s range and remains so. This means that the P8 is a gadget made with a focus on design and image. He's a hundred And t on the polished windows of trading floors, and for it there, in these very trading halls, they ask for money as if for a full-fledged flagship smartphone. Let's put it simply: Honor 7 was originally made cheaper than P8. In Russia, the current price for the “Seven” is 23 thousand rubles, and for the premium P8 - 30 thousand. Let's try to figure out what Huawei engineers saved on when creating Honor 7...
⇡ Technical specifications
| Huawei Honor 6 | Huawei Honor 6 Plus | Huawei Honor 7 | Huawei P8 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Touch screen | 5 inches, 1920 × 1080 pixels, IPS; 445 dpi; |
5.5 inches, 1920 × 1080 pixels, IPS; 401 dpi; capacitive, up to ten simultaneous touches |
423.6 dpi; capacitive, up to ten simultaneous touches |
5.2 inches, 1920 × 1080 pixels, IPS; 423.6 dpi; capacitive, up to ten simultaneous touches |
| Air gap | No | No | No | No |
| Oleophobic coating | Eat | Eat | Eat | Eat |
| Polarizing filter | Eat | Eat | Eat | Eat |
| Factory film | No | No | No | No |
| System-on-a-chip | HiSilicon Kirin 920 (ARM big.LITTLE architecture): four ARM Cortex-A15 cores, frequency 1.7 GHz + four ARM Cortex-A7 cores, frequency 1.3 GHz (ARMv7), 28 nm process technology; 32-bit computing |
HiSilicon Kirin 925 (ARM big.LITTLE HMP architecture): four ARM Cortex-A15 cores, frequency 1.8 GHz + four ARM Cortex-A7 cores, frequency 1.3 GHz (ARMv7) + Smart i3 coprocessor, 28 nm HPm process technology; 32-bit computing |
HiSilicon Kirin 935 (ARM big.LITTLE HMP architecture): four ARM Cortex-A53 cores, 1.5 GHz + four ARM Cortex-A53e cores, 2.2 GHz (ARMv8) |
HiSilicon Kirin 930 (ARM big.LITTLE HMP architecture): four ARM Cortex-A53 cores, 1.5 GHz + four ARM Cortex-A53e cores, 2 GHz (ARMv8) 28 nm HPm process technology; 32-bit and 64-bit computing |
| Graphics controller | ARM Mali-T628 MP4, frequency 600 MHz | ARM Mali-T628 MP4, frequency 600 MHz | ARM Mali-T628 MP4, frequency 600 MHz | |
| RAM | 3 GB LPDDR3-1600 | 3 GB LPDDR3-1600 | 3 GB LPDDR3-1600 | 3 GB LPDDR3-1600 |
| Flash memory | 16 GB (11.5 GB available to user) + microSD | 16/32 GB (we tested a 32 GB version - 25.1 GB is available to the user) + microSD | 16/32/64 GB (we tested a 16 GB version - 10.7 GB available to the user) + microSD | 16/32 GB (we tested a 16 GB version - 11.3 GB available to the user) + microSD |
| Connectors | 1 × Micro-USB 2.0 1 × MicroSD 1 × Micro-SIM |
1 × Micro-USB 2.0 1 × 3.5mm headset jack 1 × Micro-SIM |
1 × Micro-USB 2.0 1 × 3.5mm headset jack 1 × Nano-SIM 1 × Nano-SIM/microSD (combined) |
1 × Micro-USB 2.0 1 × 3.5mm headset jack 1 × Nano-SIM 1× Nano-SIM/microSD (combined) |
| cellular | 2G/3G/4G One SIM card in Micro-SIM format |
2G/3G/4G* One SIM card in Micro-SIM format + one SIM card in Nano-SIM format, instead of which you can install a microSD memory card |
2G/3G/4G |
2G/3G/4G One Nano-SIM format SIM card + one Nano-SIM format SIM card, instead of which you can install a microSD memory card |
| Cellular connection 2G | GSM/GPRS/EDGE 900/1800/1900 MHz | GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz | GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz | |
| Cellular 3G | DC-HSPA+ (42.2/5.76 Mbps) 900/2100 MHz | HSDPA (42.2/5.76 Mbps) 850/900/1900/2100 MHz TD-SCDMA 1900/2000 MHz | HSDPA (42.2/5.76 Mbps) 900/1900/2100 MHz TD-SCDMA 1900/2000 MHz | |
| Cellular 4G | LTE Cat. 6 (300/50 Mbps) FDD: Band 1, 3, 7, 20 (2100/1800/900/800 MHz), TDD: Band 38 (2600 MHz) | LTE Cat. 6 (300/50 Mbps) Band 1, 3, 7, 38, 39, 40, 41 (2100/1800/2600/1900/2300/2500 MHz) | LTE Cat. 6 (300/50 Mbps) Band 1, 3, 7, 8, 20 (2100/1800/2600/900/800 MHz) | LTE Cat. 6 (300/50 Mbps) Band 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 40 (2100/900/1800/1700/ 850/ 2600/900/700/800/2300 MHz) |
| WiFi | 802.11a/b/g/n, 2.4 and 5 GHz + Wi-Fi Direct | 802.11a/b/g/n, 2.4 and 5 GHz + Wi-Fi Direct | 802.11a/b/g/n, 2.4 and 5 GHz + Wi-Fi Direct | |
| Bluetooth | 4.0 + A2DP | 4.0 + A2DP | 4.1 | 4.1 |
| NFC | No | Yes - only for the version with LTE | No | No |
| IR port | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Navigation | GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS | GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS | GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS | GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS |
| Sensors | Light sensor, proximity sensor, accelerometer/gyroscope, magnetometer (digital compass) | Light sensor, proximity sensor, accelerometer/gyroscope, magnetometer (digital compass) | Light sensor, proximity sensor, accelerometer/gyroscope, magnetometer (digital compass) | |
| Fingerprint's scanner | No | No | Yes | No |
| Main camera | 13 MP (4160 × 3120), |
Dual, 8 megapixel sensors (3264 × 2448), Software stitching of images up to 13 megapixels, |
20 MP (5152 × 3888), Sony Exmor RS CMOS back-illuminated sensor, Autofocus, dual led flash |
13 MP (4160 × 3120), Sony Exmor RS CMOS back-illuminated sensor, Autofocus, single LED flash |
| Front-camera | 5.1 MP (2592 × 1952), no autofocus | 8 MP (3264 × 2448), no autofocus | 8 MP (3264 × 2448), no autofocus | |
| Nutrition | Non-removable battery: 13.68 Wh (3600 mAh, 3.8 V) | Non-removable battery: 11.78 Wh (3100 mAh, 3.8 V) | Non-removable battery: 10.18 Wh (2680 mAh, 3.8 V) | |
| Size | 140 × 70 mm Case thickness: 7.5 mm |
150.5 × 75.7 mm Case thickness 7.5 mm |
143 × 72 mm Case thickness 8.5 mm |
145 × 72 mm Case thickness 6.4 mm |
| Weight | 130 g | 165 g | 157 g | 144 g |
| Housing protection | No | No | No | No |
| operating system | Android 4.4.2 Own shell EmotionUI 2.3 |
Google Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) Own shell EmotionUI 3.0 |
Own shell EmotionUI 4.0 |
Google Android 5.0.2 (Lollipop) Own shell EmotionUI 3.1 |
| Current price | 19,990 rubles | 22,990 rubles for the 16 GB version 25,990 rubles for the 32 GB version |
22,990 rubles | 26,990 rubles |
* There is a version of Huawei Honor 6 Plus without LTE support, but it is not officially supplied to Russia. It has strictly 16 GB of built-in flash memory, while the version with LTE support can be equipped with 16 or 32 GB of memory. Accordingly, when purchasing a version with 16 GB of flash memory, just in case, it is worth checking whether this copy has LTE support.
⇡ Appearance, ergonomics, fingerprint scanner
Huawei engineers have finally made the body of the next Honor series smartphone metal. And this, in general, is a significant event - previously the cases of gadgets of this family were plastic. This is where the good news regarding appearance probably ends and the ordinary news begins. The fact is that Honor 7 looks, to put it more precisely, mediocre - it can easily get lost among other Android smartphones. This is probably what the creators originally intended, because for the sake of image, there are P-series devices. Nevertheless, the appearance of the “Seven” is rather boring - there is literally nothing for the eye to catch on to.
The dimensions of the gadget are also quite standard, as is the weight - 157 grams. Your hands don’t get tired of it, even if you hold the device suspended for a long time. The thickness of the case is 8.5 millimeters. Most competitors are thinner. On the one hand, this does not seem to be very good for our test subject, but on the other hand, a fairly capacious battery of 11.78 Wh (3100 mAh, 3.8 V) fits in its body, so this thickness is justified .
There are no hardware keys on the front panel - navigation buttons operating system virtual. At the top of the panel there is a slot for the earpiece, the sensitive area of the light sensor and the lens of the front eight-megapixel camera.
Another one interesting feature on the exterior of Honor 7 there is a “smart” key. This is a hardware button located on the left side, under the middle finger of the right hand. The key is programmable; the user can assign an action to it (activate the camera, turn on the flash, launch the voice recorder, etc.) or launch an application. It is noteworthy that on this one key you can “hang” three tasks at once - single press, double press and hold. A very convenient feature, I must say.
Next to this very “smart” key there is a slot for installing two cards - Nano-SIM and a combined slot for Nano-SIM/microSD. Unfortunately, the smartphone, like many other Huawei devices, does not have a separate slot for a memory card.
The layout of the controls and connectors on the smartphone is standard. The power and volume keys are located on the right side. On the top edge there is an IR port and a 3.5 mm audio jack, and on the bottom there is a Micro-USB interface and an external speaker. The latter is not blocked by your hand, even if you hold the gadget horizontally.
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Huawei Honor 7 - side ends |
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Another little surprise awaits on the back panel. Under the lens of the main 20-megapixel camera there is a biometric sensor, which was not previously available in Honor. But something similar was in the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 smartphone, released a year ago.
It is noteworthy that with its help you can not only unlock the device, but also answer calls, turn off the alarm clock, view the list open applications(to do this you need to swipe up on the sensor), open the notification panel (swipe down) and clear notifications (double tap on the sensor). Moreover, the user can create a secure storage area confidential information and classified applications, access to which will be carried out using a fingerprint - through a special section in the built-in file manager. The fingerprint sensor works quite quickly and, most importantly, accurately - on the official Huawei website it says 0.5 seconds for recognition, and this seems to be true. During testing, it unmistakably recognized the owner’s finger and did not react to “strangers.” In total, you can save up to five prints in the device memory.
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Huawei Honor 7 - biometric sensor parameters |
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The main camera lens protrudes somewhat from the body, which is aesthetically not very pleasant. However, this does not cause any inconvenience: it will not be scratched, even if the device is lying on the table with its back down - there is a metal edging around the protective glass. Next to the camera is a two-section LED flash. We had no complaints about the assembly - the device does not creak or bend, although it does not leave the feeling of an expensive thing either.
The display installed in Honor 7 is made using IPS (in-plane switching) technology. Its viewing angles are quite wide - it’s quite comfortable to watch, say, movies and photos on the display together. There are no serious color deviations or shifts, or significant drops in contrast when looking away from the perpendicular. The screen is quite responsive, it responds quickly to touches and recognizes gestures without problems. In total, the device supports up to ten simultaneous touches. The gadget also easily understands touches with loose gloves - this is especially important before winter.
The protective glass of the front panel has an oleophobic coating, so it’s pleasant to touch the screen of the “seven”. During operation, it practically does not get dirty: even if the user left “fingers” on the display, it is not at all difficult to get rid of them using any cloth at hand. The Honor 7 screen is made using One Glass Solution (OGS) technology, that is, there is no air gap between the protective glass and the matrix, which reduces the number of reflections. A very effective polarizing filter also helps combat glare.
The backlight boundaries of the Honor 7 display are quite wide: the luminosity of the white field varies from 12 to 438 cd/m2. These brightness values allow you to comfortably use the device both in complete darkness and in the sun. The gadget is equipped with a light sensor, thanks to which it can independently adjust the brightness level that is comfortable for working in given conditions. The sensor works quite correctly.
The luminosity of the black field is small: at maximum brightness it reaches 0.33 cd/m2. This is a good indicator for an IPS matrix - the black color looks quite deep at any brightness, including maximum, without deviations into dark gray, dark purple or some other dark color. The contrast of the Honor 7 display is very good by the standards of mobile IPS - 1327:1.
The color temperature of shades of gray is slightly higher than the reference value of 6500 K - on average it is 7500 K. Evenness is also not all smooth - very light and very dark tones are colder than the intermediate ones, and in general the picture is a little cold. If desired, the user can correct this in the display settings menu.
All gamma curves coincide with the reference curve - the smartphone display displays various halftones and shades correctly. That is, everything is fine with the display, except that the color temperature is too high - we have no other comments.
⇡ Hardware and performance
Technical content of smartphones and Huawei tablets It's easy to guess ahead. This is how we reasoned in the case of Honor 7. As a processor with most likely The chip will be a subsidiary of HiSilicon. Since the smartphone is intended for demanding young people, Huawei will most likely install the most powerful available solution in it - the eight-core Kirin 935 chip. This is actually what happened. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that even the fashionable Huawei P8 has the Kirin 930 installed. However, the difference between them is not very significant: the frequency of the Cortex-A53e cores is 2 GHz and 2.2 GHz, but the Cortex-A53 cores operate at the same frequency - 1.5 GHz. However, the very fact that Honor 7 has a more powerful system-on-chip is surprising.
General synthetic tests - AnTuTu Benchmark 5 and GeekBench 3 clearly demonstrated the superiority of Honor 7 over Huawei P8: the new product is truly more powerful. For example, in the AnTuTu task, “seven” scored more than 49 thousand points, while P8 scored less than 44 thousand points. At the same time, even the most powerful, 935th “Kirin” is significantly slower than the new monster from MediaTek (Helio X10 MT6795T, which runs HTC One M9+). Look at the scores in the GeekBench 3 test: how dare we say it, One M9+ boldly beats Honor 7: five thousand points in a multi-threaded task versus three and a half!
Huawei P8 and Honor 7 have three gigabytes of RAM. Of course, fast LPDDR3 modules are used. The built-in storage capacity of the S7 test unit is sixteen gigabytes, of which less than eleven are available to the user. There are 32 and 64 GB versions for different markets, but it is not known whether they will be officially sold in Russia. The user can install a microSD memory card instead of a second SIM card; there is no separate slot for a flash drive.
When performing everyday, mundane tasks, the Honor 7 behaves well. Literally a couple of times during testing, it barely noticeably froze - let's hope that this is a flaw in our pre-production sample.
The graphics controller in the Kirin 935 is the same as in the 930, and in the 925, and in the 920 - ARM Mali-T628 MP4, operating at 600 MHz. This solution, as you probably already guessed, is far from the first freshness. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that resource-intensive 3D toys on the Honor 7 are somewhat slow. Of course, this can be partially solved by reducing the graphics settings to medium or initial, but even this will not completely correct the situation. Honor 7 is not for those who like to play.
⇡ Communications and wireless communications
As we have already said, the device can work with two Nano-SIM cards - the second SIM card is installed instead of a memory card. It is noteworthy and important that the smartphone has two separate radio modules installed - they work according to the Dual SIM Dual Active scheme, that is, when any activity occurs on one of the cards (for example, an incoming call), the second does not go offline. Working with SIM cards is implemented in the simplest way: after installing both SIM cards in the device, the smartphone will offer to assign which one to call, send messages and access the Internet with.
The gadget can work in fourth generation networks - LTE Cat.6 is supported. The maximum theoretical data reception speed in mobile networks is 300 Mbit/s, upload speed is 50 Mbit/s. All bands important for Russia have been implemented - there should be no problems with 4G reception, regardless of the operator. In general, the smartphone reliably receives signals from mobile networks and does not lose it for no apparent reason. It is noteworthy that Honor 7 has a software option that allows you to improve the quality of signal reception - it is called “Signal+”.
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Huawei Honor 7C is a budget smartphone with a dual camera. One of the features of the device is a frameless screen with a large diagonal. The gadget was announced in March 2018.
Appearance and ergonomics
The Huawei Honor 7C smartphone has a metal body with rounded corners. On the front there is a massive display with virtual control buttons, covered with elegant 2.5D glass. This screen takes up almost all the space, so there was simply no free space for the navigation buttons. The round fingerprint scanner is located on the back side, it instantly responds to touches. In the upper corner there is a block with two modules for photography and a flash. This element protrudes forward somewhat, which was done to reduce the thickness of the entire body. There are also plastic inserts for the antennas at the bottom and top, which are disguised as metal as possible.
The device is comfortable to hold in your hand due to its elongated shape. At the bottom end there is a microUSB 2.0 connector, as well as an external speaker. I received the phone battery at 3000 mAh. Available colors: red, black, blue and gold. Dimensions: height - 158.3 mm, thickness - 7.8 mm, width - 76.7 mm, weight - 164 g.
Display
Honor 7C is equipped with a 5.7-inch screen with a progressive aspect ratio of 18:9. Its resolution is 1440 by 720 pixels. The IPS matrix is covered with durable protective glass. This display cannot boast of ideal image detail, but the colors here are quite rich and bright. In the settings you can adjust the color temperature to the cold or warm side. Wide viewing angles are complemented by high-quality anti-glare properties. Since we are talking about the FullView format, you can enjoy a large amount of information that fits on the display.
Hardware and performance
The Honor 7C is equipped with an eight-core Snapdragon 450 processor from Qualcomm. These are Cortex-A53 cores operating at 1800 MHz. There is an Adreno 506 graphics accelerator. You can find two versions of the device on sale: with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of RAM, or with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. In both cases, there is support for memory cards up to 256 GB.
The device initially operates on the basis of the operating room Android systems 8.0 along with the proprietary EMUI 8 shell. In the AnTuTu test, this budget smartphone scores more than 60,000 points. In reality, programs open quite quickly, and the interface works like a clock. But even though games with advanced graphics will run at high settings, they still won’t be able to boast a stable frame rate. At the same time, relatively simple toys work without problems.
Communication and sound
The multimedia speaker in Huawei Honor 7C is expectedly located at the bottom end. It cannot boast of well-developed frequencies, and there is no bass at all. But the user is unlikely to miss an important call thanks to the very high volume. This is an extremely sonorous speaker with high-quality midranges. The interlocutor’s voice is transmitted perfectly, and he can hear you perfectly. There is no built-in radio, but there is Bluetooth 4.2, as well as support for fast wireless LTE networks. You can place two Nano-SIMs at the same time to combine mobile operators.
Camera
On the back of the Huawei Honor 7C there is a dual camera with a powerful flash. This is the main 13-megapixel module, complemented by a 2-megapixel sensor to create depth of field. This camera can create photos with background blur. It is worth noting the presence of phase detection autofocus, with which pictures are taken in a matter of moments. There are not only auto mode, but also some manual settings.
Video is recorded in a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels at a speed of 30 fps. On the front there is an 8-megapixel front camera for self-portraits, with its own separate flash. Self-portraits turn out to be quite high quality and moderately detailed. In the evening, the cameras do not behave in the best way, which is quite expected for inexpensive mobile gadgets.
conclusions
The budget smartphone represented by Honor 7C turned out to be remarkable in many ways. All thanks to the FullView display, as well as a high-quality dual camera. The device has been significantly updated in software terms, receiving a fresh interface and new version operating system. This interesting solution in the affordable segment mobile phones in 2018.
Pros:
- Dual camera with fast autofocus.
- Large frameless screen with an aspect ratio of 18:9.
- Latest software.
- Face recognition system.
- Quite high performance.
Minuses:
- NFC may be missing if you purchased the Chinese version of the device.
- Slightly lower screen resolution.
Technical characteristics of Huawei Honor 7C
| General characteristics | |
|---|---|
| Model | Huawei Honor 7C, Huawei Enjoy 8, AUM-L41 |
| Date of announcement and start of sales | March 2018 / March 2018 |
| Dimensions (LxWxH) | 158.3 x 76.7 x 7.8 mm. 152.4 x 73 x 8.05 mm. — for model AUM-L41 |
| Weight | 164 g. |
| Available colors | black, red, gold, blue |
| operating system | Android 8.0 (Oreo) + EMUI 8 |
| Connection | |
| Number and type of SIM cards | two, Nano-SIM, dual stand-by |
| Communication standard in 2G networks | GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900 - SIM 1 & SIM 2 |
| Communication standard in 3G networks | HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 |
| Communication standard in 4G networks | LTE |
| Carrier Compatibility | MTS, Beeline, Megafon, Tele2, Yota |
| Data transfer | |
| WiFi | Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot |
| Bluetooth | 4.2, A2DP, LE |
| GPS | yes, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS |
| NFC | yes, only in European version |
| Infrared port | No |
| Platform | |
| CPU | Octa-core Qualcomm SDM450 Snapdragon 450 (Octa-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A53), Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 MSM8937 - for the AUM-L41 model |
| GPU | Adreno 506 / Adreno 505 - for model AUM-L41 |
| Inner memory | 32/64 GB |
| RAM | 3/4 GB |
| Ports and connectors | |
| USB | microUSB 2.0 |
| 3.5mm jack | There is |
| Memory card slot | microSD, up to 256 GB (separate slot) |
| Display | |
| Display type | IPS LCD capacitive, 16M colors |
| Screen size | 5.7 inches (~76.3% of the front surface of the device) |
| Display protection | 2.5D glass |
| Camera | |
| Main camera | dual 13 MP + 2 MP, phase detection autofocus, LED flash |
| Functionality of the main camera | Geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, HDR, panorama |
| Video recording | 1080p@30fps |
| Front-camera | 8 MP, LED flash |
| Sensors | |
| Illuminance | There is |
| Approximations | There is |
| Gyroscope | No |
| Compass | There is |
| Hall | No |
| Accelerometer | There is |
| Barometer | No |
| Fingerprint scanner | There is |
| Battery | |
| Battery type and capacity | Li-Ion 3000 mAh |
| Battery mount | non-removable |
| Equipment | |
| Standard kit | Honor 7C: 1 USB cable: 1 User manual: 1 Warranty card: 1 SIM tray eject clip: 1 Charger: 1 |
Prices
Video reviews
In the near future, smartphones are expected from Honor to replace the excellent budget devices Honor 7X and. Until this happens, Honor 7A is being released instead of last year's Honor 6A.
Like its predecessor, new model has a price that is not much different from other devices from this manufacturer. True, the difference is twofold, but in any case these are budget smartphones.
The question is whether Chinese manufacturer ensure the required level of performance and functionality in this competitive price segment?
Specifications
Our honest video review Huawei smartphone Honor 7A:
Design
The Honor 7A doesn't have a truly edge-to-edge screen, but it takes up more real estate here than on most other budget phones. The frames at the top and bottom of the screen have become noticeably smaller compared to Honor 6A.
As a result, the Honor 7A is quite comfortable to hold in your hand, despite the screen size of 5.45 inches. This is achieved in the same way as other manufacturers, namely with a narrower body. The screen has become longer, thanks to which, with a width of 73 mm, the device fits comfortably in the palm of your hand. If you have long and flexible fingers, you will be able to reach the opposite edge of the device.
In Honor 6A, the developers experimented with metal back cover. This year they decided to return to the plastic version of the case. This is not to say that this is bad, but the smartphone lacks a sense of exclusivity.
Despite this omission, the Honor 7A has two different textures on the back and side. The back side has a matte finish, while the outer rim is made of sparkling plastic. Matte plastic looks much better.
Having lost the metal, the back side gained a fingerprint scanner. Its absence was the main disadvantage of the Honor 6A, so it's nice to see it this time. It's not the fastest or most reliable, but it's good enough.
You won't get USB-C port, so you'll have to make do with the old microUSB for charging and data transfer. But there is a 3.5 mm headphone jack, which is located on the top edge of the case.
Screen
The screen has grown to a diagonal of 5.45 inches, but has grown only in one direction. Naturally, we are talking about length. This means you can watch videos more comfortably, but the resolution is only 1440 x 720. Of course, this is a cheap smartphone, but recently there have been many similar devices with 1080p screens. For example, back in 2016 this was the Moto G4.
As a result, we can say that the Honor 7A's screen may disappoint even with low expectations. Navigating the home screen and various menus is fine, but browsing through images, the browser, videos, and games shows the limitations of such a low resolution.
Color accuracy is good, Huawei Color mode allows you to change the shades on the screen at your discretion. The maximum brightness here is not particularly high. On a sunny day, looking at the screen will be problematic.
Performance
There are disappointments in this aspect as well. Processor 4x nuclear MediaTek MT6739, 1500 MHz. Already a year ago he was at the lower level and has not gotten any younger since then.
To make matters worse, the developers decided to keep only 2 GB of RAM. IN currently this is the minimum for modern smartphones, for smooth Android work It is already desirable to have 3 GB. Moto G5S runs on the same processor, but 3 GB of memory allows this device not to experience problems with the responsiveness of the interface.
On the Honor 7A, everything works quite smoothly if nothing else is happening on the device. As soon as you start downloading a big game or updating many applications in the store, the work becomes jerky. There were several cases when it seemed that the smartphone was frozen, the load above the minimum strained this device too much.
Even individual tasks such as activating the device via a fingerprint scanner occur with an annoying pause. The camera app takes too long to load, sometimes several seconds.
The Geekbench 4 multi-core test returned a score of just 2835, which explains the issues. For comparison, Huawei P9 Lite is not very powerful processor Kirin 659 scored 3644 points. At the same time, the Honor 7A surpassed the Moto G5S with its 2294 points, but the latter uses the same Snapdragon 430 to work with a Full HD screen.
Benchmark Antutu test:
In general, this smartphone is clearly not for gaming. PUBG Mobile constantly lags even though it loads on low settings by default. The less demanding Guns of Boom performs better, but each round starts off slow. Simple games like Super Mario Run, Angry Birds 2, Alto's Adventure work well. They also perfectly fill the entire screen with an 18:9 ratio.
The storage capacity of the Honor 7A is unlikely to please anyone. 16 GB is too little these days even for a budget smartphone. The device supports microSD memory cards, and you can also install two SIM cards.
Software
Like the Honor 9 Lite before it, the Honor 7A runs on Android 8.10. There is good news and there is bad news. The Android version is almost the latest, but the shell on top remains far from ideal software.
Huawei's approach to creating a user interface is to combine elements of Android and iOS, the result is not the best.
Like iOS and unlike pure Android, this interface does not contain an application list by default. Icons for all programs will be on the home screen, so you will have to sort them into folders so that the screen is not cluttered.
You can enable it in the application menu settings, which shows the flexibility of this bootloader. You can change a wide variety of options if you don't mind navigating through the numerous settings menus. We have already mentioned the ability to change screen shades, you can also customize the arrangement of elements in the navigation bar and block individual applications.
The Themes app lets you choose dozens of design elements to change the look of your home screens. There is support for facial unlocking, which must first be activated. This may mean that it is not as reliable as on . Despite this, the system works quite stably and very quickly. If you want maximum protection, it is better to use a fingerprint scanner.
Huawei and Honor smartphones are notorious for having a large number of pre-installed applications. Like many developers, the Chinese company puts its own mediocre calendar, notepad, gallery, video and music program, and various tools. Games and list best apps also make you want to get rid of them as quickly as possible.
Cameras
Recently, even modest Huawei and Honor devices have dual rear cameras. Oddly enough, this did not happen here and the only camera has a resolution of 13 megapixels.
Like Honor 6A, new smartphone amazingly capable of filming nice photos in the right lighting. They provide natural color reproduction, blue skies and white clouds also look natural, while the detailing of dark areas is at a high level.
HDR shooting mode is supported, which must be selected in the menu. True, comparison does not allow us to understand what benefit it has.
In low light, the camera has problems, including focusing on the subject and detailing. Naturally, for such a price this is usual.
On the front there is a 5 MP camera. It copes with its tasks perfectly, although it is better to turn off the decoration mode. In it, the skin is smoothed so that the person becomes like a mannequin.
Examples of photos on the Honor 7A camera
We tested the camera of the Honor 7A smartphone in different lighting conditions. And this is what we got:
At night: 
In poor (artificial) lighting: 
In daylight: 
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that when shooting at night, the phone is slow to focus, which interferes with shooting. You simply won’t have time to shoot dynamic shots the way you want.
Autonomy
Honor 7A received a battery with a capacity of 3020 mAh, which is not bad with such a modest processor and low screen resolution. The same size battery is used in the more powerful Honor 9 Lite.
15 minutes of playing Guns of Boom with 50% brightness used up only 5% of the charge. Honor 9 Lite under the same conditions lost 6%, Honor 7X 9%. This means that Honor 7A can work for 5 hours in this game.
51 minutes of watching TV at maximum brightness used up 12% of the charge. Honor 9 Lite's results were 14%, Honor 7X lost 13%.
The developers promise full-day operation of the device even under high load. It seems that in this case it can be believed, if under high load you do not mean Pokemon Go all day long.
As already mentioned, there is no USB-C connector, and fast charging is also not provided. The latter is especially frustrating since even last year's Moto G5 had it.
Conclusion
The Honor 7A is very inexpensive, but even so its value is questionable. From budget smartphones Now you are expecting smooth operation, but there are too many slowdowns and bugs.
720p resolution for a 5.45-inch 18:9 screen seems frivolous. For the same money you can find a clearer display.
The buyer will receive a device almost no different from its predecessor, only the screen on it has become longer, a fingerprint scanner has appeared and a completely plastic case. Honor 6A can be bought now, it will cost less than the new model.
Devices priced below 10,000 rubles. regularly offer interesting design, high performance and 1080p screens. The Honor 7A failed to shine in most important aspects.
- low cost,
- screen to body ratio,
- The camera takes good photos.
- the EMUI shell is still far from ideal,
- plastic case,
- performance problems.
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