Honor 7C review: Honor 7C might be a budget phone, but it does look and feel good for the price.
Honor 7C is the latest budget offering from Huawei’s online only brand Honor. The highlight of the budget 7C smartphone is the dual-rear camera and taller display. Honor has packed this phone with several features like the option for a face unlock, Portrait mode on the rear camera, for a starting price of Rs 9,999. Honor also launched another smartphone in this range called the 7A with similar specifications, though the processor is different from the one on the Honor 7C.
Given the price and specifications, Honor 7C will compete with some of the budget options in the market like the recently launched Redmi Y2, the Redmi Note 5 series, etc. Here’s our review of the Honor 7C and how it performed.
Honor 7 Specifications: 5.99-inches display, 18:9 aspect ratio, 1440 x 720 pixels | Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor | 4GB RAM+64GB expandable to 256GB | 13MP+2MP rear camera +8MP front camera | 3000 mAh battery | EMUI 8.0 on Android 8.0 |
Honor 7C price in India: Rs 9,999 for 3GB RAM+32GB storage, Rs 11,999 for 4GB RAM+64GB
Honor 7 review: What’s good?
The Honor 7C might be a budget phone, but it does look and feel good for the price. The Dark blue coloured variant that Honor sent us for review does stand out in the budget category, at least compared to the golds and blacks that have flooded this segment. Honor 7C sports a 5.99-inches display with the newer 18:9 aspect ratio and it works well. The colour reproduction is good, there’s more space for viewing videos with the Honor 7C. Still the phone has a 720p display, which is not as sharp as other options in the market with a full HD resolution.
The Dark blue coloured variant of Honor 7C that Honor sent us for review does stand out in the budget category.
The Honor 7C also sports a face recognition feature, which works surprisingly well and is accurate in most situations. Even in dimly-lit areas, the phone unlocked by recognising my face, and it is quick. This is a good implementation of the feature on a budget phone. Of course, the alternative of a fingerprint scanner is also there, or one can stick with the older, but more secure Pin, pattern methods for opening their phone.
Coming to the dual-rear camera, Honor 7C will require some patience in the portrait mode as it is a little slow with focus. But the results are quite nice in terms of details, colours, and outline of the object. The ‘Wide Aperture mode’ in the Honor 7C is what blurs out the background. A user can tweak out the level of blur in the photo before they take one. The overall rear camera delivers acceptable results, especially if one were to compare with other options in a similar price range.
Honor 7C camera sample. (Image resized for web)
Honor 7C camera sample. (Image resized for web)
Honor 7C camera sample. (Image resized for web)
Honor 7C sports the Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor. This variant came with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. Performance is average on the Honor 7C. Yes, it works with the basic tasks, but I did note that the phone had a noticeable lag when there was a barrage of notifications from YouTube, Gmail. However, I could run games like Asphalt 8, Beach Buggy Racing, etc without too much trouble and there was no noticeable heating either.
Honor 7C’s battery is also good. In the PCMark test it scored above 9 hours, which is keeping in line with other phones sporting a similar battery size. The phone should last around 12 hours on average, depending on the usage.
Honor 7C review: What’s not good?
With Honor 7C, the selfie camera’s performance is not that good. I would say the pictures look a bit washed out in some cases. My overall issue with the camera would be that it is slow at times and takes time to focus. In low-light, the Honor 7C struggles like most smartphones in this price range. Hopefully Honor can push out an update to fix this problem of the camera being slow.
Performance is average on the Honor 7C. Yes, it works with the basic tasks.
Honor’s UI is something I’m not fond of and there’s still space for removing some of the bloatware. Still it is good to see the company launched both Honor 7C and 7A with Android Oreo.
Honor 7C review: Verdict
Honor 7C is a nifty option in the budget category, though I expected more on the performance front, especially since the 4GB RAM variant costs Rs 11,999 which is the same price as the Redmi Note 5.
The dual-rear camera implementation is not bad, and works well in most instances, though it requires some patience. The battery life on this is also good. Honor 7C very obviously competes with options like Redmi Y2, Redmi Note 5 in the market, though Xiaomi’s phones have a better processor on board. Consider Honor 7C as a possible option if you want a dual-rear camera for under Rs 10,000.