honor’s big.LITTLE event in London
honor invited some of the smaller media outlets who couldn’t make it to their MWC event in Barcelona to a small sit down event where they could have a look at honor’s new devices.
So who are honor? Well it seems they are a small division of Huawei. Built for “Digital Natives” as they call them, people born into tech who spend a third of their day looking at a screen. honor’s slogan is “FOR THE BRAVE”. I took this to mean getting a lesser known phone and not following the crowd to experience something truly different.
Now before you say ‘a small division of Huawei? Who are Huawei..?’ They are massive! The chances are that you have used something made by them in the past but just didn’t know it. They have little brand identity in the western world but they did ship 75 million smartphones last year, putting them in the top 5 smartphone manufacturers in the world. They are helping BT with their superfast broadband rollout and CERN even use cloud technology from Huawei. Now that they are trying to get into the western world expect to see more of them.
At the big.Little event we got to see a few devices with a short presentation about the phones. I’d like to pass that knowledge onto yourselves so first up the honor 6+. This is their flagship smartphone.
honor 6+
I’m going to be blunt on this. I’m thinking iPhone 4s on steroids. The houor 6+ is available in White, Black and Gold and has a metal band around the edge with glass on the front and back. Someone at honor clearly liked this phone and thinking about how many Apple have sold it must have been a great device.
The honor 6+ has some tricks up its sleeves though. The main one being that it has a dual eagle eye camera on the back. To break it down, that’s two 8mp camera’s combined to make 13mp pictures with a 0.1 second focus speed and F0.95 to F16 aperture. This means HDR photos can be taken super quick and can even be edited once the photo has been saved. The phone felt good in the hand with a 78.2% screen-to-body ratio and was only 7.5mm thick even with a 3600mAh battery packed inside.
Regarding the software, the phone will be launched on the rock steady KitKat 4.4.2 with EMUI (Emotion UI) running on top. For the tech heads, think of a slimmed down MIUI. For the rest of you, EMUI is honors’ tweaks to android. They have gone with softly rounded brightly coloured icons so that you can quickly spot the app you need. EMUI also scraps the app/junk draw found on most android devices, the attitude being if you’re hiding it away then why bother having it on your phone. EMUI doesn’t seem to have much bloat and causes no noticeable lag on the device, everything was quick and smooth just as you would expect on a flagship phone. Nothing felt out of place or in a silly location so anyone moving from a different android phone should not have trouble adjusting. We didn’t get an answer on unlockable bootloaders, again for the tech heads this may be how you will have to use the phone.
Something that comes with the honor 6+ is a VIP Replacement service. If you have any in warranty problems with the phone it will be swapped the next business day. Someone turns up with your new phone and you give them the faulty phone. None of this waiting 14 days to get it repaired and dealing with phone shop staff. I have used a similar services with business phones and it makes a massive difference to how you view the customer service. Going without your phone for 14 days can be hell. This could be enough to get most people to buy the phone. No hassle, well done honor. With the camera, massive battery and great warranty service this phone could be ideal for most users. The phone doesn’t have an official price yet and a contract deal is in the works with Three UK as well.
Quick Specs
| Dimensions | 150.5 x 75.7 x 7.5 mm |
| Weight | 165g |
| Screen size | 5.5 inches |
| Screen resolution | 1080 x 1920 |
| Screen type | IPS-Neo screen |
| Battery | 3600 mAh Li-ion (non-removable) |
| Internal storage | 32GB |
| Rear camera | Dual 8MP |
| Front-facing cam | 8MP |
| Video capture | 1080p |
| NFC | Yes |
| SoC | HiSilicon Kirin 925 |
| CPU | 1.8GHz octa-core with separate core for sensors |
| GPU | Mali-T628 |
| RAM | 3GB |
| Operating system | Android 4.4.2 |
honor 4x
The honor 4x was also shown off and it is their midrange offering to the “Digital Natives”.
It has the same software as the honor 6+ with KitKat 4.4.2 and EMUI, so no need to touch on that. The hardware however is a bit different. It keeps with a 5.5” screen but the resolution drops it down to 720P, the RAM down to 2GB, internal storage is 8GB rather than 32GB, there’s only one back camera with the front being replaced by a 5MP snapper, but its not all bad news. It has a lovely 3D linen laser pattern with a shining honor logo on the back that has a great grippy texture. It also comes with a 64bit octa core CPU with a 3000mAh battery to keep you going for 72 hours. The single camera on the back is 13MP so whilst you won’t get the HDR advantage of the honor 6+ you will still get some great snaps.
The device really feels good and for all but the power users this would be a great choice and at only £150 its an easy buy. The Moto G now has some serious competition!
Quick Specs
| Dimensions | 159.9 x 77.2 x 8.7 mm |
| Weight | 170g |
| Screen size | 5.5 inches |
| Screen resolution | 720 x 1280 |
| Screen type | IPS screen |
| Battery | 3000 mAh Li-ion (removable) |
| Internal storage | 8GB |
| Rear camera | 13MP |
| Front-facing cam | 5MP |
| Video capture | 1080p |
| SoC | HiSilicon Kirin 620 |
| CPU | 64-Bit 1.2GHz octa-core |
| GPU | ???? |
| RAM | 2GB |
| Operating system | Android 4.4.2 |
honor Holly
Even though the event wasn’t for this device, they had one on display and I’m kind of thinking this is the star of the show. The Holly looks nice, the back feels good, and it has a nice bright 5” 720P screen. I had a little play with Holly and it kept up with everything I was doing. Unfortunately I didn’t get to launch any games on it though. Again it has the same software as the other two phones but I have no idea if it would get to Lollipop as I get the feeling that the main group of people who will be interested in this phone won’t be interested in software updates.
The Holly is honor’s low end offering, but it’s better than some mid range phones out there. If you get a chance to play with one I’d recommend it. For any non tech savvy people needing a smartphone, consider the Holly priced at only £89.99, it’s a super easy buy.
Quick Specs
| Dimensions | 142.2 x 72.3 x 9.4 mm |
| Weight | 156g |
| Screen size | 5.5 inches |
| Screen resolution | 720 x 1280 |
| Screen type | IPS screen |
| Battery | 2000 mAh Li-ion (removable) |
| Internal storage | 16GB |
| Rear camera | 8MP |
| Front-facing cam | 2MP |
| Video capture | 1080p |
| SoC | Mediatek MT6582 |
| CPU | Quad-core 1.3 GHz |
| GPU | Mali-400MP2 |
| RAM | 1GB |
| Operating system | Android 4.4.2 |
Conclusion
Whilst honor aren’t going to get queues and screaming fans for any of these devices, they have some great ideas and a solid base on which to build something great. I think anyone buying any of these three phones would be happy with what they paid for them and would recommend it to others. The 4x and Holly will be my recommended go to mid and low end phones for a while. The honor 6+ just isn’t ready to step into the ring with any of the main flagships, but it could underprice them and win over some of the users who are paying £700 for a phone only to get about £300 worth out of them.
