Huawei Honor 7

As a spin-off of Huawei focused on affordable yet upscale phones, the Honor series of phones have had decent success. The Honor 7 is billed as a flagship contender at a fraction of the price. While the specifications are impressive, how does it work in real world usage?

Let’s see what reviewers across the Internet are saying!

The phone looks like a mash-up of the Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy S series. Rounded corners, beveled edges and a seamless front glass create an upscale appearance while the aluminum shell on the rear adds further refinement and comfort.

PC Advisor UK spend time with the phone and said, “The metal body looks like phones which cost twice the price.” More worried about comfort than looks? Digital Trends noted, “It has proper feel to it, and sits perfectly in your hand, where you cradle a smooth and cool-to-the-touch aluminum back panel.”

Flipping around to the front, you’ll find a 5.2-inch 1080p IPS display. Reviews on the screen were positive–though some noted issues with the phone’s automatic brightness control. PC Advisor UK said, “The IPS screen looks nice and crisp with popping colours and decent brightness available should you need it.”

To help you make the most of the screen, the phone is powered by an eight-core Kirin 935 Processor and 3GB of RAM. Reviews on phone performance are hit or miss. For daily tasks, reviewers had no problem. PC Advisor UK described the phone as “delightfully smooth.” However, when pushing the phone with complex games or heavy multi-tasking, things weren’t so good. Digital Trends noted, “Delving into some games revealed the Honor 7 struggles for raw power. Using the phone for everyday situations, this lack of guts was never an issue.”

While the Kirin chipset might have issues with high performance use, reviews found that it was great on battery life. Reviewers applauded the life from the 3,100mAh battery in the Honor 7. Coolsmartphone used it as their daily driver for a week and found, “[it] lasted the entire day with change to spare.”

The phone is available with either 16 or 64GB of internal storage. Regardless of your choice, you’ll find a microSD card slot with support for capacities up to 128GB to let you download apps, movies and music without worrying about space.

The phone ships with Android 5.0 Lollipop and Huawei is rolling out over-the-air updates to Marshmallow 6.0 in select regions. Huawei’s iOS-esque EMUI always divides reviewers. While this new version–EMUI 3.1–was no different, Digital Trends noted, “Huawei’s EMUI has come a long way from the disasters of old, and is getting closer to Samsung and LG’s approach to an Android skin: more Android, less nonsense.”

If you’re looking for a competent camera phone, reviews indicate that the 20MP rear camera and 8MP front-facing lens are up to the task. You’ll find a few goodies, including phase detection autofocus on the rear lens and a front-facing flash to help you capture images. Digital trends tested the camera and said, “It takes pictures you’ll want to keep and look at again.” TechRadar was similarly impressed, saying, “During the process of taking photos with the Honor 7, and when viewing the results, I was very pleasantly surprised.”

Lastly, there’s the fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone. Reviews indicate that is offers snappy, accurate performance. The scanner also doubles as a multi-feature button and reviewers loved the added control.

Overall, if you’re not looking for a powerhouse, reviews were great. Android Pit declared, “With a spectacularly low price, this phone delivers in all the key areas: looks, camera, battery and performance.” Digital Trends was more conservative, saying, “While it’s actually damn good in some areas, it’s not the perfect budget phone but we were hoping for in others.”