Huawei put up quite a show earlier this month when they invited Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) team members to launch the Honor 4C, their latest budget smart phone. But unlike their earlier hits — Honor 4x and 6 Plus — the Honor 4C appears more like a step back for the company. Hassan M Kamal finds out why
Huawei Honor 4C
Huawei Honor 4C
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Design: A lot like the Honor 4X, but smaller. The phone looks premium despite the use of plastic. It was good to note the volume and power rockers from the 4X back in action in the 4C. The Black version doesn't impress, whereas the Gold edition seems to do a better justice to its look. The back cover offers a good grip, giving the phone a sturdy build.
Rating: 8/10
Display: The Honor 4C gets a five-inch 1280x720 screen IPS display with nearly 294ppi pixel density. It's good to work with, the light sensitivity sensor works well; the wide viewing angles make it a decent companion. There's no mention of Gorilla Glass protection; however, the device does come with a scratch guard layered on top of the screen.
Rating: 8/10
Connectivity: The dual-sim 4C comes with Bluetooth 4.0, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Wireless display and GPS. The device, however, supports only 2G and 3G networks. A big disappointment, considering there are several options that offer 4G connectivity at a lower price. We had a rather discomforting experience dealing with the emergency alerts (turned on by default), which would pop up every five minutes with car deals and other commercial messages. We are still awaiting any official word on this.
Rating: 4/10
Audio: Huawei claims the DTS audio processing in the Honor 4C as one of the major highlights of the phone, but it works well only while using earphones, as we found the internal speakers were barely audible even in quiet environments.
Rating: 3/10
Camera: We are impressed with the 13MP rear and the 5MP front camera. Both work great in low light conditions when compared to other devices in this price range. Photo enthusiasts, can explore the macro mode.
Rating: 8/10
Battery: The 2,550 mAH, should have been enough for a 5-inch 3G device, but even with average usage, somehow, we always found it dead before the end of the day. Fortunately, there are options and ways to make the battery last longer, but that requires compromising on certain functions and definitely not using the GPS navigation. Bye bye, Uber.
Rating: 5/10
User Interface & OS: The device runs on Android OS Kit Kat 4.4 with EMUI 3.0 placed on top; though there are no app trays, the ease of functionality, options and in-built systems make it one of the best customised Android OS around. However, a call recorder would have helped.
Rating: 9/10
Hardware & Performance: The Honor 4C gets 2GB RAM, which is more than sufficient, as you have nearly 750MB free at all times. The in-built storage is 8GB, out of which 3.38GB is available to users, but is expandable up to 32GB. The Kirin 620 SoC, developed by HiSilicon, a subsidiary of Huawei does a really good job as we didn't face any problem with the processing speed, either during multi-tasking or while playing high-end games. It uses 1.2Ghz Octa core processor, and comes with Mali 400 GPU, which is more than sufficient for even graphic-heavy games.
Rating: 8/10
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