Hands-on with the Huawei Honor

The Huawei Honor is probably the best mid-range Android smartphone in the market today. It looks great, packs good specs (see below for details) runs on Android Gingerbread (upgradeable to ICS), has outstanding battery life, and it just costs Php13,999. Yes, you read that correctly: Php13,999. This is one of those “it’s too good to be true” moments but apparently it is 100% real.

Huawei Honor Spec Sheet

• 1.4GHz Single-core Scorpion Processor
• 512MB RAM, 1GB ROM
• 1GB Storage (expandable up to 32GB, microSD)
• HSDPA 14.4 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps
• 4.0-inch TFT Capacitive Touchscreen (480×854 pixels, ~245ppi)
• 8-megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash
• Standard battery, Li-Ion 1930 mAh

We were able to spend a couple of minutes with the Huawei Honor courtesy of InterAksyon Infotech Lady Techie Master, Alora (you can read her review of the Honor here). Read on for our initial impressions.

Hardware and Design

The first thing that grabbed my attention about this unit was the solid build quality. It really fills good in your hand and it doesn’t feel cheap at all! In fact you’d think this would at least cost Php18,000-Php20,000. Another attractive feature is the gorgeous 4.0-inch screen! Usually phones in this price range just have 3.0-inch to 3.5-inch screens. The Huawei Honor is a major improvement coming in at 4.0-inches. It’s also not crappy at all since it has ~252 pixels per inch.

Another fascinating thing about this phone is the camera. You’d think that a phone priced under Php14,000 would just have a 5-megapixel camera. However the Huawei Honor packs an 8-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED Flash!

Stellar battery life

Two other main selling points are the battery life and the loading time. For battery Huawei is claiming that the Honor will last an average of 2-3 days. That’s way beyond the usual half-day battery we get with our smartphones. I wasn’t able to try it myself since we just had it for a few minutes but we will definitely verify once we have a review unit. As for the boot-up time, the Honor will start up in just 5 seconds. It’s not a killer feature but hey it’s not a bad addition either.

We are… impressed

Let me break it down for you guys again. For Php13,999 you’ll get a smartphone with:

• 8-megapixel camera
• 2-3 day battery life
• Fast booting time
• 1.4GHz processor
• Android, upgradeable to ICS
• 4.0-inch display
• and it looks good.

As far as our initial impression goes we have nothing but good words for the Honor. Can’t wait to try out a review unit.