Honor 7A Hands On, Quick Review: The Newest Budget Phone in Town

Honor 7A Hands On, Quick Review: The Newest Budget Phone in Town

It’s time for Honor to tackle the budget segment!

Honor’s comeback was felt with the bang-for-the-buck Honor 9 Lite and budget flagship Honor 10. This time around, the Chinese brand wants a stake in the budget segment with the Honor 7A.

While it looks similar to one of Huawei’s budget offerings, the Honor 7A offers a few extra features, along with a better processor. Is it a strong offering like its more expensive siblings?

 

What is it?

It’s Honor’s latest budget offering locally. While the brand is slowly expanding in the Philippines (they have added local retailers aside from online shops), Honor stands by its reputation of offering competitively-priced, bang-for-the-buck smartphones.

It was inevitable that Honor would face its old domestic rival, Xiaomi, in the fight for the budget segment with the Honor 7A.

 

Aside from having a skinny metallic chassis, the Honor 7A sports a matte polycarbonate back that is resistant to fingerprint smudges. The two metallic strips give the rear an illusion that the back is made from aluminum. The camera module extends only a few millimeters from the back, but we still recommend you getting a case to protect it against scratches, just in case.

The Honor 7A feels light and easy to use with one hand. While the metallic sides may be slippery, the matte polycarbonate back helps in keeping the phone safe from accidental slips from your hand.

Up front is a 5.7-inch HD+ display with a trendy 18:9 aspect ratio. The Honor 7A has slim top and bottom bezels, and the display offers decent colors and viewing angles. There’s some pixelation when you look at the screen up close, but that just us nitpicking the phone.

You have a MicroUSB port, loudspeaker, and microphone at the bottom, and a headphone jack on top. The SIM/MicroSD card tray is on the left, while the power and volume control buttons are on the right.

The Honor 7A comes with a decent set of specs that include a Snapdragon 430 processor, 2GB RAM, and 16GB internal storage. The decision to use a Snapdragon 430 is a plus for the Honor 7A, as some of its rivals settle for a quad-core Snapdragon 425 instead.

In our initial run, we were surprised at the Honor 7A’s gaming performance. We had no problems running games like Future Fight and Asphalt 8 in high settings, as we got average frame rates of 24 and 28 respectively. Playing PUBG Mobile in low settings (it is set by the game from the start) was relatively smooth. Data obtained using GameBench reported an average FPS of 25—definitely not bad for a budget phone.

The cameras consist of a 13-megapixel rear camera and an 8-megapixel front camera. Here are some sample photos:

The Honor 7A’s features are decent for a budget phone: Aside from having both face unlock and a fingerprint scanner, its Smart PA amplifier helps the phone have a speaker that can go loud with minimal sound distortion.

 

How much is it?

The Honor 7A has an SRP of Php 6,990. At that price, it is facing a tough competition. To give you some perspective, the 2GB variant of Xiaomi’s Redmi 5 sells for Php 5,799 at Shopee, while the 2GB variant of OPPO’s A83 sells for Php 6,990.

On the other hand, Shopee is offering the Honor 7A at a discounted price of Php 5,990 on July 7, 14, and 30, which makes it a better deal if you are lucky enough to purchase it on those dates.

 

Huawei Honor 7A specs

  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octa-core processor
  • 2GB RAM
  • 5.7-inch HD+ display, 18:9 display aspect ratio, 1440 x 720 resolution
  • 16GB of internal storage, expandable via dedicated microSD
  • 13-megapixel f/2.2 rear camera with PDAF, LED flash
  • 8-megapixel f/2.4 front camera with selfie toning flash
  • Dual SIM
  • 3G, LTE
  • WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS
  • Fingerprint scanner, Face Unlock, SMART PA amplifier
  • Android Oreo with EMUI 8.0
  • 3,000mAh battery

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