Huawei Honor 3C Lite Hands-on, First Impressions: The Most Affordable Honor

We go hands-on with the most affordable phone in the Honor lineup

Huawei’s Honor brand, the company’s more affordable smartphone arm, has been rather busy lately. Back in December they officially launched two smartphones that had really innovative specs and pricing in China and next week they’ll be launching a new affordable device in the Philippines: the Honor 3C Lite. The 3C Lite is Honor’s most affordable smartphone currently, and today we’ll be taking a closer look at it to see if it’s really worth your money when it goes on sale next week in Lazada. But first, a quick peek at the specs:

Honor 3C Lite specs

• 1.3GHz quad-core processor
• 1GB of RAM
• 5-inch HD display, 720 x 1280 resolution
• 16GB of storage, expandable via microSD up to 32GB
• 8-megapixel Samsung/OV rear camera with BSI and LED flash
• 2-megapixel front camera
• Dual SIM
  3G
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS, Miracast
• 2000mAh battery
• Android 4.4 KitKat

Initial Impressions: Slighty downgraded, but still pretty decent

Whenever you see lite or mini appended to a smartphone’s name, it usually means that the specs are a downgrade from the more successful version of that phone. That’s not necessarily true with the Honor 3C Lite – sure, it has less RAM compared to the original (1GB vs. 2GB on the Honor 3C) but it actually has more storage space (16GB vs. 8GB). It also retains the same processor, screen size and resolution of the original device, at a lower price point.

While the Honor lineup is meant to be the more affordable arm of the Chinese phone manufacturer, the devices under the Honor name are as sturdy and high quality as their other devices. The Hono 3C Lite is no exception – while the phone is made primarily out of plastic, it doesn’t feel cheap or low quality at all. There’s no flex or any noticeable gaps in the body of the 3C Lite, which speaks volumes of the phone’s overall build quality.

The 3C Lite uses a lot of curves in its design which helps users get a comfortable grip on its rather chunky frame. The controls are located on the right side of the device, while the 3.5mm jack and USB slot is located on the top and bottom of the phone, respectively. The plastic back is removable, which will give you access to the SIM and microSD slots as well as the removable 2000mAh battery.

As far as hardware is concerned, you’re not going to be particularly blown away by its 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek processor and the performance is pretty much what you’d expect from this kind of device. If you haven’t noticed yet, the Honor 3C Lite is running Huawei’s Emotion UI that’s similar to the one in Huawei’s Ascend Mate7 in that there’s no app drawer anymore.

That’s it for this hands-on. We’ll be doing a review on this soon, keep visiting the page in the next few days for more updates.