Huawei Honor 4C – The underdog champion

Unlike the other Chinese mobiles in the market, Huawei has been in India for a very long time. If not directly, Huawei mobiles were rebranded and sold in India for quite sometime now. Huawei definitely knows the market and they know the budget segment’s needs. Huawei Honor range of mobiles tap the market from the entry level to the mid level segments. The Honor 4C is a entry level mobile that offers a decent set specifications. Let us review the mobile and check if it is worth a buy.

Design
Honor 4C defies the recent trend of slim phones and takes pride in being a chunky device. It weighs over 160 grams and is thick at 8.8 mm. This offers a better grip and ease of handling. The removable back is made of plastic like the other parts of the device. It has a mild texture which adds to the grip. At the right you have the plastic volume buttons and the power button which is made of metal. The bottom has the micro-USB port and a mic. The 3.5mm jack is at the top. The camera and the single LED flash are at the back. The display is 5 inch diagonally and above the display the front camera, ambient and proximity sensors, and notification LED. Below the display is the non-backlit menu keys. I wish Huawei had on-screen keys rather than non-backlit capacitive keys. Overall the mobile feels sturdy and comfortable to hold. If you have a fairly large hands, it is easy to operate with single hand. For a device in this price range, the plastic used does not feel cheap.

Under the hood
Huawei Honor 4c is powered by a Huawei 1.2GHz octa-core Kirin 920 processor and it has 2GB of RAM. It has 8 GB of internal storage which can be expanded by up to 32GB using a microSD card. It does not support 4G LTE, but it includes Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth v4.0 and also has FM radio. It scored over 25000+ on an average when I ran the Anututu benchmark tests at different points in time. Overall, the performance is a marginally above average. It handles graphic intensive games smoothly, but sometimes the games crashes. Also the UI was snappy and responsive. It is generally a fast phone, but occasional app crashes doesn’t give it a good score on stability. But given that this device runs on a non-mainstream processor, I was pleasantly surprised by its performance. The ability to handle high definition games and UI without over-heating makes the Huawei a clear winner and hence the title: The Underdog winner.

Display
Huawei Honor 4c has a 5 inch IPS HD display. It offers a pixel density of 294ppi, which may appear low on paper, but in reality the display is pretty sharp. The colors were not punchy and they appear a bit washed out. Also the viewing angles and sunlight legibility doesn’t score good scores. The touch responsiveness was good but the display is not brilliant. At this price segment, there are other mobiles like the Redmi Note or Lenovo A7000 which have better displays.

Software
Honor 4c runs on Android 4.4.2 out of the box and the UI is skinned on top with Huawei’s Emotion UI 3.0. I would have jumped with joy, if this device had Lollipop out of the box and we don’t have any information on the roadmap for Lollipop update. Talking about the Emotion UI, it has a minimalistic design approach. It feels light and has very minimal transition animations and that makes it snappy. It has very little noteworthy features, but in general you can imagine the Emotion UI to be similar to a launcher app for the mobile. Again, how I wish this mobile had Lollipop out of the box.

Camera
The 13 MP primary shooter is really fast when it comes to focusing. When there is enough light, the camera captures fine details, but it does not perform well under low light conditions. There is no unnatural sharpening algorithm or color boost from the software. The colors stay natural and the depth of focus is good as well. It can also capture 1080p videos and the quality of video is on par with its still image quality. The 5 MP selfie shooter also gets the fine details on ample light conditions. The beauty mode on the front camera is better than what we have seen in other chinese mobiles. The skin softening stays within acceptable levels and the outcome is pretty good. The camera UI is minimalistic and very simple to use. It also has a pro mode to play with ISO, shutter speed, etc…

Check out the camera samples

Battery

Battery performance is an Achilles heel for many smartphones. Honor 4c is no exception. On heavy usage, the battery didn’t last for more than 10 hours. One moderate usage, the device managed to stay up for lore than 18 hours. It has a relatively small display and also thick form factor, and I expected it to have a long battery life. But am sure its a software issue. A little modification to the kernal can extend the battery life. Hope Huawei takes it up and updates the Honor 4C OTA.

Verdict

The Huawei Honor 4c has its pro and cons. But considering its price point, I must say that it is a really worthy mobile to buy. It has a good camera, fast performance and a decent UI. The call quality is good. It does not have 4G capability. But it has dual SIM slots and whole set of connectivity options. It is currently priced at Rs 8999 and at this price point its a great buy, if you are not keen about 4G LTE services.

You can also buy the mobile from Gearbest if you really want the 4G variant of this mobile. Gearbest offers a whole lot gadgets at a competitive price and most products have free shipping to India.

Check out Gearbest Mobiles > Huawei Honor 4c