Huawei has launched two budget devices at an event in India on May 8. The two phones that Huawei has launched are the Huawei Honor 4C and the Huawei Honor Bee with the price tags of Rs 8,999 and Rs 4,999 respectively. While the Huawei Honor Bee is slated to compete in the entry level market with the Micromax Canvas Spark, Unite 3, Redmi, etc. it is the Huawei Honor 4C that caught our eye and is aiming for the people who want a feature rich smartphone, with good on-board specifications.
Design and Build
Looking at the Huawei Honor 4C and you will notice that it looks a lot like it big bad brother the Honor 4X. The Huawei Honor 4C has all the similar design elements of the Honor 4X such as the textured plastic removable back cover, the same positioning and the look of the camera, similar flat edges and so on. The device is 8.8mm thin and has a weight of 162 grams, which is impressive at this price level. The overall build quality is good and the carved ‘honor’ branding on the rear side and the silver coloured rim around the front face adds a bit of elegance to the device, which makes it look much premium than it is and gives a visual effect of being a flagship phone, which it is not. Surprisingly, the white coloured model looks more attractive than one in black, due to the chrome finish and much more elegant background. The phone has a nice grip to it. The rear cover is removable, but sadly the battery isn't, which makes it impossible to use the old way of switching off your phone when it hangs, we simply removed the battery. You will need to remove the rear cover to add in the microSD card or the dual SIMs.
Display
The Huawei Honor 4C comes with a 5-inch 1280 x 720 pixel display, which is a 720p display i have to say i expected more but the price tag also suffices for it. This gives it a pixel density of 294 ppi which is reasonably decent display at the price point. The display is bright and vibrant, but one thing that is annoying is that the screen is a fingerprint magnet. The display has an IPS panel so the viewing angles are great, but there is no Corning Gorilla Glass protection, which is a downer.
Chipset, RAM, Storage
Just like the Honor 4X, the Honor 4C also has a HiSilicon Kirin chipset. The Kirin 620 system on chip houses a 64-bit octa-core Cortex A53 processor clocked at 1.2GHz along with Mali T450 GPU, which we feel is a decent spec. sheet as for the price they are offering it for. While the chipset supports 4G LTE as well, the Honor 4C is not a 4G phone, which comes as a shock as now all the phones in this price bracket in the market are offering 4G LTE. According to GSMArena, the Kirin 620 is comparable to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 410 SoC. We will have to compare performance numbers to say for sure. The chipset is paired with 2GB of RAM, which in these days is essential.
The Huawei Honor 4C comes with 8GB of storage and you have the option to expand it via a microSD card slot which can be accessed by opening the rear cover, which comes as no surprise.
Connectivity, OS
On the connectivity front, you have 3G Dual SIM support. As mentioned above, the Honor 4C does not support 4G LTE in India. Apart from this you get Wi-fi 802.11n, Wi-fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0 along with GPS/GLONASS.
Just like the Honor 4X, the Honor 4C also sports the Emotion UI 3.0 skin atop the Android 4.4.2 KitKat OS, which is said to be upgradable to Lollipop soon.
Camera, Battery
Huawei Honor 4C comes loaded with a 13MP rear camera and also packs a 5MP front-facing camera, which we feel is awesome. The rear camera comprises a Sony BSI sensor and comes with an f/2.0 aperture lens, and let's just face it sony lenses are the best lenses available for mobiles at this point. The UI on the camera app is similar to what we had seen on the Honor 4X as well as the Honor 6 Plus, and we have to say that we simply love it.
The Huawei Honor 4C has got a 2550mAh battery which is not removable, and that we do not like a bit. While taking a look at the battery capacity it seems like the phone should be able to hold up to a day’s worth of usage. But we will reserve our final verdict till we put the phone through our tests.
Conclusion
Huawei’s online brand Honor is trying to woo buyers who are buying a smartphone for the first time or those who already had a smartphone, but are looking for a budget upgrade. For a Rs 8,999 price point, the phone packs in lot of features, but how the phone performs as an everyday device is what will matter. Many will point out the fact that the phone lacks 4G support, which is a fair point considering many players have released budget devices even under Rs 8,999 with 4G LTE support. But at the moment, the 4G LTE is limited to only a few pockets in the country, but it is always better to have the option to future proof your device. But who knows, just like Moto E, Huawei may also release a 4G variant if it deems necessary. At Rs 8,999, the Huawei will be competing against Yu Yureka and Lenovo A7000, both of which are capable devices. Not to mention the Lenovo A6000, Moto E, Xiaomi Redmi 2 as well. We will have to run the Honor 4C through our tests to see which one emerges as the winner.
Get Yourself a -
Huawei Honor 4C(Black) - Click Here
Huawei Honor 4C(White) - Click Here
