Huawei Honor 5C Review: A premium budget smartphone with minimal flaws

Huawei unleashed a rather promising smartphone in the Indian market with its Honor 5C. The phone clearly aims to impress with its premium construction and its comparatively affordable Rs 10,999 pricetag. Running Android Marshmallow, the device packs in good specifications on paper, but let’s see how well it performs.

Design

Opting a body with a part plastic part metal construction, the Honor 5C can still be touted as a premium model. The company went with a smaller 5.2-inch display but it fits just about right in the palm of your hand. However you will need to exercise caution due to the extra-smooth finish on the back panel, the smartphone does tend to slip away all too easily. It is reasonably light at 156 grams. There's a fingerprint sensor placed exactly below the rear camera along with the flash on the side. The volume rocker and power button is placed towards the right while at the left sits the SIM card tray. The 3.5mm audio jack is placed on top while the USB port and grill speakers are towards the bottom.

Display

On the 5.2-inch display, you will find a 1080x1920 pixel resolution along with a 423ppi pixel density. The screen offers a dynamic mix of colors but does lack an appropriate amount of brightness, which especially comes to the fore in bright sunlight. You might find yourself never really using the auto brightness feature by default. In others, sunlight visibility is satisfactory. At the price offered, the device’s screen does do justice.

Processor, OS and Storage

The Huawei Honor 5C runs on a 1.7GHz octa-core Hisilicon Kirin 650 processor, paired with 2GB RAM. It includes an internal storage of 16GB, which can be further expanded up to 128GB via microSD card. It would be absolutely necessary to invest in a microSD card, as out of 16GB, a user would get not more than 11GB for use after initial setup.

The company claims that the Kirin 650 chipset used in the Honor 5C uses a FinFET plus 16 nm chip technology which is slated to deliver better performance compared to other previous-gen smartphones. The new platform is VoLTE-ready (for higher quality voice calls) but unfortunately the Honor 5C does not offer it. Additionally, the company has also chosen Mali-T830 GPU, which again, promises to enhance a user’s gaming experience by 10 percent compared to the previous variant of the phone.

In terms of performance, the phone worked seamlessly. There was no sign of lagging but as with all Honor devices, the smartphone started to heat up during processor-intensive activity, such as when playing a game. And the warmth was felt more tangibly owing to the metallic back panel too.

The Honor 5C runs Android’s latest Marshmallow OS and ships with the company’s EMUI 4.1 skin. The OS is simple and clean and offers a ton of customization options. Apps work smoothly, and toggling between the screens was no issue. EMUI 4.1 has also implemented all features for the fingerprint sensor--there is a special security module that commits fingerprint details to the chip itself, resulting in better security compared to the fingerprint being stored in software. The fingerprint sensor can also be configured trigger photos and start the video recorder, show the notification panel, lock apps and plenty more.

Camera

The Huawei Honor 5C comes equipped with a 13MP rear camera with LED flash along with an 8MP front facing camera. Huawei has done a good job here--the camera app offers numerous features such as HDR, slow-motion video, time-lapse and panorama. Images taken in well-lit conditions come out sharp and crisp but images in low-light scenarios were less than impressive. Selifes come out great while the Beautification mode makes did make the images visibly smooth. The camera also includes a ‘Pro' Mode in which the user can manually take control of several photography parameters.

Battery

The Honor 5C is powered by a 3000mAh battery. It also includes a Battery Manager which lends the ability to customize the apps you want running in the background.  It offers an Ultra Power Saving Mode as well, for times wehn you really want to stretch the battery life. I found the battery easily lasting a full day with regular use of social apps, browsing, messaging, listening to songs etc.

Verdict

The Honor 5C gets almost everything right. It offers a premium demeanour with a good battery life, a satisfactory display and a capable camera. You might want to invest in a memory card if you like to stash up on movies and many songs, as its 16GB will not suffice.

For the price, Huawei’s Honor 5C will give a tough competition to Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and the new Motorola Moto G4 too. It’s just another budget smartphone in the market but should be among the top of your list if you looking for a device around the Rs 10,000 price point.