Honor – Tech Raman

Honor 10 Lite FAQ: Everything You Need To Know

Lakshmi Rajan — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 18:06:49 +0000

Question: What are the different colours Honor 10 Lite is available? Answer: Honor 10 Lite is available in black colour and in a blue and Sky blue gradient colour.

Question: What is the display size and resolution?

Answer: Honor 10 Lite has a 6.21 inches IPS LCD display with a Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels packing a 415 ppi density and 19.5:9 aspect ratio.

Question: What display settings available?

Answer: The display setting of Honor 10 Lite has auto brightness, eye comfort (blue filter) certified by TUV Rheinland, third-party app display ratio settings, notch disable option, colour and temperature controls, smart screen resolution setting to change to HD+ if required etc.

Question: Does Honor 10 Lite support double tap to wake?

Answer: No it doesn’t have double tap to wake feature but has a raise to wake feature.

Question: Does Honor 10 Lite has Blue light filter settings?

Answer: Yes, there is an eye protection settings which is the blue filter setting. It is certified by renowned TUV Rheinland. The settings allows you to schedule a particular start and end time for blue filter or manually enable it. Also, Honor claims by default the display reduce the harmful blue light emission without making the screen yellow.

Question: What size SIM cards Honor 10 Lite accepts? Can I add a microSD card?

Answer: Honor 10 Lite supports hybrid dual SIM and can accommodate two SIMs or one SIM and a microSD card slot.

Question: Does it have Corning Gorilla Glass protection?

Answer: No but the phone comes pre-applied with screen guard both at the front. Honor also says they have a toughened glass laid.

Question: What is the processor used in this smartphone?

Answer: Honor 10 Lite runs on HiSilicon Kirin 710 with Mali G51 GPU with EMUI 2.0 for boosted gaming performance.

Question: What is the internal storage of Honor 10 Lite?

Answer: Honor 10 Lite comes with 64GB and 128GB of internal storage options (depends on the region)

Question: Does Honor 10 Lite has a Gyroscope sensor?

Answer: Yes, it does have a Gyroscope sensor.

Question: Does Honor 10 Lite support VR?

Answer: Yes, Honor 10 lite supports virtual reality (VR) apps.

Question: Are the buttons backlit?

Answer: Honor 10 lite has on-screen navigation buttons and also supports gesture navigation.

Question: What USB type does Honor 10 lite use? Micro USB or USB type C?

Answer: Honor 10 lite has micro USB port.

Question: Does Honor 10 lite have a notification light?

Answer: TYes, Honor 10 lite does have a notification light.

Question: What are the camera specifications of Honor 10 lite?

Answer: Honor 10 lite has a dual camera at the rear comprising of a 13MP camera with an f/1.8 large aperture and a 2MP depth-sensing camera. For selfies, there is a 24MP camera with f/2.0 aperture. Both the front and rear cameras have AI capabilities with AI scene recognition.

Question: Is there a front LED flash for selfies in Honor 10 lite?

Answer: No, there is no front LED flash but it has screen flash.

Question: Does the camera has OIS?

Answer: Honor 10 lite does not have EIS for video.

Question: Can we take 4K videos in Honor 10 lite?

Answer: Honor 10 lite can take videos up to 1080p at 60 fps maximum.

Question: What are the connectivity options? Does it support VoLTE?

Answer: Yes, Honor 10 lite supports VoLTE. Other options include Bluetooth, A-GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/

Question: Does Honor 10 lite has dual VoLTE?

Answer: No, Honor 10 lite does not support dual VoLTE.

Question: Is there an FM app in Honor 10 lite?

Answer: Yes, it has FM.

Question: How to take screenshots in Honor 10 lite?

Answer: Honor 10 lite has a triple finger gesture screenshot feature.

Question: Can we take a long screenshot in Honor 10 lite?

Answer: Yes, we can take a long screenshot.

Question: Does Honor 10 lite support USB OTG?

Answer: Yes, it supports OTG and you can connect the USB drive to it.

Question: What is the battery capacity of Honor 10 lite?

Answer: Honor 10 lite has a 3400mAh battery.

Question: Does Honor 10 lite support fast charging?

Answer: It has standard fast charging with 10 watts charger.

Question: What is the charging time of Honor 10 lite?

Answer: Using the power adapter out of the box, you can charge Honor 8X under 2 hours.

Question: Does it have power saver modes?

Answer: Yes it has a battery saver mode.

Question: Is there an IR blaster in Honor 10 lite?

Answer: No, Honor 10 lite does not have an IR sensor.

Question: Is Honor 10 lite Waterproof?

Answer: No, Honor 10 lite is not waterproof.

Question: How is the call quality?

Answer: Call quality of Honor 10 lite is good.

Question: Does Honor 10 lite support one hand UI?

Answer: Yes

Question: Does Honor 10 lite has a fingerprint scanner?

Answer: Yes, it has a fingerprint sensor with additional features like swipe to check notifications, browse photos in the gallery by touching fingerprint sensor area, accept incoming calls via touching the sensor area etc.

Question: Does Honor 10 lite support app lock?

Answer: Yes, the Honor 10 lite support app lock with the fingerprint sensor.

Question: Is there Face recognition in Honor 10?

Answer: Yes, the Honor 10 lite comes with face recognition feature.

Question: What OS does Honor 10 lite run?

Answer: Honor 10 lite runs on Android Pie 9 with their EMUI 9 layered on top of it.

Question: Does Honor 10 lite support two Whatsapp in the same phone?

Answer: Yes, Honor 10 lite support dual apps (App clone) feature or App Twin as Honor calls it as.

Question: Does Honor 10 lite support call recording?

Answer: Yes, Honor 10 lite support call recording feature. You can choose to record all calls automatically or record custom calls automatically.

Question: Does Honor 10 lite have video call feature in dialer?

Answer: No, there is no video call feature in the Honor 10 lite dialer. Question: Does Honor 10 lite support NFC? Answer: No, NFC is not supported.

Question: Does Honor10 lite has a split screen feature?

Answer: Yes it supports multi-windows.

Question: Does Honor 10 lite have Dolby Atmos support?

Answer: No, Honor 10 lite does not have Dolby Atmos but the audio quality is pretty good.

Question: Does Honor 10 lite have any heating issue?

Answer: No, heating is within the limits or can say no heating issues in this phone.]]>

Honor 8X FAQ : Everything You Need To Know

Lakshmi Rajan — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 13:44:02 +0000

Question: What are the different colors Honor 8X is available? Answer: Honor 8X is available in black, blue and red colors in India.

Question: What is the display size and resolution?

Answer: Honor 8X has a 6.5 inches IPS LCD display with a Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels packing a 396 ppi density and 19.5:9 aspect ratio.

Question: What display settings available?

Answer: The display setting of Honor 8X has auto brightness, eye comfort (blue filter) ,third party app display ratio settings, notch disable option, color and temperature controls, screen resolution setting to change to HD+ if required etc.

Question: Does Honor 8X support double tap to wake?

Answer: No it doesn’t have double tap to wake feature but has a raise to wake feature.

Question: Does Honor 8X has Blue light filter settings ?

Answer: Yes, there is a eye protection settings which is the blue filter setting. The settings allows you to schedule a particular start and end time for blue filter or manually enable it. Also Honor claims by default the display reduces the harmful blue light emission without making the screen yellow.

Question: What is the price of Honor 8X ? Where can I buy?

In India, Honor 8X is available in 3 variants. The 4GB RAM + 64GB variant is priced at Rs 14,999, the 6GB RAM+ 64GB storage model at Rs 16,999 and the 6GB + 128GB at Rs 18,999 . Its exclusively available on Amazon India.

Question: What size SIM cards Honor 8X accepts? Can I add a microSD card?

Answer: Honor 8X supports dual SIM and has a dedicated microSD card slot.

Question: Does it have Corning Gorilla Glass protection?

Answer: No but the phone comes prelaid with screenguard both at the front. Honor also says they have a toughened glass laid.

Question: What is the processor used in this smartphone?

Answer: Honor 8X runs on HiSilicon Kirin 710 with Mali G51 GPU

Question: What is the internal storage of Honor 8X?

Answer: Honor 8X comes with 64GB and 128GB of internal storage options in India.

Question: Does Honor 8X has Gyroscope sensor?

Answer: Yes, it does have Gyroscope sensor.

Question: Does Honor 8X support VR?

Answer: Yes, Honor 8X supports virtual reality (VR) apps.

Question: Is the buttons back lit?

Answer: Honor 8X has on-screen navigation buttons and also supports gesture navigation.

Question: What USB type does Honor 8X use? Micro usb or USB type C?

Answer: Honor 8X has microUSB port.

Question: Does Honor 8X have notification light?

Answer: Honor 8X does have notification light.

Question: What are the camera specifications of Honor 8X?

Answer: Honor 8X has a dual camera at the rear comprising of a 20MP camera with f/1.8 large aperture and a 2MP depth sensing camera. For selfies there is a 16MP camera with f/2.0 aperture. The camera has AI capabilities.

Question: Is there a front LED flash for selfies in Honor 8X?

Answer: No, there is no front LED flash but it has screen flash.

Question: Does the camera has OIS?

Answer: Honor 8X has NO EIS for video.

Question: Can we take 4K videos in Honor 8X?

Answer: Honor 8X can take videos up to 1080p at 60 fps maximum.

Question: What are the connectivity options? Does it support VoLTE?

Answer: Yes, Honor 8X supports VoLTE. Other options include Bluetooth, A-GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/

Question: Does Honor 8X has dual VoLTE?

Answer: No, Honor 8X does not support dual VoLTE.

Question: Is there a FM app in Honor 8X?

Answer: Yes, it has FM.

Question: How to take screnshots in Honor 8X?

Answer: Honor 8X has a triple finger gesture screenshot feature.

Question: Can we take long screenshot in Honor 8X?

Answer: Yes, we can take long screenshot.

Question: Does Honor 8X support USB OTG?

Answer: Yes, it supports OTG and you can connect the USB drive to it.

Question: What is the battery capacity of Honor 8X?

Answer: Honor 8X has 3700mAh battery.

Question: Does Honor 8X support fast charging?

Answer: Yes it supports fast charging with a 10 watts charger.

Question: What is the charging time of Honor 8X?

Answer: Using the power adapter out of the box, you can charge Honor 8X under 2 hours.

Question: Does it have power saver modes?

Answer: Yes it has a battery saver mode.

Question: Is there an IR blaster in Honor 8X?

Answer: No, Honor 8X does not have IR sensor.

Question: Is Honor 8X Waterproof?

Answer: No, Honor 8X is not waterproof.

Question: How is the call quality?

Answer: Call quality of Honor 8X is good.

Question: Does Honor 8X support one hand UI?

Answer: Yes

Question: Does Honor 8X has fingerprint scanner?

Answer: Yes, it has fingerprint sensor with additional features like swipe to check notifications, browse photos in gallery by touching fingerprint sensor area, accept incoming calls via touching the sensor area etc.

Question: Does Honor 8X support app lock?

Answer: Yes, the Honor 8X support app lock with fingerprint sensor.

Question: Is there Face recognition in Honor 8X?

Answer: Yes, the Honor 8X comes with face recognition feature.

Question: What OS does Honor 8X run?

Answer: Honor 8X runs on Android Oreo 8.1 with their EMUI 8.1 layered on top of it.

Question: Does Honor 8X support two Whatsapp in the same phone?

Answer: Yes, Honor 8X support dual apps (App clone) feature.

Question: Does Honor 8X support call recording?

Answer: Yes, Honor 8X support call recording feature. You can choose to record all calls automatically or record custom calls automatically.

Question: Does Honor 8X have video call feature in dialer?

Answer: No, there is no video call feature in the Honor 8X dialer. Question: Does Honor 8X support NFC? Answer: No, NFC is not supported.

Question: Does Honor 8X has split screen feature?

Answer: Yes it supports multi windows.

Question: Does Honor 8X have Dolby Atmos support?

Answer: No, Honor 8X does not have Dolby Atmos but the audio quality is pretty good.

Question: Does Honor 8X have heating issue?

Answer: No, heating is within the limits or can say no heating issues in this phone.]]>

Honor 9N Detailed Review – A stylish all-rounder

Lakshmi Rajan — Mon, 13 Aug 2018 14:11:56 +0000

Honor has been on a roll with back to back launches, the aggressive approach also propelled the parent company Huawei go past Apple as the second largest Smartphone vendor in the world and also push it the elite top 5 league in India. The key to success for any brand is to offer choices to the users in various price segments. Honor has a lot to offer in the 10K to 30K price segment in India and the latest Honor 9N at price starting at ₹ 11,999 hits the sweet spot. If you wonder why? go ahead read my Honor 9N detailed review.

Honor 9N box contents:

The device,
Sim Ejector Tool,
A transparent Back cover,
Power adapter and
USB Type-C cable.

Design and Build quality of Honor 9N

149.2 x 71.8 x 7.7 mm
152 grams
glass body with an aluminum frame

Honor 9 Lite is the most successful phones of Honor in India, having sold 1 million-plus units and still going strong. Honor 9N takes a leaf out of the 9 Lite with much semblance to it. Similarly, it has glass rear treated to a 12-layer of glass with mirrored finish premium design. Being glass, it also is thinner than the metal counterparts and is lighter on hands. For everyday use, a lighter the phone, the more comfortable it is to practically manage and the Honor 9N has a good ergonomics. The rounded corners compliment the design. The back has the fingerprint sensor which is easier to reach. The dual camera capsule and the flash sits neatly on top. On the left side, there is a hybrid SIM tray. So you can add two SIMs or one SIM and a microSD card for increasing the storage. I appreciate when attention is paid to the paint job even for the SIM tray though it sits inside for the most part of the phone’s life. On the right side, there is the power button and volume button, both again quickly accessible. The bottom has the audio jack, mic, micro USB port and the speaker grille. Honor 9N comes in four beautiful colors – the standard matte black, the Honor signature blue shade and a newly introduced two colors lavender purple and robin egg blue. Honor 9N has a pleasant looking design and is also one of the most comfortable phones I have used recently. It is also the most stylish phone you can buy in this price segment and is complimented by a “top notch” (pun intended) display.

Display of Honor 9N

5.84″ TFT LCD display
2280 x 1080 pixels resolution
432 ppi density
19:9 aspect ratio
2.5D glass

“To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ’tis notch in the display The new trend in the smartphone fortune Or to take Arms against the notch and rebel” Pardon me for the cheesy take on the Shakespeare quote, the truth is the notch is here to stay for a while and while hordes of tech reviewers in general curse it, my interaction with ordinary folks gives me a different insight. Many don’t mind it, while some like it some or indifferent to it. Honor 9N is the most affordable Smartphone to come with the notch. If you are someone who doesn’t like notch? well, Honor gives you the control to disable it. Simple. The display is bright, vivid but not oversaturated. It is pleasing to look at and offers a good viewing experience. The texts look sharp. The outdoor under sunlight readability is good too. Overall, I liked the display at works here. The display setting offers eye comfort mode which is the blue filter setting with an option to schedule the mode, a full-screen display allows you to manage the full vision display for apps, there is even a resolution mode setting in case you want to scale down to HD+ 1440 x 720p to conserve the battery.

Software Features of Honor 9N – EMUI 8.0 at work

Watch Honor 9N Features, Tips and Tricks

https://youtu.be/Ip6zypPW8cg EMUI has come a long way since its inception and now it has become one of my comfortable and favorite user interface to use. They have toned down much of bloatware and it works faster now and doesn’t lag down the phone. It also has a clean looking interface with a set of good features which many might appreciate. The settings page is very clean and is just a page with options nesting within. EMUI 8.0 also brings in private space feature allowing the user to have a separate private space, kind of partition with its own set of apps separated from main space. There is also the App Twin feature to simultaneously run two instances of apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger.

Fingerprint sensor in Honor 9N

Honor phones have a reputation for fast and accurate fingerprint sensors with added features. Honor 9N like their rest of the phones is very fast and very accurate. It supports the app lock too. The add-on features include touch and hold gestures and slide gesture on the sensor area to take a photo when on camera app, answer incoming calls, stop alarms, show notification panel and browse photos. With India going digital, there is also a Paytm quick pay option, which when enabled allow launching the payment screen from the lock or off screen instantly.

Face recognition in Honor 9N

Honor 9N also has face recognition capability. It works fast and is accurate too if the light conditions are good enough but would struggle in low lightings. App unlock is also supported via face recognition.

Performance

HiSilicon Kirin 659
Octa-core (4×2.36 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A53)
Mali-T830 MP2
3GB/4GB RAM
32GB/64GB/128GB,expandable

The Kirin 659 processor is a workhorse for Honor, having used it extensively in their mid-range Smartphones in the last few quarters. What could give it a new lease of life would be the GPU Turbo update it would be receiving soon. The update is supposed to ramp up the gaming performance by 30 percent and the battery optimization by 20 percent which should be exciting. For now, the processor is good enough to handle day to day tasks. You would be more than happy if your daily diet on phone would be to make calls, browse, check on your social media applications. Push it further, if you are a gamer there is no denying the Snapdragon offers more processing power in their latest 600 series for the midrange but the 659 still stays afloat. I could play my daily does of PUBG on this without many hiccups and still manage chicken dinner in the game. The graphics are set to medium by default while playing. Agreed, it’s time Huawei brings in an updated new chipset but I am betting on the GPU Turbo update for the extra push on this processor. I will update once it happens. With the legacy of Huawei in the modem technology, Honor phones offer good call quality and it is evident on this phone too. The 4G connectivity is solid and this is one area Honor phones always excel at.

Battery performance of Honor 9N

There is a 3000 mAh battery which might sound underwhelming on paper. What helps in better battery life is the good built-in modem that doesn’t drain the battery. I have put the phone under moderate use and it could sail through a day if you are a demanding user the phone can last 18-20 hours.

Camera performance of Honor 9N

13MP + 2MP dual rear camera
16MP selfie camera

The Honor 9N comes with some playful elements and easy to use modes. There is portrait mode for both front and back. Additionally, the rear camera app also has a wide aperture mode. AR lens adds some fun elements to your photos. As usual, like most Honor phones, there are extensive camera modes to make even ordinary users take some good photos. There is also a Pro mode giving you control over ISO, shutter, exposure values and focus. Coming to the camera quality, the selfies are a notch ahead and very impressive. The pictures are sharp with good details. The portrait mode does a good job, with a right softness in the background. [gallery link="file" columns="4" ids="13977,13978,13979,13980" orderby="rand"] The 13+2MP dual combo is consistent in the output, on a positive note. The color reproduction is accurate and nicer. Though it could have done better with a little more sharpening. The portrait mode does a good job at edge detection in most of the captures. The night shot though suffers a bit of noise and can be rated decent and a shot above the average. [gallery link="file" columns="5" ids="13982,13983,13984,13985,13986,13987,13988,13989,13990,13991" orderby="rand"]

Verdict: To Buy or Not to Buy the Honor 9N

In India, the Honor 9N is priced at Rs 11,999 for 3GB RAM + 32GB storage variant, and 4GB RAM + 64GB storage at Rs. 13,999. There’s a 4GB RAM + 128GB storage variant that costs Rs. 17,999. If you like your phone to be stylish, you can’t look beyond Honor 9N in this segment. It is beautiful with mirror finish, lightweight and has good ergonomics for day to day use. It’s overall a good a perfect mid-ranger if you are looking for a phone that looks both beautiful and capable and won’t disappoint you.]]>

9 Reasons why Honor 9N scores over Redmi Note 5 Pro

Lakshmi Rajan — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 06:27:41 +0000

The plain fact is there is no one best Smartphone, had it been there no one would be buying any other mobiles, right? Every phone has its own plus and minus points that people weigh over when buying their new Smartphone, when their needs matches more with the positives a phone offer, they buy it. Simple. If you are looking for an affordable mid-range Smartphone, the choices narrow between the newly launched Honor 9N and the Redmi Note 5 Pro, while both the phones have their own goodie bags, I list 9 reasons why Honor 9N beats over Redmi Note 5 Pro and if you value these points as priority, you get your right pick too.

Design

Smartphone has become almost an extension of us, most of us can’t live without it and is our integral part. For a device that we carry almost always with us, the ergonomics matter a lot. The phone has to be lighter and get its dimension right for ease of use in our daily life, this is where Honor 9N has a vital advantage. The Honor 9N measures 149.2 x 71.8 x 7.7 mm as compared to 158.6 x 75.4 x 8.1 mm reading of Redmi Note 5 Pro, a few mm does make a huge difference and anything less than 8mm definitely is better. More importantly, the Honor 9N at 152 grams is much lighter than the 181 grams the Redmi Note 5 Pro weighs. Clad in glass body as compared to the more common in the category metal body the Redmi note 5 pro comes and available in exquisite one of the kind robin egg blue color and Lavender purple along side the traditional black and Honor’s special blue shade, the Honor 9N could easily win hands down the most stylish Smartphone in this price category.

Notch Ahead

Smartphone industry keeps evolving when it comes to aesthetics and design, last season it was about the new found love for 18:9 aspect ration which helped the OEMs to bring more real estate to the screen while still managing to keep the phone narrower for grip. Redmi Note 5 Pro embraced the 18:9 aspect ratio and it was well received but there was a quick shift again from the 18:9 aspect ratio to 19:9 aspect ratio with the arrival of notch design. Undoubtedly the ‘notch’ on the top divided the tech community with many of them deriding it but ultimately what matters is the end consumers and when I interacted with many consumers, I found there are lot many people who liked to be one notch ahead. The notch was embraced again, people did like it. So Honor moved in swiftly and the Honor 9N comes with notch. You don’t find any other device in this price range with notch, atleast yet. For those who don’t like notch, the EMUI also offers a display setting to hide notch.

Display

Honor 9N has a 5.84 inches IPS LCD display with a 1080 x 2280 pixels resolution translating to 432 ppi density. On the other hand, the Redmi Note 5 Pro comes with a 5.99 inches IPS LCD display offering a 1080 x 2160 pixels working out a 403 ppi density. 9N is packed with more pixel density and also when kept side by side, the display panel looks slightly more vibrant than the Note 5 Pro giving it a slight advantage.

Game Suite

If you are a hard core gamer like me, you would like the Game suite feature in Honor 9N. Game suite offers three modes: Performance mode: to improve game performance Smart mode: to balance performance and power consumption Power saver mode: saves battery life but reduces game performance. It also offers a DND mode while you are at gaming for an uninterrupted game session. When enabled, all onscreen notification will be muted or hidden except for calls, alarms and low battery alerts. The device will not ring or vibrate for calls and alarms so you can have unhindered gaming.

GPU Turbo – The future proofing

Talking about gaming, we all know the Smartphones performance can deteriorate over a time or atleast when you buy a Smartphone, you are limited to its hardware capability. What works as advantage for Honor Smartphones is the tight integration of software and hardware since they use their own HiSiliconne Kirin chipsets, very few countable OEMs have their own chipset running on their phones. Huawei, the parent company of Honor has their own R&D centers across the world including one in Bangalore. With a talented workforce of engineers and tightly integrated ecosystem, they are pushing a GPU Turbo update to some of their Hauwei/Honor Smartphones and Honor 9N is poised to receive the update in few months, the update promises to increase the gaming performance by 30% and battery life by 20%.

Riding Mode

A recent report states that in India the use of mobile phones while driving claimed 2,138 lives last year. It’s a serious concern which made Honor introduce a Riding mode in their Smartphones including Honor 9N. It can be easily enabled from the quick settings before you start your ride. When you enable the ride mode, the bluetooth and headset will be disabled in case you have paired them, and calls will be automatically answered with voice or sms messages based on your ride mode settings. You can choose to answer by voice message, answer by text or decline calls automatically. The app also features an optional ride tracking which gives you insights on your riding pattern, distance covered and time spend on wheels.

Better Camera Controls

EMUI has probably one of the better camera app offering good number of presets or modes which helps normal users take amazing pictures, something which the MIUI on Redmi Note 5 Pro lacks. Honor 9N offers an extensive array of modes including pro photo, pro video, AR lens, night shot, light painting, and my favorite good food mode. For those who are not comfortable or unsure of handling manual modes, the light painting mode enables them to become ace photographers in capturing the city at dark with trailing lights, shoot silky water like pro. Another area in the camera app where Honor 9N scores over Redmi Note 5 Pro is the rich manual controls the EMUI offers. If you are a pro, you definitely have a better control on the camera with a Honor 9N smartphone. So either way, amateur or pro, the Honor 9N camera offers a better usability and controls.

Fingeprint Sensor – A little more

There is no denying both the phones offer accurate and quick fingerprint sensor and also has app lock feature. But Honor has few more tricks to the fingerprint sensor implementation. You can use touch and hold or slide gestures on the sensor area to do certain tasks like to answer incoming calls, stop alarm, quick access notification panel or browse photos.

Battery modes – last minute survival methods

We all scramble to prolong the battery when it is reaching the fag end, we turn off the connectivity, dim the screen and what not to make sure the battery can last a little longer. The Honor 9N offers a better power saver mode than Redmi Note 5 Pro there is a power saver mode and when you are really left with last few percentage of battery, you can turn to the Ultra power saving mode which turns the screen black, shuts down everything else except to use dialer, messages, contacts, SOS and an option to add two more apps to the home screen. So if you value any of these points above, the Honor 9N definitely should be your pick. What you think of these features, do share your thoughts. https://youtu.be/Ip6zypPW8cg ]]>

What is GPU Turbo? | Huawei's GPU Turbo coming to India soon

Lakshmi Rajan — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 03:37:10 +0000

Huawei has been active in India for quiet sometime with their Honor phones but they brought back their Huawei Smartphones few months back with the launch of P20 Pro and P20 lite. Now, they are all set to bring their first GPU Turbo powered Smartphone in India, that promises enhanced gaming experience.

What is GPU Turbo?

Recently we have seen increased consumer interests in the gaming capabilities of the Smartphone with the advent of hugely popular games like PUBG: mobile and imminent arrival of Fortnite for Android. While some of the competition have addressed the needs with gaming centric Smartphones like Razer and ROG smartphones, Huawei feels the existing users should also have a fair deal when it comes to gaming and hence they worked on GPU Turbo as a software feature. The good thing though is not just the new upcoming Smartphones but many of the existing Smartphones like Huawei P20, P20 Pro, Mate 10, Mate 10 Pro, and Mate RS to phones in their Honor sub-brand like the popular ones in India Honor 8 Pro, the Honor 9 Lite, Honor 7X are also expected to get this GPU Turbo feature to drive up the gaming engine. Huawei claims the GPU Turbo that will boost the efficiency of the GPU by 60 percent and cut down battery consumption by 30 percent, which is pretty awesomeness if it happens. This would enable the Smartphones to run complex mobile games at a higher frame rate, and even with the HDR+ visual effects turned on. The GPU Turbo will also support augmented and virtual reality applications in the upcoming Smartphones powered by it and some of the existing compatible devices.

How does GPU Turbo work?

Huawei has not provided any specifics on how the GPU turbo works but it probably uses hardware-software acceleration in the GPU. Huawei is one of the few Smartphone OEM’s who heavily invests on R&D, I have personally visited their R&D center in Bangalore which is one of the many global centers and probably they came up with some tweaks to accelerate the gaming performance. Will await more information on these from Huawei and will update the article.

Smartphone with GPU Turbo out of the box is coming to India soon.

Yes, Huawei Nova 3 and Nova 3i with GPU Turbo out of the box is expected to launch in India as soon as late July.

List of Huawei / Honor devices to come with the GPU software update

Huawei devices: Huawei P20, P20 Pro, Mate 10, Mate 10 Pro, and Mate RS are scheduled to receive the GPU Turbo update in August. In September, the P20 Lite is committed to get the update along side Mate 9, Mate 9 Pro and the P10 Plus. the Huawei Y9, Huawei P Smart, and the Mate 10 Lite are also in the line. Honor Devices: Honor 10 should get the update in August. In fact in China, they have already launched a special edition of the Honor 10 called the Honor 10GT with the GPU Turbo out of the box. Other Honor devices including ones retailing in India like the Honor 7X, Honor 9 lite , Honor 8 Pro, Honor 9i are also expected to get this update in September. While the Huawei has promised the updates, there could be some delay in the rollout and we will keep you updated on this.]]>

Honor 7A Camera Review

Lakshmi Rajan — Sat, 09 Jun 2018 00:21:53 +0000

If you have ears on the Indian Smartphone market, you would have heard a lot of conversations around Honor in the recent months, the company has been super aggressive in India with back to back Smartphone launches. The aggressiveness seemed to have paid them off too with the Honor brand making into the list of top five brands in India for the first time with a 146 per cent growth. The latest to be enlisted into their Indian portfolio is the new 7 twins – the Honor 7A and 7C, with the 7A being the most affordable of the two. Priced at Rs 8,999 the Honor 7A arrives in a price segment that is competitive but still offers the brands a wider pie to take their own piece of cake. Camera is something that most use a lot in their Smartphone and if you are thinking of buying Honor 7A go ahead check out our Honor 7A camera review.

Honor 7A Camera Specifications

13MP + 2MP dual camera (rear)
F/2.2 aperture
phase detection autofocus, LED flash
1080p video
8MP Selfie camera
F/2.0
Front LED flash
1080p video
Camera modes : Photo,video, HDR, Panorama, Good Food, Document scan
Settings mode: Smile capture, Touch to capture, ultra snapshot, timer

Honor 7A app loads faster and is quick to access with a simple yet intuitive interface. The main screen of the app is not cluttered, you see the preview pane that also shows the last photo in the gallery, photo and video buttons. On top has the flash, wide aperture, beauty mode and toggle for front and rear cameras. Swiping on the screen left or right, takes you to modes and settings page. The modes are stripped down version with less options unlike in some of the higher range Honor Smartphones. We have the photo, video, HDR, panorama, filters, watermark, good food and document scan options. There is no slo-mo or timelapse option for the videos.

The settings tab has timer, touch to capture, smile captures, burst shoot, set of options for volume button functions to assign for shutter which is by default or zoom / focus. Double pressing volume down button when the screen is off can be used to open camera and take a quick snapshot or just open camera.

Now let’s move on the camera quality.

Honor 7A Camera in good day light conditions

Rest assured of carrying some good memories of images when taken under good sunlight. The Honor 7A does a decent job at it. The color reproduction is natural, what you see is what you get in the final image. There is no artificial color / saturation enhancements. The color tones are natural and I liked it. The dynamic range is a bit weaker but then for an affordable Smartphone under Rs 10,000 that would be nitpicking. If you look at the flowers in the pictures, it has come appreciably true to the original color which I kind of like it. [gallery columns="4" link="file" ids="13576,13577,13578,13579,13580,13581,13582" orderby="rand"]

Honor 7A Camera in Indoor lightings

How about coming indoors and trying the camera? The picture says it all. Any room for complaints? Not at all for this price. Even in the various ambient light settings, the colors are natural and close to the original. [gallery link="file" columns="4" ids="13559,13558,13557,13556,13555,13554,13553" orderby="rand"]

Honor 7A Camera in Low lights

Low light photography can be challenging even for some of the flagships and for mid-rangers it gets even more difficult and at entry-level segment it becomes a nightmare in some of the mobiles. While we have seen a lot of improvements in recent time in the mobile camera technology, it still is tough situation to handle the camera in low light situations. We have seen Honor / Huawei doing remarkably well in the last quarter to tackle this and the parent company’s Huawei P20 Pro has the best low light camera optics I have ever seen in mobiles. With Honor 7A, it still is a challenge considering the aggressive pricing, nevertheless the Honor 7A could manage decently well low light photos, but as expected there are some noises in the images. [gallery link="file" columns="4" ids="13563,13562,13561,13560"]

Honor 7A capturing people

So how does it capture people? There is no special portrait mode but it does a decent job and you can notice some soft backgrounds. The details are decently detailed for this segment. You can also experiment with wide aperture for the background depth and play around post-capture in the edit mode.

Honor 7A wide aperture mode

There is no portrait mode in Honor 7A but there is the wide aperture mode. While the portrait mode and wide aperture both play with the aperture levels, the portrait mode we see these days in many dual camera Smartphones is tailor made for people but wide aperture gives you more control to handle the amount of bokeh, the subject you want the depth field to highlight etc. What it also gives is the freedom to control the aperture in the edit mode of the images.

The picture below was captured with wide aperture and it gives a nice highlight to the brand while keeping the rest in a soft blur. I particularly liked this capture.

The picture below was taken with wide aperture and then later in the photo edit option I had manually set the wide aperture at 5 (you get maximum 6)

In this image, I had changed the reading in the wide aperture in the edit option to 5. You can see the background blur pronounced.

The wide aperture mode gives more flexibility and ability to control the focus later. Videos can be shot on 1080p both with the front and rear cameras. The focusing is again decent, though there is no EIS image stabilisation which is a very rare inclusion in any case in this segment.

Verdict

Honor 7A is a reliable, decent Smartphone for photography. If you love the natural colors, this camera would impress you for the price it comes at.

]]>

Honor 9 Lite Review – A Thing of Beauty is a Joy for Ever?

Lakshmi Rajan — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 17:00:45 +0000

Honor packs in a potent mix of beauty and performance in Honor 9 Lite. I think its a smart offering that sets the bar high for competition. With a price starting at Rs 10,999 in India, its no push over for others. Honor has been resurgent in India with their recent Smartphones gaining good traction and overall positive vibes around the brand now. With back to back releases they are on a high, and the Honor 9 Lite is a confident product and also comes with flaunting four cameras, read on our Honor 9 Lite Review to know our in-depth take on the device. Out of the box you get:

Honor9 Lite Smartphone
Soft back case
Pin
USB Type C charger
Power adapter

Design and Build Quality

Double sided 2.5D glass
Aluminum frame
151 x 71.9 x 7.6 mm
149 grams

Few seasons back, we had many full glass bodied Smartphones but soon metal became the main stay with glass finding place in premium offerings. Honor 9 Lite makes a bold statement with a mirror-life finish at the back. Available in three colors, Midnight Black, Sapphire Blue and Glacier Grey, they outshine the rest of the competition on style quotient and elegant design. Honor has by now very much owned the Blue color and the Glacier Grey is the new sizzler but they Grey the Honor says is a complicated shade to make and it would be available in limited numbers. A light aluminum frame holds the glass on both the sides and it also helps to keep the phone lighter. The phone has rounded sides and gives a comfortable grip. Having glass rear also means its a bit slippery and the back is also prone to smudges. The right side has the power button and volume buttons and the left side the SIM tray. Its a hybrid dual SIM and supports 4G VoLTE. The bottom is populated with a speaker grille, microUSB port, mic and an audio jack.

Display

5.65-inch IPS LCD display
2160×1080 resolution
18:9 aspect ratio
75.5% screen-to-body ratio
428 ppi density

Full vision displays and 18:9 aspect ratios has changed the way we perceived the display sizes, now the 5.65 inches is the new 5-inch compact phones. The Honor 9 Lite’s 5.65-inch display features it and if you look for a palm fitting phone between the 7x and 9i, the Lite fits your needs. The fullHD+ IPS panel pops colors and has good brightness level. The viewing angles are good and we can safely say the display is one of the strong point of the Honor 9 Lite. The display settings has eye comfort mode which can be scheduled.

Software Features – Liter Version of EMUI 8.0

Honor 9 Lite is the second device after Honor View 10 to come with Android Oreo and EMUI 8.0 out of the box. But unlike in View 10, the EMUI 8.0 is a bit watered down here. Few features have been left out while the essence of the UI is retained. Honor’s own skin has evolved a lot over the years and is more refined now. For those who long for app drawer, there is a provision for it too. Multi-tasking via split screen is made easy with a long press on the menu button, there is the bells and whistles like app twin that enables to duplicate apps but limited to Facebook, Messenger and Whatsapp, Smart assistance that offers one hand UI, motion control actions etc. The features of EMUI that has been omitted include private space that enables the user to have a partition and a separate phone within a phone, glove mode, guest mode and the Game suite which I liked in View 10 that offered a DND mode during gaming episodes. The settings page has a neat layout and then there are few localized customization like in calendar which offers local almanacs. You also have the option to use Huawei’s cloud services for backing up contacts, calendars, Wi-Fi credentials, SMS messages, and call logs but you can’t back up data from third party app.

Performance

HiSilicon Kirin 659
Octa-core (4×2.4 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A53)
16nm FinFET
Mali-T830 MP2
3/4 GB RAM
10nm processor
32/64 GB,expandable.

The part everyone would be more interested at, once the vanity settles down. Powering the 9 Lite is the same Kirin 659 that we have seen already in 7X and 9i, which is not bad at all. Its a good mid-range processor Honor has delivered recently. The phone perfectly and dutifully does all the demands of the daily grind an average user would put a phone to use. The call quality is good. The speaker is decent and I had no issue with the occasional speaker calls I made. While I don’t use video calls, there are many who do ask if the dialer has a video call option, the answer is no. A software update could fix it though. The 9 Lite has OTG support and is a decent performer at this price level. Talking about gaming, it could handle most of the games thrown at, though keen gaming enthusiasts will notice few frame drops in heavy graphic intensive games. Glass clad phones tend to heat up a bit more than their metal counterparts and 9 Lite is no exception. On a gaming trip, the phone heats up a bit around the camera module area. You can check the gaming review video below for more details on it and the gaming performance. https://youtu.be/ufxmBRY58lc The apps load quicker and I didn’t notice any lag in daily use. The RAM management is pretty aggressive and if any apps are idle for a bit longer time, it shuts them down. Overall, the 9 Lite didn’t disappoint me. It also has the Gyroscope, so if you are looking at playing 360 degree videos or VR games, it does handle them. As always, Honor does a pretty good work with the fingerprint sensor, its quick and highly reliable. You can also app lock and there is the usual bells and whistles that Honor packs in with touch and hold and touch and slide gestures on the sensor area to access notification lights, browse images, take quick snap etc.

Battery life

The 9 lite has a 3000mAh battery and the Kirin 659 does a good job with the battery optimization inspite of a lighter battery. Putting the phone to a medium use could squeeze out 18 hours of battery life or a bit more. It takes 2 hours or a little more for full charge from 0%.

Camera performance

Rear & Front: Dual: 13 MP + 2 MP,
phase detection autofocus, LED flash
1080 video capability

The four cameras on the Honor 9 Lite makes for any conversational point when someone asks about your phone. The dual camera on both sides also means you can enable portrait mode on both the cameras. The pictures have a good color reproduction and as expected under good day light conditions, the pictures are really good. What I liked more is the selfies, which come nice especially with the portrait mode turned on. For the rear camera though, I liked the wide aperture mode better than the portrait mode, the wide aperture gives a soft background and you can also fiddle with the aperture later after taking an image. Night conditions suffers a bit of noise but that is the case with most of the cameras in this price range in any case. Having tried the Honor 7X and 9i, I realized the later two did fare a bit better than the 9 Lite when it comes to camera but nevertheless 9 Lite has a decent camera optics at this price range. Videos are decent but there is no image stabilization. The camera mode as usual squeezes lots of camera modes.There are bunch of shooting modes like professional mode for both stills and videos, good food mode, light painting, HDR etc. You can also trigger the camera with gesture palm control or by a smile. [gallery link="file" columns="4" ids="12957,12958,12959,12960,12961,12963,12964,12965"]

Verdict:

The base variant of Honor 9 Lite is a sweet deal. At a price of Rs 10,999 it gives you a beautiful phone with a vivid display complete with 18:9 ratio almost gone bezel-less design and it is also a decent performer at this price. ]]>

Honor 9 Lite FAQ : Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions

Lakshmi Rajan — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 08:00:03 +0000

Also watch: https://youtu.be/ufxmBRY58lc

Question: What are the different colors Honor 9 Lite is available?

Answer: It is available in black, grey and blue colors.

Question: What is the display size and resolution?

Answer: Honor 9 Lite has a 5.65-inch IPS LCD display with a 18:9 aspect ration offering a 2160×1080 FHD+ resolution.

Question : What is the weight and thickness of Honor 9 Lite?

Answer: Honor 9 lite weighs 149 grams and measures 7.6mm in thickness.

Question: What display settings available?

Answer: The display setting has full view display settings which allows to adjust display scaling of each apps. eye comfort (blue filter) settings, text size, view mode etc.

Question: Does Honor 9 Lite has Blue filter ?

Answer: Yes, there is blue filter in the display settings and is called eye comfort mode in Honor. The settings also allows you to schedule a particular start and end time for blue filter.

Question: What is the price of Honor 9 Lite? Where can I buy?

Answer: The price of Honor 9 lite is 10,999 for 3GB+32GB and 14,999 for 4GB+64GB

Question: What size SIM cards Honor 9 Lite accepts? Can I add a microSD card?

Answer: Honor 9 lite has two nano SIM slots. It has a hybrid dual SIM so you can have two SIMs or one SIM and another microSD card.

Question: Does it have Corning Gorilla Glass protection?

Answer: No it doesn’t have a gorilla glass.

Question: What is the processor used in this smartphone?

Answer: Honor 9 Lite is powered by HiSillicon Kirin 659 chipset , MALI T830 MP2 with 4GB RAM / 3GB RAM and 32/64GB storage.

Question: What is the internal storage of Honor 9 Lite?

Answer: 32/64GB internal storage with an option to expand up to 256GB via microSD card.

Question: Does Honor 9 Lite has Gyroscope sensor?

Answer: Yes, it has Gyroscope sensor.

Question: Does it support VR?

Answer: Yes, Honor 9 Lite does support virtual reality.

Question: Is the buttons back lit?

Answer: Honor 9 Lite has on-screen navigation button and the navigation key settings allows you to change the position of the navigation keys and there is also a navigation dock option.

Question: What USB type does it use?

Answer: It uses microUSB port

Question: Does it have notification light?

Answer: Yes, it has notification light.

Question: What are the camera specifications of Honor 9 lite ?

Answer: Honor 9 lite has four cameras , two at the front and two at the back. Both the front and rear has a set of 13MP and another 2 MP camera.

Question: Does the camera has OIS?

Answer: No.

Question: Can we take 4K videos in Honor 9 lite?

Answer: No.

Question: What are the connectivity options? Does it support VoLTE?

Answer: Yes, Honor 9 lite supports VoLTE. Other options include Bluetooth, A-GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/

Question: Does Honor 9 lite has FM app?

Answer: Yes

Question: How to take screnshots in Honor 9 lite?

Answer: There is a tri finger screenshot gesture to take a quick screnshot.

Question: Can we take long screenshot in Honor 9 lite?

Answer: Yes, we can take long screenshot.

Question: Does it support USB OTG?

Answer: Yes, it supports OTG and you can connect the USB drive to it.

Question: What is the battery capacity of Honor 9 lite?

Answer: Honor 9 lite has a 3000mAh battery

Question: Does it support fast charging?

Answer: No, it has normal fast charging. 5V 2A.

Question: Does it have power saver modes?

Answer: Yes it has a power saving mode and another ultra power saving mode.

Question: Does it have IR blaster?

Answer: N0, there is no IR blaster in Honor 9 lite

Question: Is Honor 9 lite Waterproof?

Answer: No, Honor 9 lite is not waterproof.

Question: How is the call quality?

Answer: Call quality of Honor 9 lite is good.

Question: Does it support one hand UI?

Answer: Yes it supports.

Question: Does Honor 9 lite has fingerprint scanner?

Answer: Yes it has fingerprint scanner

Question: Does Honor 9 lite support App lock?

Answer: Yes, it supports app lock.

Question: What OS does it run?

Answer: Honor 9 lite runs on stock Android Oreo 8.0 . with EMUI 8.0 layered on top.

Question: Does it support two Whatsapp in the same phone?

Answer: Yes it has a App Twin feature that duplicates Whatsapp, Facebook and Messenger app into two instances.

Question: Does Honor 9 lite support call recording?

Answer: No, it does not support call recording. Question: Does Honor 9 lite support NFC? Answer: No, NFC is not supported.

Question: Does Honor 9 lite has split screen feature?

Answer: Yes it supports multi windows.

Question: Does Honor 9 lite have Dolby Atmos support?

Answer: No, Honor 9 lite does not have Dolby Atmos but the audio quality is pretty good.

Question: Does Honor 9 lite have heating issue?

Answer: In our tests, the Honor 9 lite shows a 8 degree jump in temperature, which is kind of normal for phones in this segment. I did not notice heating issue in this phone. https://youtu.be/cOkFO-h8NkY]]>

Honor View 10 Review : Is this the OnePlus 5T killer?

Lakshmi Rajan — Sun, 07 Jan 2018 00:30:03 +0000

Honor View 10 is priced at a very aggressive Rs 29,999 in India, a sweet spot price that fills in a vacuum in this price band with a flagship offering that can match the hitherto unchallenged OnePlus 5T on every count. Honor just threw in a new year surprise by unveiling the pricing of its much awaited Honor View 10 ( or is it Honor V10 ) , I expected the price to be around Rs 35,000 (USD$ 550) but the revealed price brings us what could be a potential smashing hit flagship and read ahead the review to know why I thinks so. Let’s dig into the box to see what are stuffed inside.

Honor View 10 Smartphone
Soft back case
Pin
USB Type C charger
Power adapter supporting 9V/2A fast charging

Design and Build Quality

Aluminum-alloy uni body
157.00 mm (L) x 74.98 mm (W) x 6.97mm (T)
172 grams

Fall 2017 Smartphone designs have shed those thick bezels and Honor has been adapting it quickly on their phones with both the Honor 9i and Honor 7x flaunting thin bezels, so its not surprising Honor View 10 to follow the design lines but they have taken one big design change with Honor V10 which was unfamiliar in their lineup. While maintaining thin strips surrounding the screen and still having a small room for accommodating the selfie camera, earpiece grille and sensors on the top, the bottom chin sees a fingerprint sensor at the front , a first in the Honor lineup which usually have the sensor at the rear. The Smartphone is an all metal-glass affair, the phone is quiet thin and the weight distribution is pretty neat. The rest of the design is familiar, with the power and volume button at the right offering a good tactile feedback and placed at the right optimal positioning for ease of use. The left side has the SIM tray and it is a hybrid dual-SIM. One of the key highlight of the View 10 is that it supports dual VoLTE on both the slots simultaneously. The bottom has the audio jack (Thanks heavens for not chewing this out yet), USB Type-C port and speaker grille. The top houses an IR blaster and a mic. I usually wonder who uses a phone as a smart remote till my set-top box of the TV decides to go dead few days back and the View 10 came to the rescue with its IR sensor! The back has the dual-camera at the top corner along with the LED flash, the camera bump is quiet prominent , sticking out like barrel guns ready to fire. The antenna lines The antenna lines design on top edge makes it to the august company of OnePlus and iPhone. A subtle honor branding also makes its presence. The front as I mentioned earlier has the fingerprint sensor at the chin, there are on-screen navigation buttons but if you want an a clean display sans buttons, Honor also gives an option of an one-finger navigation in place of the standard android navigation bar, where you can use the fingerprint sensor and some gestures to getting around on your smartphone.

Display

5.99-inch LTPS IPS LCD display
1080 x 2160 pixels
18:9 aspect ratio
Full-vision display
78.6% screen-to-body ratio
403 ppi density

Apart from the obvious aesthetic preference the thin bezels that wraps around the screen also makes the display stick out prominently for a full-vision and it is all about the display. Honor View 10 does a pretty good job with the huge 5.99-inch display that is fitted into the same dimension the previous Honor 8 Pro came with a 5.7″display. Going bezel-less and opting for the taller 18:9 aspect ratio means making big display still manageable on hands compared to earlier days where many users would have been put off by such humongous big screen with thick bezels all around. Honor View 10 display is beautiful and shines bright, it makes for a good viewing experience and hits the right levels of saturation without straining the eyes and still managing vivid colors. The viewing angles are good, so is under sunlight legibility. The display setting offers eye comfort mode which is the blue filter setting with an option to schedule the mode, a full screen display allows you to manage the full vision display for apps, there is even a resolution mode setting in case you want to pare down to HD+ 1440 x 720p.

Software Features – EMUI sees a jump to 8.0

Android Oreo 8.0.0
EMUI 8.0

It is satisfying to have Android Oreo straight out of the box and Honor has optimized their EMUI to 8.0 to blend with it. It blends best of the Android Oreo features along with some of the nifty EMUI add-ons. The settings menu gets a revamp in the EMUI with Oreo flavour and is just a page and half with nesting of options. The color icon touch on the menu though cuts the bland stock Android look. While the look of settings is same, Honor has included their own layers into the nested options like the Display setting which has more options unlike the stock. While some of the Oreo features like snooze notifications, auto-fill forms with google, dot notifications finds its place few have been left out like picture in picture mode, notification channels. But Honor has their own flavour of customization brought it like the one-key navigation I mentioned earlier, easy one-handed UI, shifting keyboard, motion control options like flip to mute, raise to ear to answer to make calls, answer calls, smart screenshot via knuckle gestures, draw gestures to open apps and split screen gesture. There is also a glove mode. The storage setting has its own storage cleaner so you don’t need a third party cleaner app. EMUI 8.0 also brings in private space feature to the Honor View 10 , allowing user to have a separate private space , kind of partition with its own set of apps separated from main space. There is also the App Twin feature to simultaneously run two instances of apps like WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger. [gallery columns="5" link="file" ids="12850,12851,12852,12853,12854,12855,12856,12857,12858" orderby="rand"]

Fingerprint sensor in Honor View 10

Honor phones have a reputation for a fast and accurate fingerprint sensors with plethora of features. View 10 fingerprint sensor now moved to the front performs to the reputation and is very fast and very accurate. It supports app lock but sheds some of the previous features like touch and hold gestures and touch and slide features. Those features doesn’t make sense now since the fingerprint sensor is moved to the front and those gestures where optimized for rear placement. The app lock with fingerprint is there though.

Face recognition in Honor View 10

Honor View 10 also has face recognition capability but right now it is limited in nature. Its only functionality as of now is to reveal the lock screen notifications when you look at it. Face unlock is not supported as of now but a software update should enable it and I don’t see any reason why Honor won’t do it.

Performance

HiSilicon Kirin 970
Octa-core (4×2.4 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A53)
AI + NPU
Mali-G72 MP12
6GB RAM
10nm processor
128GB,expandable.

The Honor View 10 comes blazing with their in-house latest and greatest HiSilicon Kirin 970 that boasts of Artificial Intelligence capability and complete with Neural Processing Unit, something which you would hear a lot in this year with Samsung also announcing their next-gen Exynos 9810 to have a NPU / AI built-in. AI is going to be the buzz of the year and Kirin 970 is future-proofed for it. Aided with 6GB RAM and Mali-G72 MP12. The Mali G72 MP12 was first introduced in the Huawei Mate 10 and uses 12 clusters and hence the MP12 name. It boasts of better machine learning efficiency and supports all modern graphics APIs like OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.0, OpenCL 2.0, DirectX 12 FL11_1 and Renderscript. Talking about the performance in layman terms, it is butter smooth and handles at ease everything you throw at it. The apps load briskly and there is no lag of any sorts. In every iteration Honor has been making their EMUI more pacier and EMUI 8.0 doesn’t weigh down. he View 10 is both responsive and snappy in performance. Performance is great, heavy games play smooth and the big vibrant display means it makes for a good gaming device. It also has a Games suite app, which is like a DND mode when playing games. Honor calls the View 10 as the “First AI phone” , they have teamed up with Microsoft Translate to live translate languages up to 300% faster than other phones without an NPU. There are also some AI implementation on the camera app, will talk about that when I discuss the camera a little below.

Battery life

One big concern on the flagship phones are their demanding battery needs and hence a toll on the battery life. Honor View 10 has a 3750mAh battery which is a decent power to be packed in. I have been using this phone as my primary driver for more than 10 days now and with two SIM cards, Wifi / data always on and social accounts synced , the View 10 manages to last from morning till way past night on a good use which is a big positive news. It also comes with quick charge support with the included adapter reading 9V/2A , it can charge 30% in 30 minutes and 60% in one hour, it takes a little under 2 hour for full charge.

Camera performance

Dual: 16 MP (f/1.8) + 20 MP (Rear)
13 MP, f/2.0 (Front)

The dual camera setup at the rear comprises of one RGB sensor and another monochrome senor, a combination which it has tried and tested in many of their phones. The 20MP secondary sensor is the monochrome sensor and the monochrome pictures are a treat, the blacks are deep and natural unlike the software induced black and white images produced by other Smartphones. The camera app offers portrait mode and wide aperture mode, both producing some excellent output. The bokeh when produced are well rounded and Honor has done some good software algorithm here. [gallery columns="5" link="file" ids="12820,12825,12814,12811,12818"] The pictures have good detailing and the dynamic range are impressive enough. Honor always packs a good interesting modes in their camera app and they find here too. You get a capable Pro mode for both picture and video. The camera app also include some AI filters for some fun elements. The selfies are pretty good too and the beauty filter by default is applied both on front and rear and you can turn them off in the settings. Now, lets turn to the AI capability in the camera which is an interesting take. Point the camera at something and you see an relevant icon appearing on the camera app. If you aim at a person, it shows portrait icon, if you turn to a plate of food, food mode icon triggers, it can even recognizes text. The AI apparently is good at object recognition and optimizes the camera for the best scenario depending on what it “sees” and it is good at what it does. [gallery columns="5" ids="12825,12824,12823,12820,12818,12811,12812,12814,12815,12821" orderby="rand"]

Verdict – Should you buy Honor View 10 or not?

Honor View 10 is a complete package, it’s a fantastic phone for the price and if you want a flagship phone at a not so flagship cost, look no further. This year would be all about AI on phone and Honor View 10 sets the trend.]]>

Honor 7X FAQ : Answers to the most frequently asked questions

Lakshmi Rajan — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 12:10:52 +0000

Question: What are the different colors Honor 7X is available? Answer: It is available in matte Black, Blue and Gold color options.

Question: What is the display size and resolution?

Answer: Honor 7x has a 5.93-inch LTPS IPS LCD display with a 18:9 aspect ration offering a 2160×1080 FHD+ resolution.

Question : What is the weight and thickness of Honor 7X?

Answer: Honor 7x weighs 165grams and measures 7.6mm in thickness. It has a aluminum uni body design.

Question: What display settings available?

Answer: The display setting has full view display settings which allows to adjust display scaling of each apps. eye comfort (blue filter) settings, text size, view mode etc.

Question: Does Honor 7X has Blue filter ?

Answer: Yes, there is blue filter in the display settings and is called eye comfort mode in Honor. The settings also allows you to schedule a particular start and end time for blue filter.

Question: What is the price of Honor 7X in India? Where can I buy?

Answer:Honor 7X has a starting price of Rs 12,999 for 4GB RAM + 32GB storage variant and Rs 15,999 for 4GB + 64GB variant.

Question: What size SIM cards Honor 7X accepts? Can I add a microSD card?

Answer: Honor 7X has hybrid dual SIM. So you can use two SIM or one SIM and a microSD card up to 256GB.

Question: Does it have Corning Gorilla Glass protection?

Answer: It has an unspecified version of Corning Gorilla Glass protection.

Question: What is the processor used in this smartphone?

Answer: Honor 7X is powered by HiSillicon Kirin 659 chipset , MALI T830 MP2 with 3GB/4GB RAM and 32GB/64GB/128GB storage options.

Question: What is the internal storage of Honor 7X?

Answer: Honor 7X comes with a 32GB and 64GB internal storage variants and there is also a select model with 128GB in limited markets. It also has an option to expand up to 256GB via microSD card.

Question: Does Honor 7X has Gyroscope sensor?

Answer: No, it has no Gyroscope sensor.

Question: Does it support VR?

Answer: No, Honor 7X does not support virtual reality.

Question: Is the buttons back lit?

Answer: Honor 7X has on-screen navigation button and the navigation key settings allows you to change the position of the navigation keys.

Question: What USB type does it use?

Answer: It uses microUSB port

Question: Does it have notification light?

Answer: Yes, it has notification light.

Question: What are the camera specifications of Honor 7X ?

Answer: Honor 7X has dual cameras at the rear. A 16 MP (1/2.9″, 1.25 µm) + 2 MP dual camera setup offering phase detection auto focus and capable of fullHD videos and a 8MP selfie camera at the front.

Question: Does the camera has OIS?

Answer: No.

Question: Can we take 4K videos in Honor 7X?

Answer: No.

Question: What are the connectivity options? Does it support VoLTE?

Answer: Yes, Honor 7X supports VoLTE. Other options include Bluetooth, A-GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/

Question: Does Honor 7X has FM app?

Answer: Yes

Question: How to take screnshots in Honor 7X?

Answer: There is an interesting knuckle gesture action to take screenshot and also screen recording. Additionally you can also press and hold the power and volume button together to take a screenshot.

Question: Can we take long screenshot in Honor 7X?

Answer: Yes, we can take long screenshot.

Question: Does it support USB OTG?

Answer: Yes, it supports OTG and you can connect the USB drive to it.

Question: What is the battery capacity of Honor 7X?

Answer: Honor 7X has a 3340mAh battery

Question: Does it support fast charging?

Answer: No, it has normal fast charging. 5V 2A.

Question: Does it have power saver modes?

Answer: Yes it has a power saving mode and another ultra power saving mode.

Question: Does it have IR blaster?

Answer: N0, there is no IR blaster in Honor 9i

Question: Is Honor 7X Waterproof?

Answer: No, Honor 7X is not waterproof.

Question: How is the call quality?

Answer: Call quality of Honor 7X is good.

Question: Does it support one hand UI?

Answer: Yes it supports.

Question: Does Honor 7X has fingerprint scanner?

Answer: Yes it has fingerprint scanner

Question: Does Honor 7X support App lock?

Answer: Yes, it supports app lock.

Question: What OS does it run?

Answer: Honor 7X runs on stock Android Nougat 7.1. with EMUI 5.1 layered on top.

Question: Does it support two Whatsapp in the same phone?

Answer: Yes it has a App Twin feature that duplicates Whatsapp, Facebook and Messenger app into two instances.

Question: Does Honor 7X support call recording?

Answer: No, it does not support call recording. Question: Does Honor 7X support NFC? Answer: No, NFC is not supported.

Question: Does Honor 7X has split screen feature?

Answer: Yes it supports multi windows.

Question: Does Honor 7X have Dolby Atmos support?

Answer: No, Honor 7X does not have Dolby Atmos but the audio quality is pretty good.

Question: Does Honor 7X have heating issue?

Answer: In our tests, the Honor 7Xshows a 6 degree jump in temperature, which is kind of normal for phones in this segment. I did not notice heating issue in this phone.]]>