Huawei Honor 3C
At first glance, the Huawei Honor 3C is a simple but stylish device, with satisfyingly thin bezels and an overall thin and light feel. However, upon closer inspection you’ll notice a couple of tell-tale signs that give away its low price tag.
First, the removable plastic back has a tacky shine to it, and it doesn’t perfectly align with the camera (at least not on our review unit). Plus, where the glass display meets the plastic rim around the front portion of the smartphone, there’s a tiny gap that captures dirt and clings to it for dear life, so keeping it clean is a challenge.
That said, the buttons are neat, the front looks sleek, though, we wish that the touch-sensitive navigation buttons along the bottom were backlit. Huawei’s handset is available in black or white.
The Honor 3C’s display is one of this phone’s biggest selling points. It’s a 5in screen with a resolution of 1280x720, giving it a pixel density of 294ppi. That’s not the best around – far from it, in fact – but at just £109, it’s an impressive addition to this budget handset.
The Honor 3C’s processor is an ARM 1.3GHz quad-core chip paired with 2GB of RAM. The table below gives you an idea of how it compares with similarly priced rivals.
It scored well in the Geekbench 3 test, so is among the more powerful of the budget smartphones, but scores very poorly in our graphics test. In the SunSpider JavaScript test (where lower is better), the Honor 3C scored extremely poorly compared with rivals. Huawei’s handset recorded a disappointing 2269ms, whereas the Lumia 630 scored 1486ms, while the ZTE Blade L2 recorded 1316ms.
There’s just 8GB of internal storage, and the microSD card slot allows you to add only an extra 32GB, though that should be enough for most.
As mentioned at the start of this review, the Honor 3C has a removable back cover, so you can install a new battery should the supplied offering develop a fault. It also allows access to the dual SIMcard slots and the microSD slot.
We found that the battery could last for two or three days depending on how heavily you use it – we were suitably impressed.
As for connectivity, the Honor 3C offers Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and Wi-Fi, though, there’s no 4G or NFC capabilities.
It’s worth noting that during our tests we noticed a distinct lack in voice quality while making phone calls, which is a big downfall if you intend to make lots of calls, particularly if they’re for business or other important purposes.
On paper, the Honor 3C’s cameras look good, but in practice we were distinctly unimpressed. The rear-facing camera is 8Mp but lacks focus and speed, so is not ideal for moving objects or for those who struggle to keep a steady hand. It also has problems in low light. There is an LED flash, plus it’s capable of 1080p video.
The front-facing camera is 5Mp, so is better than many rivals. There’s even a beauty mode that hints that the Honor 3C is the latest smartphone to implement features that help improve selfies.
Another of the Honor 3C’s downfalls is its operating system – it’s stuck on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Alternative budget devices such as the Motorola Moto E (tinyurl. com/moj7L7e) offer Android 4.4 KitKat. Google’s mobile OS has been overlaid with Huawei’s Emotion UI 2.0 interface, which includes various fun themes to choose from and apps including the Phone Management app that aims to help you maximise power, memory and battery life.
Verdict
The Huawei Honor 3C boasts a sleek design and good screen for the price tag. However, its camera and call quality are disappointing. It’s worth considering if you are on a budget, but it’s worth looking at similarly-priced alternatives.