Honor 7C: Best phone under Rs. 10000 Segment

Huawei’s sub-brand has now released two budget smartphones in the form of the Honor 7A and Honor 7C. Both models are equipped with features such as face recognition, 18:9 displays, and dual rear cameras.

We have the Honor 7C in for review, which is priced starting at Rs. 9,999 and competes for head-on with the likes of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5, Xiaomi Redmi 5, and the recently launched Oppo Realme 1. Does Honor’s new smartphone have what it takes to stand out in the hyper-competitive budget smartphone market? Let’s find out in our full review.

Honor 7C design

With a flat metal backplate, 2.5D curved glass on the front, and a display that dominates the front fascia, the Honor 7C feels reasonably sleek and premium. The lack of antenna lines, subtle Honor branding, minimal regulatory information lends a very clean and minimal look to the back panel. The horizontal dual camera setup is integrated smartly and barely protrudes at all. While the rear panel is mostly made of metal, there are plastic inserts on the top and bottom.

The Honor 7C is available in Black, Blue, and Gold color options. We reviewed the Blue variant, the shade of which is unique and distinctive. While the phone is not too heavy (164g), it is very wide which hinders one-handed use considerably. Build quality though is top-notch. The phone feels solid in the hand and it survived multiple drops during our review period. The rear-mounted fingerprint sensor is fast and accurate and is ergonomically placed. It can be used for a variety of shortcuts such as taking a picture, answering calls, and sliding down the notification panel.

Honor 7C specifications and display

The Honor 7C is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 SoC, which is also found in the likes of the Xiaomi Redmi 5 and Oppo A71 (2018). This smartphone is available in two variants: one with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage priced at Rs. 9,999, and one with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage priced at Rs. 11,999. You can expand the storage using a microSD card of up to 256GB.

Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, GLONASS, 4G VoLTE, a Micro-USB port (USB 2.0 speed), and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It supports dual SIMs but only one can run at 4G speed at a time, with the other limited to 3G.

Honor 7C performance, software, and battery life

While the Honor 7C tackled basic day-to-day tasks reasonably well, it struggled with intensive workloads. With multiple apps open in the background, we experienced occasional lags. We also dealt with keyboard lags and choppy UI animations on several occasions during our review period.

Honor 7C cameras

The Honor 7C features a dual-camera setup at the back comprised of a 13-megapixel primary sensor, alongside a 2-megapixel secondary sensor for capturing depth data. At the front, the Honor 7C has an 8-megapixel fixed focus snapper. The camera app is fairly easy to use but lacks a fully featured Pro mode.

The cameras on the Honor 7C are average at best. While the cameras on the Redmi Note 5 and Realme 1 are also not particularly impressive, the image quality that they deliver is a step above that of the Honor 7C. Shots were taken during the day look good on the phone’s display, but closer examination reveals a lack of detail.