Honor 70 review: beauty and honor

Content

  1. Video review
  2. Equipment and design
  3. Software
  4. Camera
  5. Performance and Benchmarks
  6. findings

After so many years, Honor has finally releasedsmartphone for our native Tomsk region! Well, just kidding - but in retail you can really buy Honor 70. For a rather modest price (35,990 rubles), a confident middle peasant with a stylish design, an unusual camera and good stuffing is offered. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this device, let's figure it out in the review.

Specifications
Honor 70
Network 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G
Firmware Magic UI 6.1 on Android 12
Screen 6.67", 20:9 2400 x 1080 dots, 395 ppi, 10-bit, 60-120 Hz, touch 300 Hz, PWM 1920 Hz, DCI-P3, HDR10 , OLED
Chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+, 6 nm
GPU: Adreno 642L
Ram 8 GB
12 GB
ROM 256 GB
512 GB
SIM and memory card Two nano SIM cards
Camera Triple, AI, HDR, EIS, 4K video recording
Main: 54 MP, Sony IMX800, 1/1.49", f/1.9, 2.0μm in 4-in-1 binning
wide angle: 50 MP, f/2.2, 0.7 µm, 122 degree field of view, 2.5 cm focus distance, autofocus
Depth sensor: 2 MP, f/2.4
Selfie Hole in the center, 32 MP, f/2.4, 100 degree angle, 1080p video recording, EIS
Battery 4800 mAh
Charging USB-C 66W
Wireless interfaces Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax, 2.4/5 GHz
Bluetooth 5.2
GPS, AGPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou
NFC there is
Biometrics In-screen fingerprint scanner
Face recognition
Sound Mono, aptX, aptX HD, AAC, LDAC
Water protection Not declared
Dimensions and weight 161.4 x 73.3 x 7.91mm
178 g

    Video review 

    Equipment and design 

    There seems to be a shortage of paints for cardboard boxesobserved only in Russia, but the Chinese Honor 70 also comes in a package without a single drop of ink, completely white. Inside: SIM pin, documentation, 66W charging and USB cable. Everything is not bad, but… where is the cover? Thank you for at least pasting the film. But a smartphone with a glass back and a plastic frame could use more serious protection. Although in these times we shouldn’t find fault, but be glad that the charger wasn’t taken away.

    In Russia, Honor 70 can be found in three colors:glossy black, matte green and just like ours. It is quite difficult to describe it - some rhombuses, dots at the bottom, everything glitters and shimmers. Separately, I note that the transition from a yellowish tint at the bottom to a bluish one at the top, which is clearly visible in the renders, was invented by the authors of these renders. In reality, the case, although it shimmers beautifully in the light, is entirely silver.

    As for the ergonomics of the phone, my impressions aremixed. On the one hand, it is thin and fairly light, the buttons are conveniently located, the cameras do not interfere with your fingers, and the fingerprint scanner, although pressed to the bottom of the screen, which not everyone likes, but still does not force you to reach for yourself. And on the other hand, because of the curved screen, the ends are very thin and cut into the hand a little. Because of this, I can’t call the grip comfortable. However, this is a subjective assessment, of course.



    Together with Honor 50

    The location of the elements on the body is maximumstandard, but still list. On the right is the lock button and the volume rocker. Above is a microphone. Left is empty. Bottom - USB Type-C, speaker, microphone and tray for two nano-SIMs. Unfortunately no memory card. There is no audio jack, and there is no stereo either. But the only available speaker plays decently. Vibro is the most common, buzzing (not "taptik"). As you can see, Honor still saves on such trifles.

    But they didn’t save on the screen – 6.67″The OLED matrix offers a resolution of 2400x1080 pixels, a billion colors, a refresh rate of 120 Hz and a touch frequency of 120 Hz. Well, sometimes 300 Hz, but more on that later. In the meantime, I’ll note that the screen can operate at 120 Hz everywhere if you enable forced hertz). There are no complaints about the panel in terms of color rendering; there is a brightness reserve. But curved edges are not an acquired taste. I don't like the dark stripes on the sides of the display.

    Software 

    Honor 70 comes with Android 12 and Magic UI 6.1.The firmware has a lot of cool features, most of which are familiar from previous Honor smartphones - for example, screenshots with knuckles. By the way, they even work here (otherwise I usually couldn’t do them). But there are also new ones - for example, “large folders”, which take up the space of 4 icons and give access to 9 applications in one click.

    Well, if anyone doubts - in those Honor 70 thatstand on the shelves of Russian stores, there is a Russian language and Google services out of the box. But there is no garbage required by Russian law, and this is a definite plus. But there are clients of three social networks at once (one is banned in Russia, the other is tiktok and the third is similar to tiktok) and two services that do not work in Russia (Booking and Netflix).

      Cameras 

      Honor 70 received a triple rear camera:54-megapixel base with 1 micron pixels (1/1.49″ Sony IMX800), some tiny 50-megapixel sensor with autofocus as a width and a 2-megapixel plug for bokeh. Unfortunately, none of the cameras have an optostab. But EIS comes to the aid of the unusual geometry of the IMX800 sensor - 12.8:9 instead of the usual 12:9. “Extra” 0.4:9 on the sides are cropped in auto mode (the smartphone shoots in 12.5 megapixels, not 13.5 megapixels), turning into a “bumper” for stabilization.

      Honor 70 really has two useful camerascool. The basis gives good shots not only in daytime, but also at night - and this despite the lack of optical stabilization! The wide-angle camera is noticeably weaker and suffers from chromatic aberrations at the edges of the frame, but these are minor things that are only noticeable when viewed on a computer. Its strong point is the perfect color synchronization with the main camera. Usually Android vendors don't bother with this, but Honor got confused. Honor well done.

      The front camera of the Honor 70 is single, fortunately, the resolution is 32 megapixels. And this is the case when quantity turns into quality - selfies really turn out to be excellent.

      Video on the main camera can be written in2160p@30fps or 1080p@60fps, wide only 2160p@30fps, and front camera only 1080p@60fps. Well, all three cameras, of course, can write 1080p@30fps video, but why. The main problem when shooting handheld is the lack of OIS. EIS algorithms try to avoid ghosting (very successfully, by the way), but do so at the cost of noticeable jitter. It looks good on the phone, but not so much on the computer.

      Performance and tests 

      The hardware basis of Honor 70 is the chipsetSnapdragon 778G+ is the familiar 778G, only a little overclocked. In Russian retail it is accompanied by 8 GB of RAM; The permanent volume can be 128 GB or 256 GB at your choice. Just keep in mind that this choice must be made before purchasing, because the Honor 70 does not have a slot for a memory card. In standard mode, phones throttle the CPU heavily even without much heating; in productive mode, they maintain a high frequency with short-term “breathes.” But changing modes does not have any effect on gaming performance; in any case, there is no throttling.


      auto - productive - productive

      What about in games?It is clear that 778G + is not 8 Gen 1, but it takes stability. Yes, it will be - on the example of Genshin Impact - stable not sixty, but somewhere around forty frames per second (by eye, the counter could not be started), but stable. No major drawdowns, and no performance degradation in long gaming sessions. In addition to the "genes", we checked Asphalt 9, SuperTuxKart - the conclusions are generally the same. But for PUBG Mobile there is a special proprietary optimization, so it has a touch at 300 Hz (in other games only 120 Hz), and the frame rate is ideal with good graphics. We tried, well done.

      The battery capacity is 4800 mAh.Having charged the smartphone to “hundreds”, I sequentially conducted three tests: an hour on YouTube, an hour of browsing with an autoclicker, and an hour in the game. After these tests, the charge level was respectively 97%, 82% and 65%. Well, that is, you can count on 6-7 hours of the screen with active use (browsing and games took 15% and 17% per hour, respectively), but there are questions about battery calibration. For the first half hour of the video, the charge level allegedly did not change! So in practice, the discharge in the video is 6-7% per hour, and not 3%, of course.

      66W fast charging is slightly slower than inperformed by BBK, but this is understandable: there is one cell inside, not two, which can be charged in parallel. Still, the double batteries are larger than usual, and Honor thought about the thickness and weight. And not to say that it turned out slowly: half in 17 minutes, up to 90% in 38 minutes and up to 100% in 48 minutes. Only now I doubt whether these 100% mean that the phone is fully charged. Or can you wait a little longer, and there will be more charge? ..

        Conclusions 

        Honor 70 is one of the most interesting midrangers inRussian retail, and, in principle, a rather interesting product. His idea is not in maximum stuffing (for this, Honor has a Magic series), but in ease of use and elegance. It is fair, of course, to scold Honor for the lack of a stereo, microSD and a cheap vibration motor, as well as not the most successful ergonomics, but otherwise the company managed to realize this idea. A good screen, a thin and light body with an interesting design, nice cameras, decent hardware. Now you can take it for 35,990 rubles (or even cheaper if the price has changed since the review was written). It's a really nice phone, albeit with some compromises.

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        © Oleg Lazarev.