This new product from Honor falls in the mid-range segment. Launched at Rs 10,999, this smartphone will compete with the most crowded budget segment smartphones in India. Honor 5C will compete with great smartphones like Moto G4 Plus, Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and Lenovo Zuk Z1. Today we will review Honor 5C and find out what are the pros and cons of the smartphone.
Look and design
The Honor 5C looks quite similar to the Honor 5X. The rear panels of both phones are quite similar, especially the brushed metal finish. The slight difference is seen on the sides and the bottom where the design and texture is slightly different from the 5X. We think the 5C looks much better than the 5X smartphone. The camera lens and fingerprint sensor are also on the rear like the previous phone.
Apart from this, some other changes have also been made in this phone, the most important of which is the size of the phone. Honor 5C has a small screen of 5.2 inches. Being small, the phone is quite easy to hold. When it comes to weight and thickness, the phone is quite different. Honor 5C looks quite strong.
The edges of the phone follow a standard layout. The power and volume buttons are on the right side while the SIM tray is on the left. The micro-USB port and speaker are on the bottom and the 3.5mm socket is on the top. Although the phone has two grills, only the one on the right is the actual speaker. Apart from this, the edges of the phone are curved, which makes it feel good in the hand but gripping the phone becomes a bit difficult.
The phone has a 5.2-inch full-HD IPS LCD screen that covers 68.7% of the front. The phone has on-screen Android buttons instead of capacitive touch buttons. Talking about the screen, it is quite bright but not too shiny. The colors are also quite dull and in general we found the screen less vibrant and muted. The screen remains sharp most of the time but if you watch videos or spend most of the time in sunlight, then you may find the screen a bit dull.
The Honor 5C has a rear fingerprint sensor that can be used to unlock the phone as well as to unlock apps. The fingerprint sensor is always on standby and works well even when the phone is in sleep mode. The fingerprint sensor is accurate but not as good as some of the devices we have reviewed recently. You have to keep your finger on the sensor for a while to unlock the phone.
Specifications and software
The Honor 5C has most of the mid-range specifications like the 5X but there are some differences. The most important among these is the use of Kirin 650 processor, which is made by Huawei’s subsidiary Hisilicon. This is the company’s new mid-range processor. The 5C is quite different in terms of processor from the 5X, which comes with Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 processor. It is worth noting that 16nm FinFET + has been used to make this processor, which promises better performance. Along with this, this processor also claims to give better battery life than Qualcomm and MediaTek.
The Honor 5C has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage (expandable up to 128GB via microSD card) and a 3000mAh battery. However, at this price, you can find smartphones with 3GB or more RAM. The 2GB RAM on the Honor 5C provides a good memory management system that keeps apps out of RAM, allowing the phone to run smoothly. However, the phone can handle limited graphics-intensive tasks and works well under most normal conditions.
The Honor 5C runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Huawei’s EMUI 4.1 skin on top. The changes between the old and new EMUI versions are not very significant as the familiar look remains intact including the single layer user interface, notification shade and quick settings menu. One of the most notable features of this UI is still the Magazine lock screen which changes the lock screen background with a new picture every time. The Phone Manager app is quite useful and lets you control system optimization functions, data usage, app locking and battery consumption.
Android Marshmallow also brings a lot of new features including better performance, Doze mode for battery optimization, Now on Tap and a new app permission system. The OS on this phone is much better than the OS on previous Honor devices. But we would still prefer devices that come with MIUI and CyanogenOS due to more customization and control.
Camera
Honor 5C has a 13 megapixel rear and 8 megapixel front camera. Both the cameras can record up to 1080 pixels and the rear camera has a single LED flash. Apart from this, there are also HDR, slow-motion video, time lapse video and panorama modes.
The software offers some more fun tricks including Pro Photo and Pro Video modes that let you adjust every setting, light painting, food mode and all-focus. The settings menu includes controls for object tracking, smile capture, self timer and resolution. There’s a quick switcher between photo and video as well as a front and rear camera switcher, flash and filters.
The camera performance of Honor 5C is better than Honor 5X. Photos taken from 5C come with good color and detail. Photos taken in well-lit settings are great and photos taken in low light are also fine. But there is some scattering in the pictures, but the pictures are quite good as per the phone coming in this price.
Focus speed has also improved from the previous phone and now object tracking is better and response is faster than before. The front camera has also improved. Macro shots are good and the camera produces pictures with good color and detail. However, the camera of Honor 5C does not offer anything special like other phones with better cameras available in this price range.
Performance
Huawei did not provide its Hisilicon processor in the Honor 5X. But the 5C has the same Kirin 650 processor as usual. The performance of the phone is excellent and the phone works well in almost all conditions. However, there are many better performing phones available in other phones of this price range. You will not face any special problem in the Honor 5C.
In the benchmarking test, Honor 5C gave good results. The graphics and video performance of the phone is fine but there is some problem while running multiple apps simultaneously and playing heavy games.
There are no issues with call quality, network and data connectivity on the Honor 5C. Battery life is also better than the Honor 5X despite the 3000mAh battery. In our video loop test, we got 11 hours and 11 minutes of battery life from the phone and with normal usage, the battery easily lasted a full day. Android Doze mode helps a lot in reducing battery consumption and we noticed that the phone does not drain battery when idle despite 4G connectivity.
Our verdict
The Honor 5C is a slightly better phone than its predecessor. Its more powerful processor and some minor improvements in the camera make it better than the 5X. The design and look of the phone has also improved. There is not much to complain about in this phone, especially at this price.
However, the 5C cannot be called a great phone. The phone does not have any special attractive features and it is an average device in all respects. The price of the phone would have been better if it was a little less. Customers would prefer to buy some other phones in this price range like Redmi Note 3 and Lenovo Zuk Z1.