Huawei Honor Holly: Unassuming fighter

Design and build:

The Holly goes for a safe design that has worked safely for just about everybody. It has a rounded back and edges and a thin profile similar to the Moto G version 2. In fact, swap in a matt black back cover and it'll look just like the Moto G. Which isn't a bad thing because as we know, the Moto G is a stellar phone. And that's where I will draw some similarities.

The Huawei is a little thinner than the Moto unit we have in the office. The back plate is removable to provide access to the twin SIM slots, replaceable battery and an expandable memory. A small gripe is the glossy back cover provided with our unit. It is a little slippery although it has survived quite a bit of abuse. Aside from that the device is solidly put together without any creaks or squeaks escaping. I've had flagships squeak like a mouse so this being soundless is amazing. One minor complaint would be lack of back-lit buttons for the haptic keys. There are three at the bottom edge and initially you do have to look for them.   

Usual fare of device, charger and headphones. Mini Cooper not included. Photo: Ehsanur Raza Ronny

The pocket test

The rounded corners make this 5 inch phone easy to slip in and out of the pocket and the thin profile means it doesn't bulge. It's even thinner than the Moto G we love so much. So far, so good.

But do the specs match up?

The display is a soothing, pleasing 5-inch 720p HD resolution with 294ppi pixel density. This I found to be one of two top selling points of this phone when compared to other devices in this price range. I deal with a lot of reading, writing and proofing often on the phone. Small text is clearly legible and the auto brightness feature works well to prevent eye fatigue in dark conditions. The screen colors are quite natural looking and in comparison are a little warmer than the Moto G unit which incidentally has one of the best screens in this range. Display angles are very good making video sharing a breeze among a few friends.

It comes with Kitkat 4.4.2 and so far no notice of an update. The UI is also the slightly older 2.3 EM UI from Huawei. The rounded icons go with the rounded nature of the phone. Is it too early to make a pun about being 'well rounded'? What I really like is that there is almost no bloatware so the software starts off light and quick.

Colors are rendered well but a little saturation is present. In most cases this makes images look warmer which is often a good thing. Photo: Ehsanur Raza Ronny

Power:

It has a Mediatek quad-core 1.3GHz GHz CPU and 1GB of RAM. The gfx is provided by ARM's Mali-400 GPU. While these are generally good specs to be found in this category, there is the occasional lag when launching apps. I usually do my tests running Real Racing 3 among other games. It's a bit resource hungry so it is quite apt for this. More importantly, I have to stay ahead of my friends on the leader board so it helps to combine work and play. Gameplay was mostly smooth except on a couple of tracks where there were multiple cars going all over the place. Hardware benchmarking tests showed that the scores were just a hair different from the Moto G2 so whatever the cause for the occasional lag is not a hardware issue.

An 8MP shooter has slight lag focusing but produces clear and naturally colored pictures. Photo: Ehsanur Raza Ronny

Does it snap?

Here is the other great selling point. The camera is an 8-megapixel main unit with LED flash and a 2MP front unit. It has a simple layout with features like touch focus and panorama stitching as standard. But if you want more, head to the app store and get a camera app with more controls. Camera operation is very responsive and picture quality is very good in well lit conditions. Colors are mostly accurate so group selfies shouldn't lead to an argument about someone's face looking blue. Images are sharp although a little noise is present. Video quality is up to 1080p Full HD and colors are surprisingly more accurately than I expected. You can get good quality video that you won't find in other inexpensive phones of this range.

Backup:

The juice is provided by a 2000mAh battery. Typical usage with all-time 3G and Wi-Fi lasts about a day. Be a bit more judicious with the Internet usage and you might stretch it to a little over that. That is decent performance considering the size and resolution of the screen. Verdict: It's adequate but more would have been better.

Just under a phablet size means it is an easy to hold and read device. The screen resolution helps. Photo: Ehsanur Raza Ronny

Sound:

Voice calls are sharp with plenty of clarity. The solitary speaker at the back can get muffled when kept flat. It would have been better placed along the bottom or in front. It delivers sharp sound on music and movie playback but there is a little distortion at very high volumes.

Gaming works well even with something as intensive as Real Racing 3 or this scrolling aerial shooter. But the aging Mali 400 means newer, graphics heavy games will stutter a little.

Should you buy one?

The specs are excellent for the price tag. You get a powerful processor, plenty of storage space, a very capable camera and a screen that is far superior to others in this range and a little above. I'm hoping it comes with a 5.0 update soon along with an upgraded UI. It's a proper unassuming fighter. It is a solidly built phone that has all the necessities everyone needs at a price you can't beat. With that, I don't see why this phone shouldn't be a worry to bigger marquees in Bangladesh. So the question is why wouldn't you buy one?

 SPECS

Display: 5.0 inches, IPS LED (1280 X 720) ~294 ppi
Camera: 8-MP with Autofocus, 2-MP secondary
Geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, panorama, HDR, 1080p video
OS: Android 4.4.2
CPU: Quad-core 1.3 GHz A7 Cortex,   GPU:  Mali-400
Sensors: Accelerometer, proximity, compass
ROM: 16GB,    RAM: 1GB, microSD upto 32GB  
Battery: 2000 mAh
WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
Bluetooth: v4.0, A2DP
GPS: Yes, with A-GPS
Radio: FM radio
USB: microUSB v2.0

Price: Tk. 12,750/-