Presented on the occasion of IFA 2022 and available in Italy from September, Honor 70 is a new mid-range smartphone that starts at 549 euros and which, barring some compromises appropriate to the range of belonging, has nothing to envy to Android competitors that cost hundreds euros more. We tried it for everyday use and especially for taking pictures: it surprised us positively for the completeness of the equipment, the elegance of the design and the general quality of the user experience.
Rogue nostalgia
Honor today is no longer part of Huawei, it was spun off and sold following the ban imposed by the US administration. However, the DNA of the former property is not completely lost. The company indirectly confirms this, explaining that Honor, in the transition to an external property, still brought with it engineers and designers who worked for Huawei.
If the Honor Magic already recalled the Huawei Mate series in the design, this Honor 70 is clearly inspired by the P50 Pro. The rounded edges of the screen, the position of the cameras with the two protruding discs on the back, but also the Magic UI interface reminiscent of Huawei’s EMUI: nostalgics of the red lily house find in this device a valid alternative. And it’s good: net of geopolitical considerations, Huawei’s disappearance from the smartphone market in Europe was a loss first of all for consumers.
The most important difference between the devices of the new Honor and those of Huawei (which in the meantime smartphones in China continues to sell them) is, however, the presence, on the former, of all Google services. In Europe it is a fundamental discriminant, which allows this as well as other Honor devices to compete properly with Android competitors.
Different twins: Honor 70 (left) and Huawei P50 Pro
We even managed to pair this Honor 70 with a Huawei MateBook 16s PC. To our surprise, we found that some of the laptop’s ecosystem functions are fully compatible, although formally they should only be enabled for Huawei’s smartphones.
Not just proof that a strong link between the two companies continues to exist despite the corporate spin-off.
Design, display, performance
The smartphone is well balanced and despite its substantial size it is manageable. This is mainly due to the weight of only 178g. The choice of materials is very good: the rear body hardly retains fingerprints at all and above all it is not slippery as is the case with some recent proposals from the Android competition. Overall the design is elegant and quite stands out from the competition.
We also loved the display. Here we are not big supporters of screens with rounded edges, but in the case of this Honor 70 we admit that overall they contribute positively to the aesthetics of the device and its ergonomics. The screen is also one of the strengths of the smartphone: it is a 6.67 ”AMOLED compatible with HDR10 and refresh rate up to 120Hz. The operating system allows the user to lock the refresh rate to 120 or limit it to 60Hz. There is also a dynamic mode that lets the software choose the frequency that best suits the use you are making of the phone.
The quality of the display and the good management of the refresh contribute to a general feeling of fluidity of the device, which during our tests never showed signs of fatigue or slowdowns. Performance guaranteed by a good Snapdragon 778G + processor, which is not a top of the range of the Qualcomm offer but is still more than suitable for most use cases of a smartphone. It didn’t do badly even when we tried to play games with particularly demanding graphics for a while. Also noteworthy is an excellent management of dissipation: we never happened to notice particular overheating, even during fast charging at 66W.
The 8GB RAM completes the technical picture along with two storage options, 128GB and 256GB (the price in this case rises to € 599) and all the connectivity options you may need: 5G, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS and NFC chip for contactless payments.
Excellent battery life, which arrives without problems in the evening and with a contained use of the device (and the refresh at 60Hz) goes up to a day and a half of effective duration. However, it is difficult to find the battery really on the ground thanks to the 66W fast charge that brings the charge level from zero to 60% in about twenty minutes.
Honor 70: no to useless cameras
The strength of this Honor 70 is the photographic equipment, as one might expect from a device that takes charge of the Huawei experience in the mid-range. A commendable choice is that of having limited the optics to only two, without necessarily wanting to insert a third sensor, useless and with too low resolution (a common habit among most Chinese competitors) on the device. Let’s clarify: there is a third sensor in fact, but it is a 2MP ToF that helps the two main optics with the detection of the depth of field.
The main lens is built on top of a very good 54MP SONY IMX800 sensor and has an aperture of f / 1.9. The secondary camera is an ultra-wide angle camera with a 50MP sensor and f / 2.2 aperture. We have tested the photographic system in various lighting conditions and the judgment is clearly positive. Particularly good performance in low light conditions and at night. Night mode isn’t too intrusive and thanks to computational photography, sensor size and pixel binning, it’s often not even necessary.
The wide-angle camera struggles a bit more and produces more noise than the main sensor, but the quality of the shots remains very high. In particular, the automatic white balance and especially the autofocus are good. Overall, this Honor 70 is a photographic smartphone that has little to envy to Android devices that can cost even 300 or 400 Euros more.
The software interface has also been promoted which (we say this at the risk of repeating ourselves) is very reminiscent of the high-level photographic experience typical of Huawei devices.
Among the peculiar functions of the device we point out a couple of video modes. Only Cut allows you to isolate a subject and “isolate it” while recording a movie. The smartphone thus saves two videos with a total and a close-up of the subject. A fun and creative gimmick, but the output quality of the automatically “cropped” video sometimes leaves something to be desired if not shot in bright light.
The Dual Video Streaming mode, on the other hand, is designed specifically for live on social media: it allows you to record two streams with two cameras at a time. You can thus have a different focal length of the same shot using the rear cameras, or you can join one of the two to the front camera, in order to comment live on what you are shooting. The maximum resolution at which a video can be shot is 4K at 30fps.
Honor 70: what we liked
- Large and bright display with refresh up to 120Hz
- Battery life
- Build quality and materials
- Very good photographic system
- Fast charging 66W
Honor 70: what could be done better
- The IP certifications for resistance to water and dust are missing entirely
- The USB C port is a 2.0, a bit slow
Conclusions
The new Honor 70 is a smartphone that is positioned in the mid-range, but which in some ways (in particular the photographic capabilities) exceeds the expectations and the quality typical of the segment. It’s a good choice for those who want a compact, lightweight, elegantly designed device capable of taking great images, but don’t want to shell out the premium prices now associated with high-end smartphones. There are some compromises to accept, such as the absence of IP certification for dust and water protection, but overall the Honor 70 is a well-balanced device with one of the best value for money on the market right now.