HONOR 70 Review – Beauty in Imaging and Design

If you have not check out our unboxing and first impression, check it out HERE.

OK, Looks like HONOR did not stop at anything when it comes to improving their Smartphone hardware upgrades with every generation, this is no exception as well to the HONOR 70 that we recently unboxed, towards the biggest surprise when it arrived, it’s the camera with some other things that we have in mind while we are reviewing it will be on this page as well.

Since we have recapped this on the unboxing on certain topic, we will jump in to the design.

Design

If its ain’t broken, don’t fix it, just improve it further, which is one of the HONOR 70 design language that is carried over from HONOR 50, which they slim down the dimensions slightly, but bumping up the dual island rear camera slightly higher, which is understandable since they use a newer camera module. Also the color is much shinier when it is under the light and shows more of the sparkles and gloss when holding it in different directions or orientation, giving it a 2 color contrast tone with middle frames that is constructed strong.

The usual of the HONOR 70 when comes to placement of buttons and ports are below you have USB C ports for data and charging, microphone, Dual SIM Tray, down firing speakers. Over the top you a noise cancelling microphone and to further maintain slimness of the sides, there is only a set of power and volume buttons towards the right, which making it easy to press buttons over one handed operation.

The overall weight of the HONOR 70 is around 178 Grams which is close to HONOR 50 with good weight balance when holding the device.

Display & Audio

Display wise, the HONOR 70 came with a 6.67 inch OLED both side curved screen which can display up to 1B colors. This makes it slightly taller but screen to body ratio over usable screen is wider with it’s dynamic refresh rates up to 120Hz with DCI-P3 wide color gamut support for those who game alot, while viewing high resolution pictures. HDR10+ and Widewine L1 certification is present as well for those who loves to streaming through certified FullHD app services such as Netflix and Disney+ for cinematic mobile enjoyment on the go with a 20:9 screen aspect ratio. Even under the sun, if it is not overly bright, you still operate comfortably without glaring back to you.

Over to the audio, you have both front and bottom firing speakers working together whether you are watching videos or just listening to your favorite songs. Optionally if you love listening via your own headphones, HONOR Histen will bring in additional customization such as 3D audio, equalizer with wideness adjustments with type of headset selections under the sound menu options.

Camera

As we have mentioned on our unboxing, HONOR 70 is among the earliest model that fit the rear camera with SONY latest IMX800 54MP sensor which bring in over better low light performance and 4 in 1 pixel binning combining with a 50MP ultrawide sensor and 2MP depth sensor, of course it has a dual LED flash if you needed it. Overall this give a wider angle shot up to 120 degrees in total. Experience wise, in situation such is very bright sunlight, the shots taken could results in a softer tone, but color wise, you still get close to accurate results, during night time the sensor does the job well in low light situation, with the AI software combine determining objects within the frame to produce results that can be edited quickly within the phone or export it out if you wish to your PC or Laptop. On the selfie camera side, it is powered by a 32MP wide angle sensor, but with HDR this time, which includes better group and individual portrait and wide angle shots whether it’s just you alone, or with your friends within the frame.

Lets talk about video, I have included a sample video recording of it, yes, while it lacks OIS in the camera features for your shots, EIS and Gyro sensors should be able to compensate the experience with some stutter and lags during recording as its still packs in quality camera sensors under 4K recording footages. HONOR 70 rear camera is capable to recording up to 4K at 30FPS however if you wanted a more pleasant and better experience, 1080P 60FPS will be just nice.

Performance & Features

This part it is a slight upgrade, the HONOR 70 came with Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ Octa Core processor, which is Qualcomm’s initiative of refreshing the SOC with better efficiency and clockspeed. Accompanied together is 8GB of RAM with 2GB HONOR RAM extension with 256GB of UFS storage which when benchmarking it, it reaches near to 1000MB/sec, which is quite fast in the middle range segment.

MagicUI is one of the HONOR’s mobile Android 12 bringing in the 6th iteration which carries over fixes and enhancements with cleaner UI, faster load times and transition that fits the latest Android updates and implementation. It still have some of the bloatware, but it’s minimal and can be easily uninstalled.

As part of the MagicUI, if you are using a compatible HONOR MagicBook, you can pair it up with your HONOR 50, 70 or the Magic4 Pro series of phones with HONOR PC Manager so you can display your phone screen over, share files, backup and sync up together as a productivity ecosystem. Well, if you happen to have HONOR earbuds and tablet, it became as a 360 all round powerhouse just by using HONOR branded product.

Benchmark Results & Usage

For those that loved results, check above for the synthetic results

Well, based on the results alone, PCMark shines as a great contender, which also translates to a good multitasking phone that you can switch apps and games real quick, part of it with the fast storage and 8GB of RAM is still plenty a lot as long the OS manage it in an optimum manner. If you love to game with it, with careful low to mid graphic settings, you can comfortably game with it, with good frame rates. A mix scenario or gaming, calls, messages, social media, a drama stream and email can get you roughly 8.5hrs to 9hrs easily. If you want to stay on Wi-Fi, no problem, it supports AX Wi-Fi protocol which also does direct Wi-Fi when transferring data via PC Manager. The rest remains standard such as Bluetooth 5.0, a snappy GPS lock on and NFC.

Technical Specifications

Verdict and Conclusion

The HONOR 70 is another phone that actually further show it’s take on the users that love slim Smartphone portfolio that you can show around with a fresh take on a new camera sensor that is latest in the market, maintaining the same form factor without compromises, in fact you get a slightly upgraded hardware in a whole package.

While on the hardware side, especially the processor, it’s not definitely the fastest one, but this was done to keep the price right and still capable of gaming, working, editing comfortably while the star of the phone is always on the overall outlook and the camera.