Honor 7 – heir apparent to the mid-range Android crown

Huawei's nicely honed handset with nowt left out

So, what's missing?

You’re thinking: there must be a catch or an omission here. Well, I’m struggling to find many. The Honor 7 won't capture slow motion video, or 4K video: you need £600 handsets if you want that.

There's a rarely-perceptible edge to the graphics rendered by flagship phones with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 or 808; but if that doesn’t bother you, you gain on battery, the 3100mAh (non-removable) cell offers plenty of juice, and that’s a tradeoff most will be happy with.

AnTuTu score is impressive at this price

For what it's worth, the Honor 7 scored 36839 on the AnTuTu X benchmark, more than the Galaxy S6 or HTC One M8 from last year.

Support for a new (but evidently deadly serious) operation is unknown, and you won’t find the range of after market cases as splendid as you get for, say, a Galaxy S6. Still, Huawei told me a number of own-brand covers will be available, and the software supports an HTCesque “dot view” cover.

For the software, I’d guess that most people won’t miss the Android drawer at all, even though it plonks new apps on the home screens. You can now selectively hide them. Sophisticated users who don’t like the skin/launcher here, will grab a launcher anyway.

Perhaps not a lot of choice for accessories, but a case does exist

Still, it didn’t bother me, but I found the prophylactic nagging that marred the Huawei P6, had returned with the Honor 7. It warned me that Facebook and Twitter (both pre-installed) were consuming resources – before I’d even started up Facebook or Twitter.

I didn’t really wish to be told that Google Play was consuming background resources, or the browser. I just don’t want to know any of this. These nags are a legacy and should only be seen when there’s a real power hog running, if at all.

The Honor 7 has a decent range of themes, although one #firstworld niggle is that almost all of them, including the default themes, all seem to compress or clip the default app icons in some way – with some pretty ugly results for third party apps.

The Reg Verdict

With a strong battery, solid construction and its clever sensor swipes – giving a big boost to bog-standard Android's usability – the Honor 7 casts a long shadow in this price range. The only comparable phone with top range features in the £200s (SIM free) is the OnePlus Two, although the comparison is more theoretical than practical.

While the Honor 7 will be available in 70 countries at launch, undercapitalised Oppo offshoot OnePlus only manufactures limited quantities and operates a queuing system, because ... its fans seem to like queuing. This means it’ll be very difficult to obtain a OnePlus.

Having used both phones, I actually preferred the practical usability and engineering smarts of the Honor, over the faster processor of the OnePlus Two. The software utilities bundled with the Honor (common in China, but rare here) add privacy and maintenance features, and are actually quite useful.

Last year I’d have plumped for a One, but last year’s One had stand-out software, being based on the CyanogenMod flavour of Android. But after a legal dispute, the Two takes a big step backwards to stock Android. And it's handicapped by featuring a USB Type C port at USB 2.0 speeds, which means you can't use all the chargers lying about, and you don't get USB 3.0 speeds either.

If you're looking for a durable SIM-free Android, the Honor takes the cake. ®