Chinese smartphone company Huawei’s sub-brand Honor’s latest affordable smartphone is Honor 5C. The device was first released in China in April 2016 at CNY 899 (Rs.9,221) for 3G variant and CNY 999 (Rs.10,248) for the 4G variant. Huawei has launched only the 4G variant in India. It will be available exclusively on Flipkart at Rs.10,999 through registrations. The registration starts on Wednesday (22 June) while the first sale will begin on 30 June.
While the Honor X series includes budget smartphones with big screens, the C series is known for cost-effective smartphones with small screens. The new smartphone will face competition from the likes of Moto G4 Plus (Rs.13,499 onwards) and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Rs.9,999 onwards).
A touch of metal
The Honor 4C, with its all plastic exterior and fabric-like finish on the back panel, is a well-built device, but it doesn’t look classy. Honor 5C is a markedly superior looking phone with a unibody, all-metal finish, like in some premium phones. The new phone is also slightly lighter at 156g and that is notable because the phone has a slightly bigger 5.2-inch display than its predecessor which has a 5-inch screen yet weighs 162g.
Added layer of security
One of the key highlights of the new Honor smartphone is its fingerprint sensor, which is placed at the back right where the index finger rests when one is holding the phone. It allows users to unlock their phone almost instantly saving them the task of typing a password or drawing a pattern to unlock their phone. The Honor 4C belonged to that era of phones when fingerprint sensors were found only in high-end phones.
New Android
One thing that has really been impressive is the way Chinese phone makers seem to be embracing the new Android. Honor 5C runs the latest (Marshmallow) version of Android, while its predecessor ran Android 4.4 (KitKat) which was older even when it was launched in June 2015.
However, like most Chinese phone makers, Honor overlays a custom UI over the original Android, which means the user won’t be able to tell the difference right away. But features like better battery management, app permissions, Now On Tap should be available.
High resolution display
As the display gets bigger so does the screen resolution in the Honor 5C. The 5.2-inch screen packs in a resolution of 1920x1080p which is a significant improvement over Honor 4C’s 1280x720p resolution on a 5-inch screen. Higher resolution means the picture quality should be significantly better, text and icons will look a lot more crisp.
Matter of storage
Phone makers have really upped the ante when it cones to phone storage. Take the Honor 4C, which offers just 8GB of storage; with a micro SD card a user can add another 32GB to it. The Honor 5C offers twice its storage and supports micro SD cards up to 128GB. The only limitation is that the card slot is built-in on the SIM card slot. So you can either use both SIM cards or one SIM card and a micro SD card.
Bigger can be better
The new smartphone is also going to have a bigger battery than its predecessor. While the Honor 4C has a 2,550mAh battery, the Honor 5C is going to have a 3,000mAh battery. This may not translate into better battery life all the time, but with a bigger battery the chances of longer battery life is higher.
