Honor 70 review: a good phone that I can’t recommend

The Honor 70 faces a critically troublesome process. It’s a midrange telephone that follows the worldwide launch of the spectacular, high-end Honor Magic4 Pro, and now joins a variety of comparable telephones obtainable right this moment. Honor has a powerful historical past, however it has been away from the limelight over the previous couple of years. It actually wants the Honor 70 to seize our consideration if it’s to compete with its many rivals. Let’s see what it’s got.

#HONOR70 Solo Reduce Mode places the main target the place you need it. #IFA2022 #HONORConnectedFuture pic.twitter.com/se2h6RGx0c

— HONOR (@Honorglobal) August 29, 2022

Honor is selling the characteristic utilizing a marriage the place Solo Reduce highlights somebody apart from the bride and groom dancing. It’s indicative of a characteristic in search of a use — if the opposite particular person was the extra attention-grabbing topic, wouldn’t you simply movie them usually to see their antics full display anyway?

Smartphones with good foremost cameras aren’t uncommon, and since the Honor 70’s further cameras are nothing greater than high-quality and Solo Reduce is one thing you could use a few times, there’s not that a lot right here to make the telephone a must-buy over any of the competitors.

Does anything make the Honor 70 particular?

Often, it’s the design or the digital camera that makes a smartphone stand out. However just lately, the efficiency, battery, and particularly the charging have been used to offer telephones a leg up out there. The Honor 70 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G processor, however as numerous different telephones, together with the previous Honor 50, additionally use this chip, it’s not going to win many individuals over.

A 66W quick charger is included within the field, and Honor says it takes the 4,800mAh cell from zero to 100% in 45 minutes. It does certainly meet this goal, and it’s quick, however not the quickest you may get. You don’t should spend that rather more on a telephone that may totally cost in half-hour. Whereas I don’t assume an additional quarter-hour away from the charger will make that a lot distinction to on a regular basis use, it’s another “common” characteristic on the Honor 70’s spec checklist. The shortage of wi-fi charging hurts it extra, as a number of rivals have this characteristic.

I performed Asphalt 9: Legends and the Snapdragon 778G performs very well, and for informal gaming for brief intervals of time, the Honor 70 is sweet. The light-weight design means it’s not cumbersome, and the display is vivid and colourful. The one speaker is a letdown and stops the telephone from excelling at gaming or video watching. Play for half-hour, and also you’ll solely lose about 7% from the battery, and total it is going to final for 2 days of use earlier than a recharge.

The software program is Android 12 with MagicUI 6.1 put in, and though Honor has mentioned MagicOS 7.0 is coming earlier than the tip of the 12 months, it hasn’t mentioned when (or if) the Honor 70 will obtain the replace. In order that doesn’t make the telephone attention-grabbing both. The software program has been dependable when it comes to notifications and app use, there’s an easy-to-use multitasking mode, the design is uniform, and it appears to be like nice on the 120Hz refresh fee display. I may do with out all of the pre-installed apps, although, however this isn’t new for Honor.

Honor 70: value and availability

You may pre-order the Honor 70 within the U.Okay. and Europe now, and it’s 480 British kilos (about $570) for the 8GB/128GB mannequin or 530 kilos (about $625) for the 8GB/256GB model. Honor doesn’t promote its smartphones within the U.S., however the Honor 70 may very well be imported should you actually needed one.

The Honor 70 is a tough promote

There’s nothing mistaken with the Honor 70 in any respect, however I actually can’t discover a motive to advocate it over another equally priced telephone. It’s even fairly troublesome to advocate it over the at present less expensive Honor 50 should you actually will need to have an Honor telephone. The saturated smartphone market makes it onerous for manufacturers to do one thing completely different, however the Honor 70 is the corporate on autopilot.

It doesn’t do something notably badly, however it doesn’t make a lot of an effort to actually compete both, with lacking wi-fi charging and water resistance being notably unlucky omissions, and due to this fact it turns into unremarkable.

In case you’ve obtained 500 kilos or round $600 to spend on a brand new telephone, the selection is large. We’d advocate the Google Pixel 6, to attend to see the Google Pixel 7, or to spend much less and get the Google Pixel 6a. The Samsung Galaxy A53 5G is a good purchase, I just lately favored the Oppo Reno 8 Pro, the OnePlus Nord 2T and the Realme GT Neo 3T are nicely priced, and the Nothing Cellphone 1 is completely completely different from anything on the market in the intervening time. Store round or commerce in a telephone with Samsung instantly, and the Galaxy S22 even turns into an choice too.

After I swap my SIM card from the Honor 70 into one other telephone, I don’t assume I’ll keep in mind the Honor 70, and that’s in all probability the harshest criticism of any present gadget.

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