Honor 7 review: Big specs, small price

Brands have traditionally had as much influence over our technology choices as our fashion choices. We buy an iPhone or a Samung phone for the same reasons we buy an Armani suit or a pair of Louboutin shoes – because they look good and they are associated with quality.

But as smartphones have become more and more commoditised, the reasons to fork out hundreds of pounds for a designer handset have become fewer. These days you can get your hands on a device that looks just as good and has most of the same features as the high-end handsets, for a third of the price.

While it's tempting to view these as "cheap knock-offs", many are growing into respected brands in their own right. Honor, for example, the smartphone brand launched by Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, is making a name for itself selling affordable but feature-packed products to younger consumers, mainly through e-commerce channels.

The company's latest smartphone, the Honor 7, is a prime example. With a subtly elegant design, a spec list to rival those of its "Tier 1" competitors, and a price tag of £250, it's becoming hard to think of reasons to keep paying exorbitant prices for premium brands.

Design

The Honor 7 has a metal frame and an aluminium back cover that has been blasted with ceramic particles to give it a smooth matt finish. As well as power and volume buttons, it has a "Smart Key" that gives users access to the Honor 7's voice commands.

The camera module, which protrudes slightly from the rear of the device, is covered with Sapphire glass, which is second only to diamond in its hardness and extremely durable. Immediately below it is the fingerprint reader, which appears as a square indentation and blends with the back cover.

Honor has made efforts to ensure the device has a premium feel, with all the ports and buttons nicely rounded off. At 157g, it also has a satisfyingly weighty feel.

My only criticism would be the narrow plastic strips along the top and bottom edges, which break up the otherwise sleek design, but the colour and texture of the plastic is well matched to the aluminium, so the impact on the overall appearance is minimal.

Display and user interface

The Honor 7 has a 5.2-inch Full HD 1920x1080 display, which is clear and crisp with bright vibrant colours. The bezel is about a millimeter all the way around, and Honor claims the device has a 72.4 per cent screen-to-body-ratio, which seems to make good use of the availale space.

The phone runs Android 5.0 (Lollipop), but without Google's material design, so the user interface is flat with almost no traces of Google's latest aesthetics. The operating system is overlaid with Huawei's EMUI 3.1 skin. This takes a bit of getting used to – for example, there is no app drawer, so all the apps appear on your homescreen by default.

It is possible to hide them away in a "hidden apps" folder, which you can bring up by pinching the screen, but it's not the most intuitive, and seems like an unnecessary complication.

Huawei's default keyboard is also a bit awkward to use, due to the spacing of letters. However, you can get around this by downloading the excellent Swiftkey app, which makes typing, predictive text and autocorrect much more intuitive.

Overall, the Honor 7 offers a fairly clean Android user experience, albeit with a bit of unusual styling. EMUI 3.1 is a little more restrictive than vanilla Android when it comes to peronalisation, but most of these have a work around.

Cameras

The Honor 7 has an excellent pair of cameras – 20MP on the back with a dual-LED flash and 8MP on the front for taking selfies.

Huawei's autofocus technology means that the Honor 7's rear camera can focus in just 0.1 seconds, and EMUI 3.1 comes with a wide variety of filter effects, including de-mist, soft light, and "good food" mode for creating "food porn" pictures.

The selfie camera also comes with a beauty setting, allowing you to adjust the level of enhancement and airbrushing on your selfies. Once you've chosen your settings, the phone will remember your preferences and even create custom filters.

I was really impressed with the quality of pictures I was able to take – particularly given that camera quality is often one of the things that is sacrificed to keep the cost of handsets down. Both the photos themselves and the editing tools are on a par with those offered on most top-end devices.

Processor, storage and battery

The Honor 7 features a HiSilicon Kirin 935 chipset with a 64-bit Octa-core processor clocked at 2.2 GHz. Some testers claims this is faster than Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805 series, and during my test the phone was very quick and responsive.

The phone comes with 3GB RAM, which is more than adequate for multi-tasking, surfing the web and even some intensive gaming. It also has 16GB internal storage, expandable up to 128GB with a micro-SD card.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 review: Cool new features make it an Android sensation

It's no secret that Samsung has launched the Galaxy Note 7, a new smartphone for 2016 aiming to be one of the best Android phones you can buy. Instead of waiting until IFA in Berlin, Samsung has announced the Note 7 at various locations around the globe today. Here's our Samsung Galaxy Note 7 hands-on review. See also: Best phones 2016.

Before we dive into the review, you might be wondering what happened to the Galaxy Note 6 – considering the Note5 didn't even get a proper UK launch. Well Samsung wants to keep the Note range in-line with the Galaxy S range. Afterall, it does make sense if all the phones launched in the same year have the same model number.

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7 REVIEW: PRICE UK

The Galaxy Note7 release date in the UK is 2 Septmber with the option to pre-order from 16 August. The Note7 price, via MobileFun, is £749 SIM-free which is rather expensive.

If you pre-order then you'll get the phone three days early and Samsung will also throw in a free GearVR when you buy from selected retailers so look out for the deal.

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7 REVIEW: DESIGN AND BUILD

When it comes to design, Samsung has struck a nice balance of retaining the look of the Note series while bring the style of the Galaxy S7. In this case, particularly the Galaxy S7 edge as the new Note7 has the dual edge curved screen as standard.

What's quite amazing here is that the Note7 doesn't feel like a phablet despite the screen size remaining at 5.7in. It's not much bigger than the S7 edge and the device feels more manageable than ever.

This slab of metal and glass looks and feels great, although be wary of the rear cover as the slippery glass means the device is likely to slide out of your pocket when sitting down or make its way slowly off the edge of a sofa arm.

Build quality is up to the usual high standards which we've come to expect from Samsung with smooth flushness where materials meet, precision drilled holes and the like. The Note7 is available in a range of colours including Gold Platinum, Silver Titanium, Black Onyx and Blue Coral. The latter is an eye-catching combination of blue and gold as you can see in our pictures.

We're pleased to report that the Note7 is the first in the range to be waterproof, matching up to the S7 in more than just looks. You can now dunk your Note7 thanks to its IP68 rating (1.5m of water for up to 30 minutes and dustproof) and as we've become accustomed to, there's no need to fiddle with port covers. This is even more impressive considering the S Pen is stored inside the phone. Even the S Pen is water resistant so you can carry on using it in the rain or dunk it, too.

Optional accessories include a Lens Cover, waterproof battery cover and a new GearVR headset which is compatible wth the Note7 thanks to USB-C. See also: Samsung Galaxy Note 7 vs iPhone 6s Plus

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7 REVIEW: HARDWARE AND SPECS

Sticking to tradition, the Galaxy Note7 has a 5.7in display so users of previous Note phones will feel right at home. Despite rumours of a 4- or even 6K resolution, Samsung has sensible stuck to QuadHD (1440x2560) which it uses on the S7 handsets.

It's still a gorgeous display using the firm's favoured SuperAMOLED technology with the added bonus of the dual edge. It works in the same way as the S7 edge so you have a subtle curve on either side unlike the 2014 Galaxy Note Edge which had a large curved section on one side. As you can see below, the screen looks like a glossy magazine. Also see: Best Samsung phones 2016: What is the difference between Galaxy Note, Galaxy S, Galaxy A and Galaxy J?

It can be used for various things such as quickly accessing your favourite contacts or apps – we'll talk more about it in the software section. Samsung has also brought over its 'always on' screen feature (which is optional). This means even when you turn the display off, it will show you some information like the time and some notifications.  

Bringing the Note range up to speed, quite literally, the Note7 is powered by the same processor found in the Galaxy S7 – that's Samsung's own Exynos 8890 which, in the S7, we found more than capable. The Note7 has 4GB of RAM despite rumours of 6GB which means the OnePlus 3 remains in its exclusive club.

When it comes to storage, the Galaxy Note7 comes with 64GB as standard and retains the Micro-SD card slot for adding more. A good move since the Note5 didn't have one and nor did the Galaxy S6 which wasn't met with gratitude from users.

Beyond the core specs, the Note7 is packed with tech – almost to the point where we're struggling to find something which it hasn't got.

Samsung has decided to finally employ USB-C which is reversible and provides faster charging - Samsung also includes an adpater for the older Micro-USB which is handy. The phone also has fast wireless charging (WMA and PMC), 11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, NFC, heart rate sensor, a fingerprint scanner and the rumoured iris scanner. The only thing missing, which has been dropped on other phones too is the infrared port which would be for using the phone as a remote control.

We haven't had time to test battery life, of course, but the Note7 comes with an even larger battery than before which will please many users. It's 3500mAh which is up from an already decent 3000mAh. The only downside for some is the fact that it's non-removable so don't throw away that power bank if you have one.

Coming back to the iris scanner since it's an important new feature, it uses the front facing camera as you'd expect and works in a similar way to Windows Hello which we enjoyed on the Lumia 950 phones. You unlock the phone by looking into the camera which scans your peepers to check it's you. With this kind of tech, to work well you really need to be in good lighting and even things like contact lenses may cause problems.

We think most users will end up using the fingerprint scanner but it did work well for us with glasses on. Part of our thinking here is that you still have to wake up the screen and swipe on the lockscreen to activate the iris scanner which, for most, will simply be too much time spent unlocking.

The Note7 wouldn't be a Galaxy Note phone without the S Pen stylus which, as usual, slots into the phone on the bottom. The stylus works in the same way as previously and can be used to both replace your finger as an input device for navigation but also note taking etc. It has a new 0.7mm tiip, the previously mentioned water resistance and the Air Command menu now has a new additions which we'll talk about in the software section below.

Moving onto cameras and the Note7 follows in the footsteps of the Galaxy S7 phones with a 12Mp camera (down from 16Mp but that doesn't mean it's worse). It's a Dual Pixel camera with optical image stabilisation (OIS) and a very impressive f/1.7 aperture. A quick play at the launch shows great potential.

The front camera remains the same at 5Mp with features such as an f/1.7 aperture, wide-angle 22mm lens and the ability to record 1440p video.

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7 REVIEW: SOFTWARE AND APPS

It comes as no surprise that the Galaxy Note7 comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow pre-installed and Samsung's own TouchWiz user interface. We assume that it will get an upgrade to the upcoming Android 7.0 Nougat but official confirmation is yet to come.

Long gone are the days when TouchWiz was a bit too crude, complicated and generally a bit over-the-top. Nowadays, the user interface is much cleaner and closer to stock Android but with useful additions presented in an easier way to handle. Subtle differences like softer colours in the icons all add up.

As you would expect, you get all the features found on the Galaxy S7 including Multi-Window, the ability to run two apps side-by-side, Pop-up view which lets you run some apps in a smaller window and smaller ones like smart capture, direct call and smart stay.

The larger screen works particularly well for things like Multi-Window and some users may find themselves reaching for a tablet a lot less because of the Note7. We're also pleased about the dual edge display which can be used for a range of things, even if we didn't find ourselves using it loads on the S7 edge.

One of the main reasons to buy the Note7, particularly in comparison to the S7 phones, is the S Pen stylus. Not a massive amount has changed here so you still pop it out of the bottom whenever you want to use it.

The Air Command menu gives you plenty of options but bear in mind that you can simply use the S Pen to navigate if you like which is great when you need to be precise (spreadsheets and the like) or you don't want to get the screen grubby when eating or similar situations.

New features of the S Pen include the ability to create gifs and translate language with it on the fly which is pretty cool. We'll explore more of the features and our experience of the S Pen when we update this to a full review. The phone also comes with a library of 14 games.

Motorola Moto G Plus Mobile review: a very capable camera

Overview

With encouraging photography results for a mid-range smartphone, the Motorola Moto G Plus boasts a very respectable DxOMark Mobile overall score of 84 points. Offering a 16Mp 1/2.4”-type sensor for high-quality images, together with a 

good array of additional photo features, Motorola is positioning its latest device for mass market appeal.

Our industry standard mobile tests analyze image quality of both still photos and video footage to determine individual photo and video sub-scores for each device, with the still photo scores weighted a bit higher than the video. Both sub-scores evaluate image quality across a range of categories, such as exposure and color; the Moto G Plus fares slightly better for still photos with a photo sub-score of 85 points compared to 81 for video.

Boasting consistently high photo scores in the mids 80’s for most categories, the Moto G Plus achieves a very good score for autofocus, which is fast and accurate in all conditions. Minor drawbacks, such as some loss of shadow detail, a slight blue colorcast, and HDR mode irregularities were observed, but overall, Motorola’s latest device impressed.

Video scores hover around the low to mid 80’s, with the best results for noise and exposure. The video module demonstrates good stabilization and autofocus in all lighting conditions, making successful indoor and outdoor movies possible. Video color and white balance are pleasant in all conditions, too, with noise reduction particularly successful outdoors. In low light, some video detail is lost due to visible luminance noise, with occasional autofocus inaccuracies recorded, too, but these are minor blips in an otherwise successful video performance.

Great HDR outdoor shots (when activated…)

Outdoors, the Moto G Plus generally delivers good target exposures, as well as vivid and pleasant color, with very little color shading visible in shadow regions. Slight white balance inaccuracies do occasionally occur, with a slight blue cast visible, but it’s not very offensive and color remains strong. Where the Moto G Plus excels in bright light is detail preservation, with well-controlled noise reduction resulting in smooth but nicely detailed files.

The Moto G Plus also offers a HDR shooting mode, which is triggered automatically when shooting high-contrast scenes. It’s a great feature for general outdoor shots, particularly shooting landscapes on bright days, and works well with many exposures, recording more detail than with standard exposures. HDR mode doesn’t always kick in when required, however, resulting in some inconsistent exposures with either large areas of overexposure, or a loss of detail in the shadow regions. A bit of post-production correction to lift dark shadows will help, and that, together with the dramatic skies captured in HDR mode, make some impressive landscape shots possible.

Successful HDR exposures deliver impressive skies with detail in the shadow regions, too.

TIP: Shoot several exposures of high-contrast scenes and tweak the composition slightly to ensure that HDR mode kicks in. On HDR exposures with impressive sky details, use the picture editor app to lift dark shadows when needed and to apply a weak orange filter to correct the blue colorcast.

Bright exposures in extreme low light

Images captured under low-light conditions offer nice bold color rendition and accurate white balance when shooting under both tungsten and fluorescent light sources. Exposures are generally good, too, and even in extreme low-light conditions, images are bright and very usable. Some luminance noise is visible, particularly in blocks of uniform color, and very fine details start to disappear, but overall, the Moto G Plus is a capable device in low light.

Images shot under extreme low-light conditions (5 Lux) are bright and very usable.

Pleasant color using dual-tone LED flash

Using flash, the Moto G Plus’s dual-tone LED unit renders accurate white balance on both flash-only and mixed-lighting shots, with vivid color particularly in the center of the frame. A noticeable color shift is evident towards the edges of the frame, however, with a blue cast top left that changes to yellow in the bottom right. The flash is also well-centered, with accurate exposure in the middle of the image; but light attenuation is evident, particularly for flash-only results, with darker corners and some noise evident.

Details: Explaining the score

Exposure and Contrast (84)

With a very solid performance for exposure, the Moto G Plus scored 84 in both bright- and low-light conditions. It also fared well for Auto Exposure in our perceptual analysis of image quality, scoring 4.4 out of 5 (4.4/5), with generally good target exposures, good low-light exposure, and impressive skies in HDR mode that retained good detail in all but the brightest tones.

Exposure: images are mostly well exposed but failures happen: - Left: some loss of details in the dark parts of the image. - Top right: in difficult scenes, highlights are sometimes blown out. - Bottom right: in extreme low light conditions (5 Lux), the image is well exposed.

In some outdoor scenes, some irregularities in HDR activation are visible.

Color (85)

Higher color scores of 88 were recorded in bright light, and although dipping to 81 in low light, color remains pleasant. The same trend is evident in the perceptual results, too, with color rendering scoring 4.5/5 in bright light, compared to 3/5 in low light. White balance accuracy and adaptation both scored a very respectable 4.5/5, although if you prefer a warm tone to your smartphone pictures, you might want to tweak the slight blue cast that appears on some outdoor shots.

In most outdoor scenes, colors are vivid and pleasant.

Slightly bluish cast sometimes visible in outdoor scenes.

Some slight white balance irregularities are occasionally visible in outdoor scenes.

Texture (85) and Noise (86)

Texture is outstanding in bright light, achieving the best category score (98) in this condition. In low light, the score drops to 83 for HD and Web resolution images, but it recorded a much lower score of 71 for low-light 8Mp equivalent conversion, where the loss of fine detail becomes more obvious. This is a factor in calculating the overall score despite the outstanding bright-light results. Scores for noise are a little more consistent across lighting conditions: 89/100 in bright light and 86/100 in low light. The visible luminance noise in uniform areas on low-light shots affects the perceptual score, reducing it to 3.9/5 compared to 4.1/5 in bright light, but on the whole, noise reduction is reasonably well-managed.

Autofocus (91)

The Moto G Plus’s phase detection autofocus system offers fast, accurate, and repeatable focusing in all conditions. Scoring 95 in bright light and featuring face detection, the camera ensures that your portraits and people shots are sharp. Its low light autofocus score of 87/100 is still very good, despite slightly slower focusing in these conditions (as you’d expect). Continuous autofocus in preview mode suffers from some focus hunting and overshoots, particularly in low light. Despite this, perceptual scores for focus sharpness are strong in both lighting conditions, coming in at 4.7/5 for bright light and 4.4/5 for low light. 

Artifacts (85)

In high-contrast backlit scenes, color fringes are visible, which display as purple lines along contrast edges. That’s affected the perceptual analysis score for color fringing at 3.6/5, but sharpness fares better at 4.5/5, with good acutance. In non-HDR exposures, with good target exposure for darker regions, a slight cyan shift that’s close to sky saturation occurs, and moiré is occasional visible in high-frequency patterns, too.

Flash (77)

The Moto G Plus achieves an overall flash score of 77, thanks to good flash exposures and vivid color rendering for both flash-only and mixed-light results. A perceptual score of 4.1/5 for flash repeatability is very respectable, too, with consistent results using flash under additional light sources, although this score was affected slightly due to some irregularities in focus and exposure for flash-only shots.

Video (81)

The Moto G Plus offers 1080p/30fps video capture with autofocus, stabilization, and a built-in video editor. Video auto exposure is good, achieving fairly consistent scores of 86 in bright light and 82 in low light. Highlights are overexposed in some videos, however, and steps in exposure are sometimes visible when changing between extremes of brightness. The stabilization system boasts good scores in bright light, 85, which drops to 78 in low light, with slight motion blur visible on indoor movies. Videos boast some nice color rendering and accurate white balance in all conditions, too, although when transitioning from low to bright light, a pink cast can be seen as white balance adapts. Autofocus convergence is also fast in all conditions, but again, noticeable steps in convergence are visible as focus distance shifts between macro and infinity. Effective noise reduction when shooting outdoors produces particularly clean movies in bright light, with a little more noticeable luminance noise prevalent in low-light videos, where the finer details gets lost.

TIP: When changing between different lighting conditions, it’s better to stop recording and start a new video to avoid the noticeable steps in white balance, exposure, and focus. You can splice together two or more videos in a video-editing app.

Note: Results from both Photo and Video scores feed into the overall DxOMark Mobile score, with greater weight given to Photo results in the final analysis.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 review: Hitting the right Note for image quality

Overview

Released back in September, 2014the Galaxy Note 4 is Samsung’s Mobile/Tablet hybrid for consumers who can’t decide between the two.  Physically bigger and with a larger screen than the S6 Edge, the Galaxy Note 4 features the same 2560x1440px resolution and 16Mp rear camera as its smartphone sibling. Notching up impressive stats in our industry-standard image quality tests, the Galaxy Note 4 a serious contender for mobile shooters.

Photo

DxOMark Mobile Photo

84

Exposure and contrast	89
Color	79
Autofocus	86
Texture	88
Noise	75
Artifacts	87
Flash	85

Pros

- Good exposure both indoors and outdoors

- Overall good color

- Very good detail preservation all across the image

- Autofocus is accurate and smooth

Cons

- Some noise in low-light conditions

- Often re-focuses for no apparent reason

Video

DxOMark Mobile Video

83

Exposure and contrast	92
Color	71
Autofocus	91
Texture	88
Noise	97
Artifacts	89
Stabilization	60

Pros

- Good details and very low noise

- Images are well-exposed

Cons

- Color shading is noticeable

- Stabilization artifacts are visible

LG G4 Mobile review: A new contender in the top 3

Overview

Featuring a large 5.5-inch, high-resolution 1440 x 2560 pixel screen and running a powerful Snapdragon 808 chipset with quad-core 1.44Ghz and dual-core 1.82 Ghz Cortex processors, along with 3GB RAM, the G4 is certainly equipped for performance.

The primary camera is promising, too, offering a 16Mp (5312 x 2988 pixel) resolution on a 1/2.6in sensor, with the secondary camera still a respectable, albeit lower resolution, 8Mp snapper. Other notable camera features include laser autofocus, optical image stabilization, LED flash, simultaneous video and image recording, geo-tagging, face detection, and HDR processing. Shooting moving images, the G4 records at either 2160p/30fps or 1080p/60fps on the primary camera, and a lower-resolution 1080p/30fps on the secondary camera when Skyping and the like.

With so many DxOMark enthusiasts requesting an in-depth analysis of the G4’s image quality, we’re delighted to bring you a full round-up review of our latest mobile tests.

Photo

DxOMark Mobile Photo

86

Exposure and contrast	86
Color	80
Autofocus	94
Texture	90
Noise	84
Artifacts	76
Flash	81

Pros

- Very accurate and repeatable autofocus.

- Good detail preservation in all lighting conditions.

- Good noise reduction in low light.

- Pictures are generally well-exposed.

- Pleasant colors.

- With flash, good detail preservation and color rendering.

Cons

- Blue sky saturation, moiré, fringing, and other artefacts visible on outdoor shots.

- In very bright light conditions, some high-dynamic scenes tend to be over-exposed.

- Occasionally, severe white balance failures occur in outdoor pictures.

- Some luminance noise visible in outdoor shots.

- Autofocus lacks smoothness in preview.

- When using flash, chroma noise visible in the corners.

Video

DxOMark Mobile Video

79

Exposure and contrast	89
Color	76
Autofocus	76
Texture	84
Noise	92
Artifacts	80
Stabilization	65

Pros

- Generally good exposure and color rendering.

- Good detail preservation and noise reduction, especially in bright light. 

Cons

- Ineffective stabilization, with visible jello effect.

- Visible color shading, especially in low light.

- Under tungsten light, white balance turns slightly pink.

- In very bright light, highlights are occasionally blown out.