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MagyarHonor Holly Smartphone Review
For the original German review, see here.
Like we reported early February, Honor has come up with a special idea for the startup of its new entry-level smartphones. The starting price of the Holly was to drop in line with the number of users who registered here by market launch on February 23. The manufacturer's preconditions for this campaign remain unclear, but registering was not attached to a purchase obligation. The event was called "Pricehack," and the price was 99 Euros (~$107) on launch day. However, MediaMarkt (German electronic retailer) only offered the phone for this low price for a limited time. The idea generated huge media response and attention for the Holly, which was likely also the basic idea of this campaign.
There are now quite a few 5-inch smartphones in the 100 to 150 Euros (~$108 to ~$163) price range, but the Holly stands out from its rivals with its IPS screen with a HD resolution of 1280x720 pixels. A Mediatek SoC with a maximum clock rate of 1.3 GHz and an integrated Mali-400 MP2 graphics unit, which are supported by 1 GB of RAM, are under the hood. The flash memory capacity of 16 GB is tight but can be expanded up to 32 GB via a micro-SD card. Otherwise, the usual Wi-Fi standards, Bluetooth 4.0 and HSPA+ are installed, but not LTE. The battery has a capacity of 2000 mAh. A special feature of the phone is that two SIM cards can be used simultaneously (dual-SIM).
The specifications and price place Honor's Holly with a weight of 157 grams in the (upper) entry-level range. Like other Honor smartphones, it also offers a lot of technology for a low price. We used current smartphones from a similar price range for performance comparisons, some of which feature the competing Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 8210 (MSM8210) with an Adreno 302 graphics.
Case
A metal casing was not expected for this price, and consequently the chassis of the Holly is completely made of plastic. The back part is the battery cover, which is available in black or white. The front bezel of both versions is black. It is completely covered by the display screen and cannot exactly be called small for today's standards. The absolutely sleek, piano paint-like surface of the plastic casing proved to be slippery in moist hands. Our sample's back is white and fingerprints are barely visible. That will likely also be the case in the black version because the cover features a kind of leather texture. The design is basic and is similar with that of LG's Nexus 5
Removing the back cover is easy and enables accessing the battery, both SIM-card slots, and the micro-SD slot. The build quality did not give any reason whatsoever for complaint. The back part is very flush, and we did not discover any protruding edges or other irregularities. The construction makes a very robust impression despite the plastic material. The tester could warp the Holly to a small extent with some effort, but more than a quiet crackling noise was not heard.
Connectivity
All basics that can be expected in a modern smartphone are installed. Wi-Fi n, HSPA+, Bluetooth 4.0, and A-GPS are just as available as a micro-SD slot for cards up to 32 GB (the Holly in fact did not support our 64 GB card). Thus, it is possible to expand the 16 GB flash memory at little cost. The RGB notification LEDs and FM radio are not a matter of course in this price range. The SoC with its integrated graphics unit and the 1 GB working memory match the entry-level claim just like the lack of LTE and NFC. The 5-inch HD IPS screen sooner points toward the mid-range.
The most striking unique selling point is certainly the second SIM slot. It is, however, only GSM capable. Compared with the tester's old Nexus 4, it is also noticed that the Honor limits the sensor equipment to the bare necessities. Most ports and controls are found where expected. The micro-USB port is in the lower edge, the audio jack in the upper edge, and the power button on the right. The volume rocker is also found here, although the tester would have preferred seeing it on the left. The buttons feature a crisp pressure point, and their use is impeccable. Unfortunately, USB OTG is not supported.
Software
Unlike in the Honor 6, Honor does not cover Android 4.2.2 aka KitKat with the well-known Emotion UI skin on the Holly. Thus, features such as the phone manager or different design options are not available. The differences to Vanilla Android are very marginal; there are barely any additional functions. One exception is the possibility of automatically turning the phone on and off at a predefined time. Also, a basic home screen dubbed "Launcher" has been added, which can be used instead of the standard launcher and resembles the tile desktop of Windows 8.
The Holly does not have a classic app drawer so that all apps are on the home screen, but they can be moved into folders. The icons of the basic apps, such as music and videos, have been modified just like the symbols in the setting menu's first level. The other modifications are trivialities, for example the quick settings menu now features more icons. As can be seen in the screenshots, there is barely any bloatware and some apps, like Facebook, can also be uninstalled.
Communication & GPS
According to the spec sheet, Honor's Holly supports the IEEE 802.11 b/g/n (2.4 GHz band only) and Bluetooth 4.0 in addition to the different GSM and UMTS varieties. Compared with other smartphones, the Wi-Fi reception performance proved inconspicuous to good.
GPS does not look as good. It did not connect to satellites indoors where other devices managed that at least after a while. The handset connected quite fast when the tester went outdoors without a satellite fixing but also lost the signal for no apparent reason. Our GPS accuracy test was performed by car, which represents a slightly more difficult situation. A Garmin eTrex 30 was used for comparison. It did not cut corners like the Holly probably because of the shorter update intervals, and it was also closer to the streets. These minor inaccuracies should, however, not thwart successful navigating via, for example, Google Maps.
Telephone & Voice Quality
The phone app only provides the basics that are found in an almost identical form on Nexus smartphones based on Vanilla KitKat. Neither the tester nor his landline partner had anything to complain about in terms of voice quality. That is also true for the hands-free feature. We can confirm that the Holly has a rich, natural and mostly static-free voice quality on both sides.
Cameras & Multimedia
Honor installs two cameras. The rear-facing, 8 MP unit features an LED flash, a resolution of 8 MP and a BSI sensor that promises a higher light yield. The front-facing camera only has a sufficient 2 MP. The primary camera records Full HD videos in a useful quality in daylight. Honor lists the following camera app features: Panoramic mode, Beauty mode, HDR mode, continuous shot, scene mode and video stabilizer. The pictures are colorful and sharp in default mode and the details are just sufficient for printing in A4 format.
The scenes of our test pictures exhibit tight exposure especially in high-contrast objects. That is probably supposed to prevent frayed edges, and it also functions well. Since the exposure range is not sufficient, black areas are not outlined in almost any picture.
The noise suppression strong intervention tends to blur low-contrast image sections, such as lawns or pavement even in very good light conditions. However, it does not manage to subtract the image noise in the sky's blue. Apparently, the picture editor tries to brighten up dark image areas, which leads to massive artifacts in sharpness alongside noise. Generally, the camera offers a satisfactory snapshot-suitable image quality that does not allow room for editing or zooming sections afterwards. The webcam suffices for videoconferencing and (blurry) selfies - but not more.
Accessories
The cyan-colored cardboard box only contains warranty documents and a quick-start guide in English besides the power supply and a one-meter USB cable.
Warranty
Honor includes a 24-month manufacturer's warranty on the handset and only six months on the battery as common among most brands.
Input Devices & Controls
Honor opted for soft-touch buttons in KitKat design below the screen, which are not backlit and only perfectly visible in very good light due to their low contrast. They respond reliably to touch when they are tapped, which also functions even without looking after a short period of familiarization. The advantage of this is that content has more room on the display. The content rotates within a second when turning the smartphone.
A swipe keyboard is preloaded on the Honor 6. The one in the Holly dubbed "Pinyin" does not support this input method and also annoys with an infamous bug: It is not possible to set the layout to German permanently in the preloaded browser or even in Chrome. The "English (9-key)" is displayed after every new input. When the layout is set to German via a button again, ".com" is mapped on the space bar. Although the keyboard does not behave that way in other applications, it is absolutely useless and we deducted points for that. The tester soon enabled the stock Android keyboard and generally recommends SwiftKey. We did not have problems with the touchscreen's responsiveness or accuracy.
Display
It is not at all a matter of course that Honor installs an IPS screen with an HD resolution in such an affordable entry-level smartphone like the Holly. All other comparably priced smartphones in the performance comparison have less. 1280x720 pixels (16:9) distributed over 5-inches still equals 294 ppi. It is 441 ppi in Full HD like in the Nexus 5. The tester would claim that only hawk-eyes will see a difference in routine use. Everything was nicely sharp, high-detail and void of annoyances like pixelated slanted edges subjectively.
472 cd/m² in the center is a really fantastic maximum brightness. No other smartphone in our comparison field can compete with that. The Holly also places itself among the upper third of all smartphones we tested in the past twelve months.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Brightness Distribution: 87 %
Center on Battery: 472 cd/m²
Contrast: 613:1 (Black: 0.77 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 8.23 | 0.5-29.43 Ø4.95
ΔE Greyscale 8.84 | 0.5-98 Ø5.2
Gamma: 2.12
However, the black level of 0.77 cd/m² is too high even for IPS conditions. The Holly owes its good contrast of 613:1 to its high brightness. IPS stands for a good color reproduction besides good viewing-angle stability. However, the DeltaE of 8 (ColorChecker) and 9 (Grayscale) are not really conforming to standards and are overall only middling. Microsoft's Lumia 535 with rates of less than 4 proves that that can be done better. Subjectively, the tester perceived the colors as vivid but not too garish and the balance as warm. A slight shift towards green is visible in the grayscale screenshot.
| Honor Holly Mali-400 MP2, MT6582, 16 GB eMMC Flash | Archos 50c Oxygen Mali-450 MP4, MT6592, 8 GB SSD | Huawei Ascend Y530 Adreno 302, 200 8210, 4 GB Flash | Microsoft Lumia 535 Adreno 302, 200 MSM8212, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 Adreno 302, 200 8210, 4 GB Flash | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screen | -12% | -8% | 18% | 15% | |
| Brightness middle | 472 | 426 -10% | 375 -21% | 431 -9% | 373 -21% |
| Brightness | 455 | 417 -8% | 370 -19% | 424 -7% | 365 -20% |
| Brightness Distribution | 87 | 90 3% | 91 5% | 90 3% | 96 10% |
| Black Level * | 0.77 | 1.02 -32% | 0.74 4% | 0.64 17% | 0.5 35% |
| Contrast | 613 | 418 -32% | 507 -17% | 673 10% | 746 22% |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 * | 8.23 | 8.06 2% | 8.8 -7% | 3.6 56% | 4.84 41% |
| Greyscale dE 2000 * | 8.84 | 9.64 -9% | 8.69 2% | 3.71 58% | 5.62 36% |
| Gamma | 2.12 104% | 2.46 89% | 2.03 108% | 2.4 92% | 2.59 85% |
| CCT | 6819 95% | 7015 93% | 8507 76% | 6878 95% | 7943 82% |
* ... smaller is better
Despite the fabulous maximum brightness, the screen will have to be shadowed at least on sunny days because the reflections on the highly glossy surface will prevail otherwise.
Losses in image quality are first seen when looking at the screen from both a vertical and horizontal shifted view in flat angles, which can be the case with a smartphone, for example, when it is on a table. Slanted viewing angles during normal handling only lead to a negligible brightness and contrast loss. However, that is even less in first-rate screens like in the iPad Air 2. This fact rounds off the very good overall impression that the screen made in the test.
Performance
The low-priced and economic Mediatek MT6582 entry-level SoC (4 x 1.3 GHz, ARM Cortex-A7) is installed. Its assessed performance is roughly on par with Nvidia's Tegra 3 from 2011 / 2012. Thus, it has enough power for most apps. The scores achieved in our benchmarks are identical with those of other smartphones based on the same SoC, as expected.
Apps opened swiftly in practice, but not quite as fast as on current top-of-the-line models. Animations also stuttered slightly occasionally. Although Steve Jobs would not have accepted that, only very demanding users who wouldn't buy a budget smartphone from the outset would feel annoyed. Honor's Holly scores surprisingly well in the Androbench storage benchmark, which might also be a reason for the unexpectedly good gaming performance. The comparison devices cannot compete with the Holly here, and even the higher-quality Archos 50c Oxygen is at least 31% slower.
| Geekbench 3 | |
| 32 Bit Multi-Core Score (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Huawei Ascend Y530 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
| 32 Bit Single-Core Score (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Huawei Ascend Y530 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
| 3DMark | |
| 1280x720 Ice Storm Standard Score (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Huawei Ascend Y530 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
| 1280x720 Ice Storm Standard Graphics (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Huawei Ascend Y530 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
| 1280x720 Ice Storm Standard Physics (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Huawei Ascend Y530 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
| GFXBench (DX / GLBenchmark) 2.7 | |
| T-Rex Onscreen (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Huawei Ascend Y530 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
| 1920x1080 T-Rex Offscreen (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Huawei Ascend Y530 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
| Linpack Android / IOS | |
| Multi Thread (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Microsoft Lumia 535 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
| Single Thread (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Microsoft Lumia 535 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
| AndroBench 3-5 | |
| Sequential Read 256KB (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Huawei Ascend Y530 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
| Random Read 4KB (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Huawei Ascend Y530 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
| Sequential Write 256KB (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Huawei Ascend Y530 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
| Random Write 4KB (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Huawei Ascend Y530 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
Browser Benchmarks
Honor's Holly was always in the midfield of all smartphones that we tested in the past twelve months in the browser benchmarks. Sometimes the Mediatek SoC in the review sample and sometimes the Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 8210 as found in the Lumia had the lead, depending on the benchmark. Browsing with the Holly was fun subjectively, and we did not struggle with major lags even on sophisticated websites. Only a comparison with the iPhone alongside the lightning-fast Safari browser should not be made.
| Sunspider - 1.0 Total Score (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Huawei Ascend Y530 | |
| Microsoft Lumia 535 | |
| Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Total (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Huawei Ascend Y530 | |
| Microsoft Lumia 535 | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
| WebXPRT 2013 - Overall (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Microsoft Lumia 535 | |
| Octane V2 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
| Honor Holly | |
| Kazam Thunder Q4.5 | |
| Archos 50c Oxygen | |
| Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 | |
* ... smaller is better
Games
The SoC-integrated entry-level Mali-400 MP2 GPU with two cores that clock with up to 500 MHz is a bit older and only supports OpenGL ES 2.0. Despite its actually low gaming performance, it has enough power to play the good-looking Asphalt 8 smoothly in medium graphics settings; high settings stuttered. We also tried Max Payne that preferred medium settings but also ran smoothly in high settings. The sensors functioned properly.
Emissions
Temperature
There is nothing special to report about here. The maximum surface temperature was only 37 °C even during load. The Holly performed the stress test without problems.
(+) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 37 °C / 99 F, compared to the average of 35 °C / 95 F, ranging from 21.9 to 56 °C for the class Smartphone.
(+) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 34.4 °C / 94 F, compared to the average of 33.8 °C / 93 F
(+) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 30.6 °C / 87 F, compared to the device average of 32.7 °C / 91 F.
Speakers
The little mono speaker on the lower left back does not rouse high expectations. In fact, it is more a makeshift for rendering system sounds and speech in hands-free mode or in Google Now as well as navigation apps. The unit is not suitable for music playback.
The sound is flat, compressed, low in dynamics, and extremely mid-heavy in its default settings. However, it is not piercing or distorted. The speaker cannot at all cope with rich, bass-heavy music, for example with several electric guitars. The relatively low maximum volume is not convincing, either, but should suffice for the listed applications. The sound is very impressive when a Koss Porta Pro headphone is connected to the jack. Besides the Google Play music app, the more basic app dubbed "Music" is very similar with the stock KitKat player, which Samsung also uses in a slightly modified version. Its functions cannot compete with apps like Poweramp, but it should satisfy most demands.
Energy Management
Power Consumption
Consumption and runtime comparisons make most sense when smartphones with equally sized screens and the same SoC are used. We only have three in our database. The average idle differences are very marginal in this field, and the Holly is pretty exactly on average. Maximum load (load max.) is reached in sophisticated 3D games, for example. The average here is 4.6 watts; the Holly consumes 5.3 watts. Thus, the 5-watt power supply's size is on the edge.
| Off / Standby |   0 / 0.1 Watt |
| Idle |  0.8 / 1.5 / 1.7 Watt |
| Load |
2.9 / 5.3 Watt |
    
| |
Battery Runtime
Both Honor's Holly and Alcatel's One Touch Pop C7 have the weaker batteries among the three comparison smartphones with 2000 mAh. Acer's Liquid E700 Trio has 3500 mAh. A script automatically opens relevant Internet websites every 40 seconds in our practical Wi-Fi test where consumers like Bluetooth are off and using a screen brightness of approximately 150 cd/m². Surprisingly, the Alcatel takes the first place with an impressive 566 minutes and leaves the review sample behind by about 56%. Acer can play its higher battery capacity off against the contenders in load and clearly outruns its two, quite close rivals.
| Honor Holly Mali-400 MP2, MT6582, 16 GB eMMC Flash | Acer Liquid E700 Trio Mali-400 MP2, MT6582, 16 GB eMMC Flash | Alcatel One Touch Pop C7 Mali-400 MP2, MT6582M, 4 GB Flash | Microsoft Lumia 535 Adreno 302, 200 MSM8212, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Motorola Moto E 1. Gen 2014 Adreno 302, 200 8210, 4 GB Flash | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battery Runtime | 48% | 18% | -12% | 64% | |
| Reader / Idle | 950 | 853 -10% | 948 0% | 1336 41% | |
| WiFi | 363 | 510 40% | 566 56% | 376 4% | 846 133% |
| Load | 211 | 327 55% | 228 8% | 127 -40% | 248 18% |
Verdict
Not only the low price of Honor's Holly looked good in the test. It was not least the very bright and high-color IPS screen that, unlike the comparable rivals, even features an HD resolution that contributed to this. Although the casing does not really make a high-quality impression, it is well-built and stiff. The most painful gap in the configuration is the lack of LTE; many users will be able to tolerate the omitted NFC and some sensors like a barometer. There is enough power for routine use and an occasional game, but current graphics smash hits are too much for the rather relaxed entry-level SoC.
We found it too bad that the operating system and preloaded apps largely correspond to the Android standards, and there are only very few additional features. It is simply feeble that Honor has not yet managed to eliminate the keyboard bug. The speaker ruins the fun a bit on the multimedia side; the camera is not particularly compelling but is acceptable for the price. It would have been great had Honor treated the soft-touch buttons to a backlight. The listed shortcomings would be considerably worse in a 500-Euro (~$544) smartphone, but we are dealing with a price range of 100 to 140 Euros (~$108 to ~$152). Thus, Honor's Holly earns an explicit purchase recommendation because such a good performance-for-money ratio is hard to find at the moment.
