Huawei Honor Pro Reviews

Comparing the Honour to the ZTE Grand X seems fair. Both are about the same price, and both will be sold to the same people. Sadly, both are flawed. The Grand X suffers from an insensitive screen that isn't great in sunlight, while the Huawei has a better touchscreen, but still doesn't work well outside in the sunlight. The ZTE has a smaller battery, but Ice Cream Sandwich, while the Huawei should last longer on the go and may soon get an Android upgrade, although that's far from certain. Perhaps the problem with this phone, and the ZTE is that, at £200 they don't feel better than phones that cost half that. Of course, some people will have limited budgets, and need to consider a handset like this, but our honest opinion is to look elsewhere. You'll get something more inspiring second-hand than you will new, here. Oh, and if you can find another £120 you can have an iPhone 4 - a 4S is a lot more, sadly, at £450. And for an extra £80 a Samsung Galaxy Nexus. That won't be possible for everyone, but you'll be going from a choice of 3-star phones, up to 4.5-star handsets, even if they are aging a little now.

Probably the biggest advantage of the Huawei Honor is its great value-for-money ratio. It can be bought for about $370 off contract, and at that price point, no other brand name company would be able to match its specs. However, you get what you pay for, so you will have to get used to its not-so-sensitive display and hope that your camera is free of glitches, not to mention that the device feels cheap and plasticky. If you insist on having a relatively big display, you can also check out the LG Optimus Black and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, and if 3.7-inches of display real estate would be sufficient, we can also recommend the Sony Ericsson Xperia neo, or Xperia pro.

Huawei may not yet be famous in the USA, but we’ve been keeping an eye on their Android phones, and they have been steadily making progress, so we were very curious to see what the Huawei Honor, aka Huawei U8860, could do in the real world. This smartphone has a very “plain” look to it, and nothing in its design language is a “power statement”, so most people would assume that it is an average to below-average phone when looking at it. In fact the Huawei Honor proves to be a responsive phone with a user interface that is well thought-out and surprisingly convenient. The unlock screen, or the virtual keyboard have a few trick that others will find “inspiration” from – I am sure of that. In this review, I’ll cover the strengths and weaknesses of the Huawei Honor/U8860. You may not be able to buy it now, but keep an eye on this company.

The Huawei Honor has been flying under the radar, which is a shame since it's quite the underrated device. Sure, it doesn't have the best chipset available on the market, nor the fanciest components otherwise, but it's one of the best phones we've seen Huawei make to date (let's talk again after the Ascend P1 S comes out). It's obvious the company put a lot of tender lovin' care into the Honor, and if this phone is any indication, we suspect Huawei has even better devices left to share this year.

The Huawei Honor is a capable device but it would definitely have a hard time dealing with its “Made in China” stigma. Huawei is a major telecommunications player and has enough leverage to cut deals with telecoms and we’re sure it will get over the not so noble origin and turn the situation in its own favor. The brand may not be that popular as a phone manufacturer, but Huawei are stepping up the effort in improving brand recognition as we speak, forgoing past attempts of setting up the Ideos brand as its headliner.

The Huawei Honor, while not the best phone on the planet by a long shot, has the potential to be a very good midranger. There are several red flags though when it comes to aspects of the camera and call quality, and I didn't feel I was able to accurately test data speeds at all. Still, 720p video capture was good, and the phone's hardware and software are easy to use. I'd never recommend buying the Honor at its unlocked price in the mid-to-high hundreds, but I will say that Cricket customers should keep their eyes open for the Huawei Mercury, the first U.S. version of this device. It's sold without a contract for $249.99.

Huawei might not be as popular or widely celebrated as the HTC’s and Samsung’s in the mobile world, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be. If Huawei continues to put out great hardware like this here phone and the award winning Huawei Vision I see no reason to think otherwise. The Huawei Honor is launching in parts of Asia this month and is said to be coming to Cricket Wireless stateside as the Glory fully unlocked and contract free for $299. This is bringing high-end to the contract free budget smartphone market.