Fingerprint sensors are a great way to help keep your phone secure, but apart from Apple and Samsung, most smartphone manufacturers seem to have been rather slow on the uptake. Huawei-owned Honor want to change that, though, as its latest smartphone, the Honor 7, has one built right into the back of the smartphone just below the rear camera sensor.
According to Honor, it's the first smartphone in the world to have a “non-metallic ring module”, but when I asked them what difference this makes, I was told it was more of an aesthetic choice rather than anything else. You get a sliver more space for it to recognise your finger, but otherwise the ring has very little extra utility compared to those used by Apple and Samsung.
Either way, it was certainly very quick to recognise my fingerprint when I tried it out for myself, and I could open the phone almost as soon as I picked it off the table when it was in sleep mode. At first, I thought it might be a bit tricky to find given its place on the rear of the phone, but luckily its square recess sits at just the right height for your forefinger, making it easy to track down when holding it one hand. Honor also said you could use it to answer calls, or configure it to support certain touch or slide control functions, all of which are easily set up in the phone's main Settings menu.
The phone itself is easily one of Honor's more attractive handsets, as its aluminium unibody feels incredibly tough and sturdy and its sand-blasted ceramic finish looks particularly pretty when it catches the light. The Honor 7's 5.2in Full HD display also looks excellent, as colours were bright and vibrant and blacks were reasonably deep.
Inside, the Honor 7 is powered by a 64-bit octa-core 2.2GHz Kirin 935 chipset and 3GB of RAM – an impressive set of specs considering the phone will cost just £250 SIM-free in the UK. We'll have to wait and see how it performs in the Expert Reviews benchmark suite before we can see how it compares to its Qualcomm-based counterparts in this price range, but it certainly felt very snappy when we were browsing through the phone's menu screens on the show floor.
It also comes with 16GB of storage, which can be expanded via microSD card up to 128GB, and a large 3,100mAh battery, which supports fast-charging as well as reverse-charging, so you can use the phone to power other devices as well. This will require a special cable, though, and Honor wouldn't be drawn on whether this will be included in the box, so this may not be particularly useful after all if it requires an additional purchase.
Honor's made sure the Honor 7 is packed with additional features, too, including voice control and the same KnuckleSense technology we saw on the Huawei P8. This rather bizarre method of controlling your phone lets you take screenshots of whatever's onscreen by using your knuckle, either with a double-tap for a full screenshot or by dragging your knuckle in whatever shape you like to crop an area of your choice which you can then share instantly with friends and family.
Honor's also taken a leaf out of Nokia's Z Launcher book by letting you draw out certain letters with your knuckle as well to launch certain applications. It only supports four letters, mind – E, C, M and W – but they can be configured to open anything you like, from your internet browser to the camera. However, while it's certainly one of the more novel ways I've seen to interact with your phone, I don't find it particularly intuitive and pawing at your phone with your knuckle seems rather inelegant when the Honor 7's new Smart Key does almost exactly the same thing.
This intriguing feature takes the form of an additional button on the side of the phone, and you can configure it to activate up to three different shortcuts. With a single tap, double tap or long press, you can immediately launch any app of your choice or perform a function such as activating the camera or turning on the flashlight. This is far more practical and precise than using your knuckle, and it's just the right height to use with your thumb when holding the phone left-handed, too. Right-handed users might find it a bit more tricky to reach, though, as I found it was just out of reach of my forefinger when I switched hands, making it a bit of a stretch to activate. Still, it's a small complaint overall.
On the back of the phone is the Honor 7's 20-megapixel camera. This has phase-detection auto-focus, which can allegedly snap onto a subject in just 0.1 seconds, and a sapphire-glass lens cover. It has several filters for photo enthusiasts as well, including a Good Food mode and de-mist filter, and a time lapse video mode. There's also an 8-megapixel camera on the front with a 26mm wide angle lens for those all-important selfies.
The only real downside to the Honor 7 is that it comes with Huawei's Emotion UI 3.1 interface, which ditches the app tray in favour of having multiple home screens to house your apps. However, when the phone costs just £250 SIM-free, it might just end up being one of the best value mid-range smartphones yet. We'll only know for sure, though, once we get our hands on a review sample. Expect our final verdict in the coming weeks.
