Honor is on a spree of releasing new phones and the Honor 7A and the 7C are the latest. At £140, the Honor 7a is the cheaper of the pair, the lowest-cost phone the company has ever released and, with Honor’s reputation for producing solid, reasonably priced handsets, it has the potential to the be the best budget phone since the Motorola Moto G4.
We’ve gone hands on to find out everything you need to know about the most interesting budget phone so far in 2018 including the key specs, UK release date and price.
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Honor 7A UK release date and price
The Honor 7A will be available mid-May for £140 from Three Mobile, Carphone Warehouse, Argos, ao.com, John Lewis, Very.co.uk and Honor’s very own Hihonor store.
With the 7A, you’ll be able to grab it on contract or buy it SIM-free. In the UK, the phone will launch in two colours: black and blue.
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Honor 7A review: Specifications
- Display: 18:9, 5.7in, 720 x 1,440, IPS
- Processor: 1.4GHz Octa-core Snapdragon 430
- RAM: 2GB
- SIM: Dual 4G LTE
- Storage: 16GB (expandable via microSD up to 256GB)
- Camera: 13-megapixel rear; 8-megapixel front camera
- Connectivity: 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 4.2; 3.5mm headphone jack; microUSB port
- Battery: 3,000mAh
- Dimensions: 73 x 7.8 x 152.4mm (WDH)
- Operating system: Android 8.0 Oreo (running EMUI 8)
- Colours: Black, blue
- Price: £140 inc VAT, SIM-free
- Availability: Mid-May, 2018
Honor 7A build quality and design
Unlike most other sub-£200 smartphones I’ve seen before, the Honor 7A looks and feels almost like a flagship. From its stunning aluminium unibody to its curved edges, the phone looks spectacular. At only 7.8mm thick, it’s also thin and, while it has a 5.7in display, the phone doesn’t feel awkward to hold or use with one hand. That’s largely due to the screen’s 18:9 aspect ratio, which keeps the screen narrow enough to wrangle one-handed but adds a little extra height.
Around the back of the phone, there’s a single 13-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash and an ultra-responsive fingerprint sensor. The right-hand side plays host to a volume rocker and a power button, while on the left there’s a 3-in-1 card slot, which allows you to use a microSD card (256GB additional storage) and two SIM cards simultaneously. Other phones sacrifice the secondary SIM slot for the microSD card; not the Honor 7A.
Honor has opted for a micro-USB port at the bottom instead of the USB Type-C but has, thankfully, included a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top of the device. There’s a downward-firing speaker, which according to Honor is able to go “200% louder than a conventional smartphone”. What Honor’s definition of a “conventional smartphone” is was unclear, but in a short listening test I was surprised at how loud the phone could go without distorting.
At £140, you’d expect Honor to stick with a regular 16:9 display. Amazingly, though, the 7A has a gorgeous 1,080 x 2,160 IPS screen in an 18:9 aspect ratio. That’s more screen for your money than you get with either the £159 Vodafone Smart V8 and the more expensive Motorola Moto G5S.
Inside its sleek shell, there’s a 3,000mAh battery, which Honor claims delivers 7hrs of gaming or 16hrs of 4G talk time. I can’t wait to put it through its paces in the labs.
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Honor 7A camera, performance and Face Unlock
The 7A has a single 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with dual-tone LED flash. All the standard Honor features are included, such as panorama, night and Bokeh mode, but it’s limited to core features, with no Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) or Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF). Its front-facing 8-megapixel camera is arguably more impressive. It has a front-facing flash that the company call ‘Soft Light’. The flash level can be adjusted through the camera app, enabling for better low-light selfies – neat.
As for performance, Honor has included an older 2015 octa-core Snapdragon 430 processor, which is the same that’s included in the Moto G5, Nokia 6 and Asus Zenfone 3, among a few others. There’s also 2GB of RAM and the phone runs Android 8.0 Oreo with Honor’s EMUI 8.0 launcher on top. There’s also 16GB of internal storage to play around with and that can be expanded up to 256GB via the phone’s microSD card slot.
Impressions are that this setup is fine for light use. The phone felt reasonably snappy when I first picked it up but its 2GB of RAM will almost certainly be problematic if you have multiple apps open all at the same time. The Vodafone Smart V8, which is one of its chief competitors at this price, copes better with its 3GB of RAM.
The stand-out features for me, however, are the phone’s fingerprint sensor and Face Unlock. This is hands-down the cheapest phone on the market to offer Face Unlock and, if the company’s flagship Honor View 10 is anything to go by, we’re in for a real treat. Alas, I was unable to test this out as it’s set to arrive a few weeks after its launch, in May 2018.
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Honor 7A early verdict
At £140, the Honor 7A looks to be a cracking smartphone. With an impressive list of features, an attractive design and a great-looking screen, there’s very little to dislike at this stage. My only worry is that 2GB allocation of RAM but, overall, first impressions are definitely positive. Be sure to check back regularly for periodic updates and, later on, my full review.
