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Who doesn’t like a good comeback story? Honor, which had briefly been out of action in the Indian market, is back again. But it remains to be seen whether its latest launch — Honor 90 — has what it takes to be a comeback hero.
Design
The lovely two-tone design at the rear is what catches my eyes first. The Emerald Green variant I received is fairly captivating in its deep green and grey tones. There’s a sizeable 6.7-inch Amoled display, which offers upto 120 Hz free refresh rate, depending on the app and media being used. Despite the big screen, the phone weighs just over 183 grams and is fairly thin as well. With a velvety feel at the back, it’s pleasant to carry around. Honor has laid a lot of emphasis building a risk-free dimming display, which works to decrease the eye-strain for users.
Camera
With its camera-forward pitch, the Honor 90 sports a 200 MP “ultra-clear” camera as its primary, supported by a 12MP ultrawide camera that sports a 112-degree field of view and a 2 MP depth sensor. There’s a “Sharpening… Please steady your device message that shows up” each time I click a photo in less than optimal lighting conditions. But, over time, this repetition gets a bit tedious.
What eclipses this little niggle is that the camera performs exceptionally well in low-light conditions. Stills taken in poorly-lit rooms as well as outdoors post-sundown are impressively well-lit and manage to stay true to the actual colour tones. In well-lit conditions, unsurprisingly, it manages to capture colors quite well, and contrasts well when there’s a strong backlight. Portraits with the 50-MP selfie camera tend to be a little over-exposed with skin tones being rendered a shade lighter even with the filters turned-off. With the filters on, you can forget you ever had pores. I looked more like a glazed doughnut than a human.
Tech Specs
The Honor 90 runs on Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 “Accelerated Edition”, which is said to have been manufactured with an advanced 4nm process. For general needs, the processor is more than capable during my everyday use. General multitasking, browsing, casual gaming and doomscrolling are handled with ease.
The unit I’m received had 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage space. The smartphone uses MagicOS 7.1 (based on Android 13) as the user interface. A swipe down from top on the left half of the screen shows the system and app notifications. The same action from the right half of the screen gives me quick access to the control centre. It has some iOS-style vertical bars to tweak brightness and volume, and a widget for media streaming. There’s a whole range of customisable shortcuts for NFC, Nearby Share, Wireless Projection, and an easy shortcut to connect the smartphone to your Windows laptop.
Battery
In terms of battery life, the Honor 90 is right up in the top with other smartphones which pack in a 5,000 mAh battery, and manages to stay on for more than a day with moderate usage. The device supports up to 66W charging and there’s a 30 W charger that ships separately. Plus, with HONOR SuperCharge technology, it does manage to charge up to 20 per cent in 5 minutes — whenever I need a quick top-up.
Verdict
In and of itself, the Honor 90 makes for a decent smartphone in this range, offering an aesthetically pleasing build, excellent battery life and super fast charging speeds, along with a processor that can manage most takes with ease. The camera doesn’t disappoint either, delivering punchy images in most conditions.
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