Honor has returned to the scene in our country after a three-year break. But before customers fully embrace it like before, there's some persuading to do. Honor is targeting the upper mid-range market with its new Honor 90, starting at Rs 37,999.
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Design
When it comes to design, Honor has taken a stylish yet subtle approach with the design of the Honor 90. At the back of the device, you will notice a unique oval-shaped camera setup that draws its inspiration from the world of jewelry design. This is part of Honor's Mirror Luna concept incorporating circles and ellipses and it draws its motifs from the phases of the moon.
In terms of build, the rear panel on the phone is made of glass, as per the company, but it feels a lot like polycarbonate, which is basically plastic. The emerald color variant, which I am using, has a matte finish. The finish looks elegant as well as has practical benefits — it's impervious to fingerprint smudges. For those seeking different aesthetics, the Honor 90 also comes in white and black variants, both of which feature a glossy glass rear.
On the right side of the phone, you will spot the power button and the volume controls. Down at the bottom, there are vents for a single speaker, a USB Type-C port for charging, and a slot for a SIM card. Despite being really lightweight, this phone is surprisingly tough. According to the company, and I have confirmed this in my own testing, the back panel is strong enough to crack open a nut, which is pretty impressive. When you hold the phone, you'll notice it has a nice curved shape that feels comfortable in your hand. It's slim and easy to hold, so using it with just one hand is really convenient.
Display
The Honor 90 really shines when it comes to its display. The 6.7-inch quad-curved AMOLED screen supports 1.5K (2,664 x 1,200) resolution and up to 120Hz display. But the next two features are what make it stand out: firstly, you get up to 1600 nits of peak brightness, which means the display gets plenty bright under direct sunlight. the display supports up to 3840Hz PWM dimming, making it the fastest in the industry. PWM dimming, short for Pulse Width Modulation dimming, is a feature that provides a flicker-free display at low brightness levels, aiming to reduce eye fatigue when looking at the screen in a dark environment. While this feature was not immediately noticeable to me when browsing through Instagram in the dark just before sleeping, it provided comfort in knowing that my eyes weren’t getting strained.
In short, the Honor 90 5G offers a flagship-grade display that is not only bright and vibrant but also protects your eyes. The display is great for watching content, offering plenty of sharpness and vibrancy.
Performance and Software
The Honor 90 is powered by the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 Accelerated Edition chip, which is not exactly the latest and greatest from Qualcomm. The Snapdragon 7 Gen 2 outshines it in every aspect, but the Honor 90 has a small consolation prize: the Accelerated Edition suffix.
This means that the CPU’s prime core has been boosted to 2.5GHz from the usual 2.4GHz, resulting in a marginal performance improvement.
The AnTuTu score is just below 6,00,000, which is respectable but not impressive. It does handle everyday tasks like a champ though, thanks to the superbly optimized MagicOS 7.1 skin.
Honor 90 Camera
The Honor 90 boasts an impressive camera setup. It features a 200-megapixel primary camera, a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor on the rear. For selfies, there's a high-resolution 40-megapixel front camera. The camera performance in real-world usage is equally impressive.
The 200-megapixel primary camera sensor excels at capturing detailed, sharp, and vibrant images. Colors pop and the focus is on point. The ultra-wide camera also performs well during daylight hours, although the colors are not as vivid as those from the primary camera, it still captures a lot of details.
On the front, the 40-megapixel camera is no slouch. The front camera offers portrait mode with similar capabilities, producing vibrant and crisp selfies. I have a feeling that users will definitely enjoy taking selfies with the Honor 90.
Camera Sample
Battery and Charging
The Honor 90 5G packs a 5,000mAh battery that’s good enough to last a full day and then some. Battery drain during typical day-to-day tasks like messaging, social media browsing, checking emails, etc., is managed efficiently thanks to the 4nm chipset. During a 30-minute BGMI gaming session, the battery dropped by around 5 percent, with little to no noticeable heating throughout. In our PCMark battery test, the phone lasted roughly 12 hours, which isn’t the best in its segment, but is quite decent.
While the device supports 66W charging, you don’t get a bundled charger in the box in India. Honor stated that you can get its 66W charger separately free of cost. Using Honor’s charger takes roughly 50 minutes to fully charge the phone from zero to 100 percent.
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