Review of Honour 90: A return to form, but at what cost?

 Review of Honour 90: A return to form, but at what cost?

The newest product from the reborn brand, the Honour 90, was available for us to try out.

After a three-year absence, Honour has returned to the market, but it still needs to win over customers before it can enjoy the same success. The Honour 90, which has a starting price of Rs 37,999, is the device the business has chosen to focus on the upper mid-range market. Let's find out if it's actually worth that much money as it seems like a costly price.

Display and design

On the outside, Honour did not skimp. The Honour 90 has a smooth, rounded body for a fantastic in-hand feel, is slim and elegant, well-built, light and balanced. Additionally, it has a really opulent and attractive design. I chose the shade Emerald Green, which blinds you with a million sparkles when it catches the sun just right.

Another tale is how it feels. Despite being one of the most pleasant smartphones to hold due to its incredibly rounded form, light weight, and compact profile, the materials used are not particularly hip. Although the back is glass, it has a little plasticky feel, and the frame is not made of metal.

However, the phone's display can be saved because to its curved form, which makes it appear as though UI elements are hovering above the device. PWM dimming is another feature of this panel. When using the phone for extended periods of time, Honour promises to dramatically minimise eye fatigue. But I was unable to distinguish between them. Perhaps older people will value it more. Or perhaps it's something that I'll only notice after using my smartphone for a while.

The Honour 90's 120Hz display is sharp, moderately bright, and even boasts a 1.5K resolution, all characteristics of a display that would be close to that of a flagship device save for PWM dimming.

Software and performance

The Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 Accelerated Edition chip, which is not the newest and greatest from Qualcomm, powers the Honour 90. Although the Snapdragon 7 Gen 2 is superior in every way, the Honour 90 has a tiny advantage thanks to the Accelerated Edition suffix. This translates to a slight speed advantage due to the CPU's prime core being increased from its typical 2.4GHz to 2.5GHz. Just around 6,00,000 is the AnTuTu score, which is reasonable but not particularly spectacular. Nevertheless, it excels at handling routine chores because of the highly tuned MagicOS 7.1 veneer.

As a former Honour Play user, MagicOS came as a welcome surprise. It had apps and icons that resembled EMUI and had a very familiar appearance, but that was a good thing. Honour concentrated on cleaning the user interface and improving fluidity rather than adding pointless changes to it. The fact that Honour collaborated with both Google and Microsoft meant that I could benefit from the best of both worlds. There were all of Google's applications and services, but SwiftKey was the default keyboard application.

The only thing that bothered me was an unwelcome upgrade that changed the notification panel to a Control Centre similar to that on iOS. I miss the cheesy 'Control Centre' language that was absent from the notification screen since it made it more simplistic.

Camera

On paper, the Honour 90's primary camera's huge 200MP Samsung ISOCELL HP3 sensor sounds like a dream come true. In addition to this sensor, there is a 2MP depth sensor and a 12MP ultrawide sensor. In daylight, the primary sensor provides passable but unremarkable photos.

When you zoom in, the details do have a tendency to fade a little more than you'd think. On the plus side, all of the colours are really accurate and have realistic tones. The story is similar in the night mode.

However, the majority of consumers would be happy with the Honour 90's camera performance. The pictures are actually rather good and are prepared for social media sharing.

The Honour 90's price tag of Rs 37,999 has placed it in a precarious position. Its specifications, other from the amazing display, do not exactly scream flagship killer. You can get flagship-killers like the Oppo Reno 10 Pro+ and the OnePlus 11R, both of which have flagship-grade processors, for a little bit more money. Again, it is not a bad phone at all, but due to its positioning in the market and reliance more on brand value than on value for money, it is somewhat reminiscent of Samsung. If you intend to purchase this smartphone, you will undoubtedly be wowed by its quad-curved display and its slick, optimal software. However, the phone is difficult to sell after that.