Honor 5C review

Display

Unfortunately, the Honor 5C’s display is easily its weakest point. Its 5.2in, 1,920 x 1,080 panel is a fraction sharper than the slightly larger 5.5in Moto G4, producing a pixel density of 424ppi over the Moto’s 401ppi, but the 5C just can’t compete on colour accuracy. Photos and images are lacking in warmth, and flesh tones have an obvious yellow tint to them.

Put to the test with our X-Rite colorimeter, it’s easy to see the Honor 5C’s shortcomings. As the display covers only 82.9% of the sRGB colour gamut, the 5C’s cold, tinted colour reproduction is due to the fact that it simply can’t reproduce the most intense hues.

This is a shame, as in other regards the 5C’s display is very promising. For starters, the backlight is astonishingly bright, reaching a maximum brightness of 575.15cd/m2. That’s even brighter than the Moto G4, but the 5C’s 991:1 contrast ratio lags significantly behind the Moto G4’s 1,693:1 result. In practice, that means that images lack punch and solidity as black is reproduced as a dark grey. Set side by side with its Motorola-branded rival, the Honor 5C’s display struggles to stand out.

Battery life

Naturally, having the screen set to maximum brightness will have a disastrous effect on the phone’s already rather poor battery life, so you’ll need to dial it down if you want it to last the day. Despite having a 3,000mAh battery at its disposal, the Honor 5C lasted just 9h 27m in our continuous video playback test with the screen brightness set to 170cd/m2 (around half on the 5C’s brightness scale). This should just about see you home after a day’s work, but even here the Moto G4 once again takes the lead – it managed 13h 39m under the same conditions.

Camera

On the back, you’ll find a 13-megapixel camera – the same resolution you’ll find on the Moto G4. The 5C’s sensor tends to capture rather dark images, but the overall performance is good. Images have a pleasing sense of depth and punch to them, and detail levels are generally very high. It certainly coped very well in cloudy, overcast weather conditions, but I’d recommend using HDR as little as possible, as this had a noticeable impact on contrast and colour vibrancy, resulting in even darker pictures than before.^ Despite the poor weather conditions, the Honor 5C produced bright, punchy colours with plenty of detail ^ However, when I switched on HDR mode, picture quality took a massive dive, so use this mode sparingly

Indoor shots pinpointed the Honor 5C’s weaknesses. It struggled to focus correctly in lower lighting conditions, producing soft, hazy pictures that lacked any kind of sharp outline or definition. The fur on the teddy bear in our test scene, for instance, was very smeary, and shadows contained high levels of noise and fuzzy patches of light. This improved when I switched on our studio lights, but colours then became tinged with yellow, making everything look rather off as a result.^ Indoors, colours looked good in low light, but it struggled to capture a lot of detail

^ Objects became sharper with our studio lights turned on, but colours didn’t look nearly as accurate

Conclusion

The Honor 5C excels when it comes to speed, but fails to excel in any other regard. Even its camera, which is arguably the phone’s only other strong suit, is rather hit and miss depending on lighting conditions. The biggest issue here, though, is the quality of the competition. When you consider that the Moto G4 costs just £20 more yet comes with a better screen, longer-lasting battery and vastly superior build quality, the Honor 5C simply can’t compete.

Buy the Honor 5C now from Vmall