PhoneSentral Tech in Simplicity
This HONOR 90 review was made possible after I was lent the smartphone for about a month.
During this period, I used the smartphone as my main phone, and managed to learn more about the smartphone.
Design and body
If you read the unboxing post I made about this smartphone, you’d already know that I do like the HONOR 90’s shape and design in general.
I believe the smartphone is made with aluminum and plastic, and the Peacock Blue HONOR 90 I received looked really decent.
I liked the fact the rear is has a matte blue finish and doesn’t hog fingerprints.
The phone commits an under-screen fingerprint scanner and looks good even though the camera bump at the rear will make the smartphone uneven when placed on a flat screen.
The fingerprint scanner is fast to react when used to unlock the screen, with the facial recognition feature also doing such work in seconds.
You can read my opinion about this device in the link below, if you need more detail on the design and body.
Screen and display
The smartphone has a thin bezel display which has 1.07 billion colors, 100% DCI-P3, and 435 PPI.
This in turn allows it to have the best display one can achieve on a mid-range smartphone.
The screen is gaming ready as it can hit 120Hz refresh rate and allows 1600nits Peak Brightness which means it’s still clear despite used under strong lighting.
The display is slightly curved which makes it also look premium.
However, what’s really interesting about this HONOR 90 smartphone is how HONOR seems focused on protecting their user’s eyesight.
The HONOR 90 comes with TUV Rheinland Flicker Free Certification which had 3840Hz Risk Free Dimming Display.
This means the 6.7-inch AMOLED curbed floating display is better at protecting one’s eye when in use.
In a nutshell, most OLED screens these days offer brighter and nicer screens, but unknowingly to the naked eye, low-frequency dimming is also bad to the eye.
HONOR acknowledges this and came up with their high-frequency dimming capabilities for the HONOR 90 5G which flickers less and protect the eye better.
If the dimming capabilities is not enough, HONOR also included the Circadian Color Temperature and Circadian Night Display affect that helps block blue-rays.
I did a whole post about this special feature, so you can check the link below to learn more about it.
Audio system
The speakers of the HONOR 90 is loud, but unfortunately only coming from one end, which is the bottom chin of the smartphone.
Despite that however, audio is satisfactory and good enough to enjoy movies and music.
The sound during gaming is however muffled slightly disrupted as my hands will cover the speaker when I hold the phone in landscape for Call Of Duty (COD).
Processor, RAM and Storage
The smartphone comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 Accelerated Edition 5G processor.
This processor is powerful enough to play numerous types of games like COD, FIFA and PUBG without lag.
Paired with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 processor is 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage space, which is beyond the typical mid-range storage space of 8GB/256GB these days.
In addition to that, the RAM can jump by 7GB extra as HONOR also incorporated the HONOR RAM Turbo technology in this smartphone.
What I did find interesting is how this smartphone handles gaming.
While it is common for phones to heat up when gaming, the HONOR 90 kept its cool as I played COD for a couple of hours.
Loading was fast, hence making the game itself enjoyable.
When opening apps, it felt fast and responsive as well.
Software
The HONOR 90 runs on the HONOR MagicOS 7.1 which is based on Android 13.
I felt the software presents itself very well, being smooth and very snappy when used.
The OS allows cross device connection between devices which share the same HONOR account as well.
This means that apps, calls and notifications are all synced across devices I have which bear the same HONOR account.
I tested this feature between the HONOR Magic5 Pro and HONOR 90 and it was just brilliant as it removed redundancy when using multiple devices.
When I was doing the HONOR 90 5G review, I also noticed HONOR had pushed updates quite often, so the software of the smartphone stays up to date as well.
Camera
Since this is a mid-range smartphone, I lowered my expectations when it came to the camera department for this HONOR 90 5G review.
I admit that I am spoilt by the photo quality produced by the HONOR Magic5 Pro, but that’s a flagship smartphone which is supposed to come with all the whistles and bells HONOR can put in a smartphone.
Despite that, I think the photos produced by the HONOR 90 is respectable and I would say of quality.
This smartphone doesn’t have a 100x zoom, or a 10x optical zoom, with the HONOR 90 coming with a 2X optical zoom at the most.
However, HONOR smartly compensated the lack of zoom options by increasing the megapixels of the triple camera setup to feature a 200 megapixels super Sensing main camera alongside a 12 megapixels ultra-wide and macro camera, with a 12 megapixels depth camera.
Below are photo samples using default settings for different shots available in the camera.
The photos below was taken using the 2x zoom of the photo in daylight and night.
The photos below was taken with the default 1x zoom in daylight and night.
The photo below was taken with the 0.6x zoom in daylight and night.
When it comes to macro shots, images also appear to have good quality as seen in the photo below.
Photos in High-res are automatically taken in 200MP. You can’t zoom in High-res but the photos are definitely more detail and can be enlarged without having it pixelated.
This can be seen in the image below.
Enlarging one of the clouds in the picture above still retains the beauty of the image as it is not pixelated.
The video function of the camera makes use of AI Video Quality Enhancement, AI Vlog Assistant and Video Noise Reduction.
This makes video making pretty fun with minimal additional devices.
I really enjoyed vlogging using the HONOR 90. The multi-video feature is easy to access if compared to the HONOR Magic5 Pro and there’s so many ways to do a video.
Image stabilization while moving is also good to me. The gif below shows briefly about a recent vlog I made to test the camera, which you can also view here.
If you need to know what I think about the camera in more detail, check out my HONOR 90 camera review below.
Overall, I do feel the camera is capable to take good photos, and considering the price point, it is actually very good.
I love the multi-video feature and the 200MP option as it would greatly help me when I am doing content creation.
Battery performance
The battery of the HONOR 90 is 5,000mAh battery that supports the 66W HONOR SuperCharge, which is included in the box.
This means the phone can get 45% of power after a 15-minute charge.
Thanks to Built-in AI Power Saving Technology, I could squeeze two days of battery with normal usage which include light texting, video watching, internet surfing and photo taking.
When gaming continuously, the battery drains adequately but I could still get about a day of power for normal use (surfing, texting and social media).
Durability
A few accidental drops would not damage this smartphone because such incidents did happen while I was using the phone.
There’s no IP rating for the smartphone, so getting it wet is at your own risk.
The SIM card slot however does have a green rubber. I think this rubber helps keep the internals dry if you happen to wet the phone.
If you intend to keep the phone pristine, HONOR had also bundled a silicone case in the box for use.
HONOR 90 5G review verdict and availability
As a mid-range smartphone, I believe the HONOR 90 is a real contender to be crowned as one of the best in its category.
The smartphone is not perfect, but it does well in the important areas which include photography, battery life and gaming.
The fact HONOR also made an effort to protect their users’ vision with the TUV Rheinland Flicker Free Certification only adds to the appeal of this smartphone.
Now, with it being priced at just RM2,099, I expect this smartphone to be very popular among those conscious about price, but wanting a phone that can take good photos, be used to play games and have enough battery power to last a whole day.
