How could an Android flagship smartphone impress its users? This is the question many Android smartphone producers keep digging out its answer, they want to make their products more competitive, including Huawei. It seems Huawei has unlocked the puzzle, and we can find THIS ANSWER from Honor 7.
As a tech-lover, I handed on Honor 7 the first time around. Huawei Honor 7 is a flagship smartphone with fingerprint scanner together with an improved camera, where the Chi-ling Key, Metal body and EMUI 3.1 could also be impressive.
Chi-ling Key
Chi-ling Key locates left side of Honor 7, you can use single-click, double-click and press to operate this key. Different kinds of operation can activate different functions, therefore, it enables you more ways of interaction with your Honor 7.
There’s no default function of Chi-ling Key single click, while you can customize & set shortcuts, i.e. screenshot, flashlight or voice notes. Of course you can use it to start applications, for me I set it as camera. Double click Chi-ling key you can start SmartScene. SmartScene can notice the user and push useful messages according to his/her habit, user record and accessed information.
Those messages includes airline, train, hotel, weather, conference, birthday, and even creditcard payment, notices of doing some reading. If you are a businessman with frequent business trips, then you can set SmartScene to push messages like airline, train, hotel, weather & conference.
While long press Chi-ling Key you can activate the voice assistant of Honor 7 to enable some specific functions. For example, I want to send a message to my mom, what I need to do is long-press Chi-ling Key, and tell Honor 7 “send a message to mom”, the voice assistant could accordingly open short message application. Same like this, I could use voice assistant to make a phone call, set a memo or alarm clock and some other stuff.
In fact, Chi-ling Key also integrates applications like Weibo, Wechat & Didi. Several days ago I traveled to Beijing, I succeeded in using Chi-ling Key to post Weibo and look for local cuisine.
I took a shot in Sanlitun, and wanted to share with my Chinese friend on Weibo. I pressed Chi-ling Key, and talk to Honor 7:”post to Weibo ( like Twitter ) : nice view tonight”. Honor 7 opened Weibo I installed before and posted the content, what I need to do is add the shot, and press “Post”.
You could miss Chinese cuisine when you come to Beijing. Therefore I pressed Chi-ling Key and said “Food in Sanlitun”. Honor 7 recognized my word, and offered various food info.
How to use Chi-ling Key to hail a taxi? Just press it and tell Honor 7 “Hail a taxi”，Honor 7 then opened Didi ( like Uber ) and locates my current location, and pushed my demand. Then I just waited for a taxi driver to contact me.
As a whole, Chi-ling Key can really help in some specific situations, it can also free our hands in some degrees. Though those are some basic functions, Chi-ling Key activates both software & hardware of Honor 7, for this I give Honor 7 bonus points.
Full Metal Body
Excellent industrial design gives user perfect first-impression, regardless of the product itself.
The industrial design of Honor 7 reveals grace and restrain. Both the body and both-side buttons chose metal material. Honor 7 targets at Android flagship device, of course it used exquisite material. It is interesting that even the golden color combined with full metal give you the impression of business.
The metal backcover of Honor 7 has been carried through specific handling. There’s a layer of microgroove which grantee hand-feel and anti-skid. The fingerprint scanner embedded on backcover sunken a little bit that enables me to find recognition area. On the metal backcover we can see embossed camera module, maybe the compromise to guarantee shot performance.
EMUI 3.1
EMUI 3.1 based on Android 5.0 Lollipop considered different users’ preferences. Take navigation bar as an example, EMUI 3.1 provides four different navigation bars to enable user choose the most suitable one according to his/her habits.
Except for the navigation bar, EMUI 3.1 provides options like gesture and single-hand operation. While I especially like EMUI 3.1’s lockscreen with news and wallpaper, theme market to satisfy user’s personal demand, background application, startup and access right managements.
Camera Performance
Honor 7 used SONY IMX230 camera module combined with dual color temperature flahlights. IMX230 with 20 megapixels has ISP of single-lens camera grade module, while it combines with professional graphic process engine. Therefore, Honor 7’s camera has flagship-grade shot performance. To improve shot experience, Honor 7 introduced improved algorithm and used Phase-difference AF tech to make it more sensitive when focusing.
Sample Shots:
Ambient light could affect Honor 7’s shot-taking. In bright ambient light, Honor 7 performs pretty good in imaging quality and white balance. If take full use of this F2.0 aperture, we can get perfect depth effect with natural transition.
20 megapixel camera provides Honor 7’s shooting performance. When shooting performance been improved, most users prefer to take a smartphone instead of a heavy SLR camera, including me. I believe Honor 7 could be the best choice of common SLR during tourism.
Fingerprint Scanner
We can see there’s no metal ring of Fingerprint Scanner module in Honor 7’s backcover. Actually, it is a snap-button fingerprint scanning solution. The fingerprint scanner algorithm of Honor 7 has been improved to provide quicker fingerprint scanning.
Fingerprint scanner used mainly four aspects: unlock screen, access safe, access app lock & verify your Huawei ID. The highest speed of screen-unlock can achieve 0.5 second. You can use Fingerprint scanner for other gesture , i.e. drop down to call out drop-down notification bar, double click to clear notifications, tap it to take a shot.
Conclusion
Honor 7 is a production that caters user experience, meanwhile it highlights integration of software and hardware. We can say it is the feature of Honor family, and Honor 7 integrates them. Chi-ling Key, metal body, EMUI 3.1, camera performance and fingerprint unlock can surely impress you to choose Honor 7. Honor 7 also plays the leadership towards other smartphone products: to impress user, to guarantee user experience first.
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