Huawei’s online only brand Honor launched its budget smartphone Honor Bee in India for Rs. 4,999. Like other Honor phones, this smartphone is available to buy exclusively from Flipkart. Although there are many smartphones available in the Indian market in the same price range, the Honor Bee packs powerful innards and gives its rivals run for their money. It gives competition to the likes of Micromax Canvas Spark and InFocus M2 phones which fall in the same price category. We got to spend fortnight with the Honor Bee and we can say it is a solid phone in this price range. If you are still confused about whether to buy or not to buy this phone, then here is our Honor Bee hands on and detailed first impression to help you make an informed decision.

Design

On design front, it features a plastic back cover with matte finish and rounded edges. It fits perfectly in one hand.

 

The 4.5-inch FWVGA (854 x 480 pixels) display of the handset is pretty good. The display is fairly bright and offers decent movie viewing and gaming experience to the users.

There is a 2 mega pixel front facing camera located above the display alongside earpiece.

Below the display, there are three capacitive touch buttons (without backlit support).

There is a volume rocker and power button on the right edge of the phone.

It comes with a 3.5mm audio jack and charging port at the top edge.

Microphone is located at the lower edge.

Speaker mesh is placed at the bottom on rear of the phone.

Under the hood, on removing the rear panel, you will see two SIM slots, removable battery and a microSD card slot for expandable storage. With 129x 66.3×10 mm dimensions and 170 grams weight, the phone looks handy and suitable for single handed use.

Hardware

Talking about technical specifications of the phone, it is powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core Spreadtrum SC7731 Cortex-A7 processor coupled with 1GB of RAM which helps the phone to handle multiple tasks seamlessly. The 1730mAh battery onboard is good enough to survive for a day on moderate usage.

There is an 8 mega pixel rear camera with dual LED flash which is good enough to take pictures even in low light. Honor Bee is the first phone in this price segment to offer dual LED flash feature. The rear camera also supports full HD video recording. The 2 mega pixel front shooter is also good at taking selfies.

There is  8GB of inbuilt storage onboard which is expandable up to 32GB via microSD card.

Software

The handset runs Android 4.4 KitKat wrapped under company’s Emotion UI 3.0 Lite which is a lighter version of Emotion UI (usually in pricier phones). The interface is user friendly and simple to use.

Verdict

If you are on a tight budget and your budget is fixed at Rs. 5,000 then Honor Bee is the best option for you to buy. The handset does not compare with mid-ranged or premium smartphones, yet it is a good buy for those who want to upgrade to an affordable entry level smartphone with fairly decent specs and features. The Honor Bee does not fail to impress us on any front and is certainly worth giving a try.

Also Read: Honor 4C Hands On And First Impressions