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Hands on: Honor Holly review

The Honor Holly is the latest smartphone to come out of the Chinese startup and it follows in the footsteps of the Honor 6, offering better-than-expected specs for the price tag.

While the Honor 6 is the flagship device, the Holly falls at the opposite end of the spectrum with a price tag of sub-£100.

Honor hasn't revealed its final price, and for a short time you'll be able to get the Holly at a reduced rate as part of the firm's price hack promotion, and it goes on sale on February 23.

So what do you get for the reasonable price tag? Inside there's a 1.3GHz quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM in charge of running Android 4.4.2 KitKat.

On the rear you'll find an 8MP camera while on the front a 2MP snapper sits above a 5-inch, 720p display.

That's not a bad line up for a budget device, and when you factor in the inclusion of a microSD slot on top of the 16GB of internal storage the Honor Holly is on paper at least, a strong offering.

The build is quite clearly plastic, but that's hardly surprising considering the price point, and the Holly does at least feel solid and well built.

There's quite a bit of bezel below the screen when the capacitive keys are housed - and I'd much rather see the buttons moved on-screen and the bezel reduced in size. But I'm being picky.

You can peel off the rear cover, starting at the microUSB port at the base of the Holly, to reveal the removable battery, microSD slot and dual micro SIM ports.

I did find it a little tricky to remove the plastic cover - but at least it means it won't fall off easily - and the fact you need to remove the battery to get to the other ports is a slight annoyance.

The volume rocker and power/lock key are both located on the right of the Holly, falling nicely under thumb or finger during one handed operation.

On screen Android has been coated in Huawei's (Honor's parent company) Emotion UI. The interface won't be to everyone's liking, especially the Android purists, but the decision to remove the app tray for a more iOS approach means it's relatively simple for first time users to grasp.

The large, 5-inch display is bright and clear and it offers up one of the best screens at the budget end of the market.

There's plenty of space to play the latest game or browse the web, and the 720p resolution means everything still looks pretty good.

It's not the slickest handset I've used, with a slight pause between opening and closing applications, but keeping the price in mind it's certainly not an issue.

Huawei's keyboard isn't the most efficient when it comes to text input, but you can also fall back on Google's stock Android offering or take to Google Play for a third party alternative such as SwiftKey.

The 8MP rear camera on the Honor Holly provides enough grunt to take some relatively decent shots, and while it's never going to challenge the top smartphones around it easily bests a lot of the competition at its price point.

There are a variety of modes and effects which can be applied to your snap, plus features such as HDR, face detection and smile shot help you make the most of your surroundings.

Early verdict

The Honor Holly is a promising budget handset with a strong line up of specs and an eye catching price tag.

Trouble is you won't find it in stores as it's an online only venture and exposure for the handset could well be very limited.

It may not sell by the truck load, but early signs are positive for anyone tempted to take the plunge.

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