Huawei Honor 5A — smartphone review, camera photos, video

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To test the “omnivorous” nature of video playback (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, such as subtitles), we used the most common formats, which make up the bulk of the content available on the Internet. Note that for mobile devices it is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is most often impossible to process modern options using processor cores alone.

Further testing of video playback was performed by Alexey Kudryavtsev.

We did not find the MHL interface, like Mobility DisplayPort, in this smartphone, so we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see

“Methodology for testing video signal playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices)»). Screenshots with a shutter speed of 1 s helped determine the nature of the output of frames of video files with various parameters: the resolution varied (1280 by 720 (720p), 1920 by 1080 (1080p)

Note: If green scores are set in both columns Uniformity and Skips, this means that, most likely, when watching films, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and skipping of frames will either not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect viewing comfort. Red marks indicate possible problems with playback of the corresponding files.

According to the criterion of frame output, the quality of playback of video files on the screen of the smartphone itself is good, since in most cases frames (or groups of frames) can (but are not required) be output with more or less uniform alternation of intervals and without skipping frames. When playing video files with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels (1080p) on a smartphone screen, the image of the video file itself is displayed exactly at the height of the screen (in landscape orientation), one to one in pixels, that is, in the original resolution.

The brightness range displayed on the screen corresponds to the standard range of 16-235: all shade gradations are displayed in shadows and highlights, which is required for correct playback of typical video files. Note that this smartphone does not support hardware decoding of H.265 files with a color depth of 10 bits per color.

Design

Honor 5a comes in three different colors namely black, white and gold. In principle, they all look pretty good, but we like the gold shade the most. It is in this color that the smartphone looks the most harmonious and attractive. The rest of the design of the smartphone is responsible for the back cover, which is made in the style of a textured pattern, sits nicely in the hand and shimmers in the sun, as well as a thin silver edging around the body, made to look like metal.

The device is made entirely of plastic and is a classic candy bar. The front side of the smartphone is covered with protective glass, which copes well with minor scratches. Of course, we didn’t abuse the phone too much, but the surface remained smooth, without visible scuffs. There are no classic “home”, “back” and “menu” buttons on the front panel; instead, the inscription “Honor” is emblazoned on the phone’s body, and the buttons themselves have moved to the smartphone screen in a virtual form.

It’s worth saying a few words separately about the video camera of the Huawei Honor 5a, which by design protrudes about a millimeter on top of the back cover of the phone. It looks, of course, quite nice, but the question is how long the camera will remain intact without using the rear bumper. Personally, it seems to us that when actively using the phone, it is still better not to neglect the rear bumper, otherwise unsightly scratches or even microchips may appear on the camera.

The remaining functional elements are in place. The earpiece and front camera are located at the front, the main speaker and microUSB port are at the bottom, and the noise-canceling microphone and headphone jack are at the top. On the right side of the side edge we have the lock key and volume rocker, which have been familiar since time immemorial.

But on the left is the “smart” button, which was very popular when the smartphone was released. If you wish, you can assign a wide variety of actions or even a couple to it. As for our opinion, the most interesting feature of the smart button, in our opinion, is “hidden” shooting with the main camera by double-clicking when the phone is locked. I immediately remember the good old films about the valiant agent 007.

The back cover of the device is removable and hides the same removable battery, which is becoming an increasingly rare occurrence today. Also, it is under the cover that we can install two nano SIM cards and an additional memory card. By the way, the ability to use two SIM cards and a microSD card at the same time was very pleasing.

In general, the design of Honor 5a does not evoke a sense of novelty. It is quite attractive, but boring, and, despite all the efforts of the designers, its low budget immediately catches your eye. But I really liked the build quality of the device. The phone feels solid, intact and does not play or squeak at all when you try to push it or twist it. Considering that it is completely plastic, the developers can only be praised.

Camera

The front camera of Honor 8X has a 16 MP sensor and an f/2.0 aperture lens. In program mode with background blur, the aperture is “clamped” to f/4.0. The camera tries very hard, but in room lighting indoors the automation still cannot cope with uniform exposure due to the narrow dynamic range, the image is whitish and overexposure is visible everywhere. However, in dark areas the detail remains, after all, this is not quite a budget level, the camera is not that bad, although not top-end.

When artificially creating a bokeh effect, the AI ​​does not highlight the central object perfectly, especially in the hair area. Accordingly, spots of blur are visible everywhere along the contour of the object. If we don’t touch on the issue of the notorious background blur, then in normal mode, in general, the front camera is not bad in terms of detail and color reproduction, it is a confident average level.

Honor 8X has a dual main camera. The main module with a 20 MP sensor resolution and an f/1.8 aperture lens is standardly complemented by a module with a 2 MP sensor resolution for measuring depth of field. Phase detection autofocus (PDAF) is fast and adequate, the flash is single, but quite bright.

There is also support for AI, which, when recognizing the background and object in real time, identifies more than 500 types of scenes in 22 categories, setting the optimal shooting parameters for each frame, according to the automation. There is a manual settings mode, as well as special shooting modes — portrait, monochrome, night.

Examples of shooting with the rear camera:

It’s impossible to call the detail of the images high even if you want to, but during the day it is acceptable. However, even in daytime images, ripples of noise are noticeable, and foliage, grass and tree branches tend to merge into a hazy cloud. There is a traditional drop in sharpness towards the edges of the frame. In general, the quality of the images is average, since the high resolution (20 megapixels) allows you to brighten up the low detail and get decent frames of a smaller size.

1/11 s

night mode

1/16 s

night mode

1/25 s

night mode

night mode

night mode

In the dark, the camera produces a very weak image, as expected, but if you turn on the night mode, which stitches several images into one and thereby removes noise and other artifacts, the result is somewhat better — at least brighter and sharper, because at shutter speed About 1/10 of a second is very difficult to take a blur-free handheld shot.

Videos can be shot in 1080p at 60 fps, this is the highest possible quality. Video is encoded in H.265 or H.264, your choice. There is no stabilization. The video quality is average, both in terms of detail and sharpness, and at night the camera shoots video noticeably worse than even the Mate 20 lite. The soundtrack is recorded more or less cleanly.

• Video No. 1
  (29 MB, 1920×1080@60 fps, H.264, AAC)
• Video No. 2
  (58 MB, 1920×1080@60 fps, H.264, AAC)
• Video No. 3
  (70 MB, 1920×1080@60 fps, H.264, AAC)
• Video No. 3
  (41 MB, 1920×1080@60 fps, H.264, AAC)