To help you, I have created this single post that links to all of the review posts written on the Honor Holly.
And all the camera shots are in their own Flickr album click here.
Tag Archives: Review
Honor Holly – Review – Conclusion
Welcome back to part 4 of my review on the Honor Holly. Today I will cover off my final thoughts on this lovely budget phone.
Huawei have produced a decent budget phone with the Honor Holly that is dual sim, 16gb storage with micro sd expansion and a camera that took much better photos than I expected. The included software provides enough to get most people off the ground with an all round capable budged priced smartphone.
Its additional versatility with the dual sim really makes it stand out from the crowd. I can see this being a popular addition to the Honor range. And at the moment it is on for pre order at Amazon UK
Honor Holly – Camera Samples
Following my post covering the camera app software, this post includes a selection of camera samples. For a budget phone the camera took some really good photos.
Honor Holly – Review – Part 2
Welcome back to the Honor Holly review part 2. Today I am going to cover the audio and camera.
The Honor Holly camera app has a number of options available including ISO controls all the way up to ISO 1,600. The burst mode captures up to 40 shots or you can amend the setting to allow up to 99 shots in a burst. The burst mode works fairly well. The separate post today covers off some of the camera shots taken on this phone.
It also features a number of other options from HDR, Face detection and timer can be set for 2 or 10 seconds.
Scene mode has options for night, sunset, party, portrait, panorama, night portrait, theatre, beach, snow, steady photo, fireworks, sports, candle light or auto. There is a number of colour filters available from whiteboard, blackboard, aqua, negative, sepia and mono.
The main interface on the left side includes modes for panorama, face beauty, live photo mode (combines a photo and video) and the standard camera shooting mode. On the top right you can toggle HDR and the flash and switch between front and rear camera.
All in all a competent set of options and in my testing a good camera too that punches above it weight at its price point.
The Honor Holly has its own music player app, similar to Honor 6 which I reviewed recently.It also includes a number of options in the graphic equaliser department as shown below.
The loudspeaker sounded a bit tinny and the sound via the headphone socket was satisfactory. However, with the help of all the EQ options you could tweak it to your liking. I tried connecting via USB Audio but the Honor Holly does not support this.
Tomorrow I will provide my final thoughts on the Honor Holly.
Fiio RC-HD1 Cable – Review
The Fiio RC-HD1 features a special PCOCC-A high purity OCC copper wire construction,high purity wire creates excellent conductivity, four segment straight copper plated gold 2.5mm / 3.5mm connections and outstanding tension resistance. It is a replacement cable for the Sennheiser HD518, HD558 and HD598.
Specifications –
– Length: 120cm
– Sheath material: TPE
– Shielding layer: PCOCC-A
– Insulating layer: PFA
– Conductor: PCOCC-A
– Outermost diameter: 2.4mm×2 (Parallel structure)
– Plug: 2.5mm / 3.5mm
Not all cables are created equal. Whether you believe this cable is worth £30 is up to you to decide, but I have been extremely happy with it. The Sennheiser HD5xx range comes with a 3 metre cable terminated with a 6.3mm plug which does not fit any portable gear or smartphones. It does come with an adapter to convert the 6.3mm plug down to 3.5mm but then you have this huge component sticking out of your headphone socket, which also will create a lot of strain of the headphone jack.
The Fiio cable is a replacement speaker cable for the HD5xx range of headphones. For a start it is only 120cm long and terminated with a 3.5mm plug.
In addition it upgrades the quality of the sound experienced through the HD5xx headphones. In use I found my music to provide clearer treble and midrange. tighter bass and a wider sound stage. It is also a lot easier to use my HD518 headphones with a shorter cable length.
For those that haven’t heard of Fiio they make a number of budget audio components that offer huge bang for your bucks.
Honor Holly – Review – Part 1
Welcome to my review of the Honor Holly.
The Honor Holly is budget priced phone but as you will see, it comes with some midrange features. So lets have a look at the hardware. The back of the phone is white, and lifting the battery cover off reveals it is a dual sim phone with a micro SD slot too for cards up to 32gb. The battery is removable and therefore also user replaceable too.
The official specifications of the Honor Holly are –
– 5 inch IPS 720p screen
– Quad Core CPU MT6582 1.3GHz
– 16gb Storage
– 1gb ram
– Android 4.4.2 with Emotion UI
– 8MP rear & 2MP front cameras, both BSI and with F/2.0, panoramic mode, beauty mode, HDR mode, continuous shot, scene mode and video stabilizer
– Battery 2,000maH
– Dimensions – 142.2 x 72.3 x 9.4
– Removable battery
– Dual sim, plus micro sd up to 32gb
– 48 hours battery life
The Emotion UI skin provides a clean look as without the app drawer.
As you can see there are a few extra apps included in the Honor Holly to add to the experience. Also included is WPS Office by Kingsoft Office Software, Facebook and Twitter. In the pull down settings, cast screen is included automatically as is the sound profiles (4 options). The phone comes with 16gb storage of which just over 12gb is available.
Whilst the phone is 720p in resolution, this did not impact my enjoyment as the device had good viewing angles and had a high brightness level. Battery life is stated at 48 hours and in my usage I managed close to that figure. In terms of benchmarking AnTuTu scored 18,995 and Geekbench 3, 352 for Single Core and 1156 for Multi Core. I have said I don’t personally care for these types of scoring as they often don’t translate in to real life usage. I have found the Honor Holly to be snappy to use and quick opening applications.
So far it has been a positive experience.
Tomorrow I will cover off the audio and camera and in the meantime, if you have any questions, please let me know.
Plantronics BackBeat Pro Bluetooth Headphone Review
First lets check out the specifications. It is worth reading these in detail as these headphones are smart –
– Wireless Range – Up to 100 meters/330 feet from phone or tablet with Class 1 Bluetooth
– Multi-Point – Simultaneously connect two Bluetooth devices (2H2S)
– In the box – BackBeat PRO headphones, 3.5mm audio cable (Apple), USB charge cable, travel sleeve
– Bluetooth Profiles – Bluetooth v4.0 + EDR – A2DP for audio streaming, AVRCP for music controls, Hands-free v1.6 for wideband, and Headset v1.2
– Battery Power – Up to 24 hours of listening time from rechargeable battery | Up to 21 days standby time | Up to 180 days in DeepSleep mode
– Battery Type- Rechargeable, non-replaceable lithium-ion
– Charge Time -Up to 3 hours
– Weight – 340 grams
– Noise-cancellation Controllable Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) plus Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and dual microphones
– Voice Alerts – Spoken alerts in 14 language options, which vary by region (US and UK English, Cantonese, Danish, EU-French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Norwegian, Russian, EU-Spanish and Swedish)
– OpenMic™ feature lets you hear your surroundings
– Automatic music play/pause when headphones are put on/removed
These are my reference bluetooth headphones for a number of reasons. First they sound freaking awesome with APT-X support too. These are bass monsters, deep sub level bass but surprisingly they don’t ruin the mid or trebles too much. . They are great fun to use and listen too and make most music entertaining to listen too. BUT they are not for audio purists. I believe it’s always good to have a fun pair of headphones. Despite their exaggerated bass, the still command speed, attack and an overall decent presentation.
They are very comfortable to wear and if you can manage 24 hours of non stop music then these are just the ticket. Since owning these I have updated the firmware and changed the language from US to UK English. When connected to your PC you also have the options to turn off some of the voice actions. When you place these over your ears, the female voice confirms when phone 1 and phone 2 is connected and the level of the battery. Plantronics have an app you can download that amongst some of its features also confirms how many hours are left in the headphones battery. Remember, 24 hours playback with only 3 hours to recharge. Switching between connected devices works effortlessly.
Then there is the auto off and on feature. Take the headphones off your head. The music is paused. Place them back on your head, and the music starts again.
From the headphones itself, you can take calls etc, play/pause music, skip forward or backwards and adjust the volume. The headphones also feature noise reduction to eliminate outside noise. This can be turned on or off. There is also a mic button on the headphones. If somebody starts talking to you, you will not be able to hear them. But pressing the mic button, pushes the sound to the rear and you can now hear properly and conduct a conversation. The headphones comes with a black soft cushion sleeve and a wired cable for times when the batteries run dry. But with 24 hours playback that’s unlikely to happen! Plus 3 hours to recharge them only.
Seriously Plantronics have thought of everything with these bluetooth headphones. So long as you don’t mind the extra bass then these are recommended. As I mentioned at the start, these are my reference bluetooth headphones. Cutting the chord has never been so much fun.
Honor Holly – Camera Samples
Next week I am reviewing the Honor Holly which is a new dual sim phone from Honor.
I have found that the camera takes lovely photos. A few sample shots are shown below.
For a budget phone, the camera punches above its weight.
Acer V15 Nitro Black Edition – Windows 8.1 – Laptop review
Welcome to my thoughts on the Acer V15 Nitro Black Edition Windows 8.1 laptop. This is one powerhouse of a laptop. You could call it the “powerful one”.
The core specs are –
– Windows 8.1 Intel Core i7-4710HQ Quad-core 2.50 GHz
– 39.6 cm (15.6″) HD (1366 x 768) 16:9
– NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M with 2 GB Dedicated Memory
– 16 GB, DDR3L SDRAM , 1 TB HDD + 128 GB SSD
As part of the Nitro black themed laptop, the keyboard back lighting is red. This looks cool IMO.
The display is fabulous. Just look at the colours of the sunflower. That’s the beauty of its IPS 1080p screen resolution. If you want 4K resolution this is available too as an option.
The Acer V15 runs Windows 8.1 so has the world of Microsoft at your finger tips.
To keep the slim profile, there is no DVD/CD drive. The opposite edge only houses the kensington lock point. On the side shown above you have the USB ports(3), headphone socket, HDMI, ethernet, and power connector. On the front edge is a memory card slot.
So what makes this “Nitro” edition so special. Simply, this is a pure gaming grade laptop, with huge graphics, powerful CPU, 4 decent built in speakers, MIMO wifi and Skype certified out of the box. The 4 speakers provide a decent loud sound. The volume was near full volume when I first used the machine, which made me stand back at just how loud it could go.
The storage configuration is a 128 Solid State Drive with a 1 TB hard drive. Plenty of storage space! And the SSD for speed. If you look back at the specs above, you will note the Intel Core i7 and respective graphics chip. So am I blinding you with specs? Slightly, but in real life this means you will have power on tap.
From a cold boot to a ready on state. Less than 7 seconds and fully ready. Impressive. Just as quick to fully shut down too. Editing video was notably faster on the Nitro too. My 4 year old MacBook Pro can barely cope with video editing and takes nearly 2 mins to boot up from cold. Gaming. I played several games, again with no issue whatsoever.
In my other article covering the Acer Chromebook, I commented how much I enjoyed this. However, I have been surprised at just how quick all my photo and video editing can be accomplished with this machine. It really is night and day faster than my 4 year old MacBook Pro. Plus with a Windows 8.1 base, my gaming options are vast.
I now face a dilemma. Since using this, I just can’t accept anything inferior! Thanks go out to Acer for the review unit.
Acer C720 ChromeBook review
For the last 2 weeks I have been using 3 different laptop type devices. My ageing MacBook Pro, an Acer C720 ChromeBook and an Acer V15 Nitro Windows 8.1 laptop to see which one I will opt for once my MacBook dies completely, which won’t be long.
But what I am going to do today, is write my thoughts down on the Acer C720 ChromeBook,the Acer V15 Nitro in a different post, and then on a mini comparison between all 3 devices.
First lets have a look at the specifications of the Acer C720 Chromebook.
– 11.6″ 1366×768 TN display
– 1.4GHz dual-core Intel Celeron 2955U processor
– Intel HD graphics
– 16GB SSD
– 2GB DDR3 RAM
– 1x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.0
– HDMI output
– SD card reader (up to 32GB)
– 720p webcam
– Bluetooth 4.0
– 3.5mm headphone minijack
– Dimensions: 288x202x19mm
– Weight: 1.25 kg
Nothing spectacular in the specifications except for the choice of processor which helps provide long battery life of 8.5 hours. Other aspects of the specifications include a 7 second boot up time, Solid State Drive memory and free 100 GB of Google Drive cloud storage for 2 years. The C720 is also available in 32 GB SSD and another version which has a touch screen. The 16gb memory can be expanded by the of an SD card.
Those are the specs but what do I think of the Acer Chromebook. Well, this is my first ever chromebook that I have used and it has been a revelation. My MacBook Pro is toast. Why? Well, the Acer chromebook only takes 7 seconds to boot up, and in reality it takes longer for you to enter your password than it does boot up! The battery life lasts far longer than my MacBook Pro. I recall one day of usage from 9am to 5pm on a Sunday. I had been using it constantly and looked at the battery life to find it was only at 29%. It is also lightweight enough to be great to lug around as well.
But let me step back to the very first powering on. The Acer C720 just required my Google email and password and that was it. All my music, photos, files and documents were at my finger tips. The chromebook also has a guest mode, or if I decided to upgrade or sell the device on, all you have to do is go into settings, select “powerwash” and in a few minutes the device is cleaned and ready for its next owner. You can also speed up the entering of your password, by enabling smart unlock in the settings using your android phone. If it detects your phone is nearby it unlocks the chromebook.
The Acer C720 has built in loudspeakers which were clear and concise. I plugged in my headphones and was very happy with the sound quality. In usage the machine is fast, really fast. Everything is smooth and I really have not enjoyed using a device so much in ages. I have not touched my Samsung Tab S since using the chromebook, and the Acer C720 has been most impressive in its endurance, speed and reliability. Printing. Fortunately I have a HP wireless printer that comes with cloud printing out of the box so there was no issues getting documents printed from the Acer Chromebook. Cloud Printing uses your printers unique email address to send files for printing. I wanted to transfer photos from my smartphone to Chromebook. I found that the easier wireless method was using an app on my android phone called Photosync (the app has versions for ios too) and opening a special http page on Chrome was able to see my directories with photos and copy them across. This was the only item that required a bit of a workaround. Other than that I have had no issues with productivity using the Chromebook.
Based on my few weeks use I highly recommend this device is you are using Google services. It just works so effortlessly and has been a competent machine too. My thanks to Acer for the review unit too.
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