News & Reviews:   Honor 3C Lite

When the Huawei Honor 3C first came out, it made a big splash as one of the few smartphones in Malaysia to offer big features at a relatively tiny entry-level price of RM499. Nearing the end of the year and the Huawei Honor 3C Lite has entered the scene, cutting this price tag down even further to RM399 but at the cost of some of the features and tech specs that defined the earlier Honor 3C. Does the Huawei Honor 3C Lite measure up? Check out our review of the Honor 3C Lite below to find out.

Retailing at just RM399, the Huawei Honor 3C Lite offers nearly all the same tech specs and performance as the earlier released Honor 3C smartphone. We go hands-on to prove this with the Honor 3C Lite smartphone in our hands-on video below. Check it out for yourself as we take it for a spin with demanding apps like Asphalt 8:Airborne.

The Huawei Honor 3C Lite offers a number of big features at an even lower price of RM399 including an 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a 1.3GHz quad-core processor. Offering the same looks and design, other tech specs like the 5-inch HD display are also retained. Thanks to Huawei Malaysia the Malaysian Honor team we managed to get some time with this value smartphone. Check out our unboxing video below for a look at what the Huawei Honor 3C Lite comes with.

Huawei has recently released a number of smartphones for their Honor range of smartphones aimed at the young and young at heart. However, it seems that these Huawei Honor smartphones like the Huawei Honor 6, Huawei Honor 6 Plus and Huawei Honor 3C Lite are now going to become known as just the Honor 6, Honor 6 Plus and Honor 3C Lite. This news comes direct from a source in Huawei itself saying that the Honor range of smartphones have evolved enough to warrant them following an entirely new and different direction than Huawei's usual range of devices. This also includes a new UI all targeted along their Honor tagling "For the Brave". It also explains why most of the newer Honor smartphones don't have any Huawei logos or branding at all. According to our sources, this will also mean more new Honor smartphones in 2015, one of which we're hoping will be the Honor 4x so stay tuned for more developments. Huawei will continue making smartphones and mobile devices but target the higher-end market. Rumours also indicate that Huawei and Honor smartphone users could get the Emotion UI 3.0 update in Q2 of 2015.

Despite already being available for pre-order at VMALL.my, Huawei Malaysia have officially launched their Honor 3C Lite smartphone recently in tandem with the FISE (Festival International Sports Extreme) world championship in Langkawi, Malaysia. For those not in the know, the FISE meet covers extreme sports including BMX bike riding, skateboarding, inline skates and other extreme sports with the world championships held in Langkawi recently. Sponsored by Huawei and spearheaded by Zach Catfish (who is himself a well-known BMX and extreme sportsman himself) the event saw usage of Huawei products like the TalkBand B1, Huawei Ascend Mate 7 and the aforementioned Honor 3C Lite. The Honor 3C Lite brings a number of tech specs and features to the Malaysian market including:

• 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 processor
• 1GB RAM
• 16GB storage + up to 32GB microSD
• 5-inch IPS display (1280 x 720 pixel resolution, 294 ppi)
• 8MP rear camera (LED flash, autofocus, f/2.0 wide aperture, 5P optical lens) + 2MP front camera
• 72.3 x 142.2 x 9.4mm | 156g
• supports Dual SIM (3G + 2G), WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
• features AirSharing,
• 2000 mAh battery
• Android 4.4.2 + Huawei Emotion UI 2.0
• Available in black and white

If you are looking for a cheap smartphone, the new Huawei Honor 3C Lite is a great option. This affordable version of the Honor 3C will be available for pre-order starting 28 November 2014 from VMall.my. Starting from the above date, you can pre-order the device for just RM399 from the online store as opposed to its regular retail price of RM449. In addition, 10 lucky winners who buy the Honor 3C will get a free holiday trip to Langkawi. The pre-order starts at 10AM on the said date and ends at 6PM on 3 December 2014. The first batch of pre-orders will start shipping from 8 December 2014. Even though the Honor 3C Lite is much cheaper than the original Honor 3C, the tech specs remain more or less the same. You get a Quad Core 1.3GHz Mediatek processor, 5 inch 720p display and an 8MP rear camera like the Honor 3C model. However, the RAM is reduced to 1GB, as is the battery capacity from 2300 mAh to 2000 mAh. Surprisingly, Huawei has increased the onboard storage from 8GB to 16GB in this cheaper variant. The Honor 3C also comes with 6 months exchange warranty along with a 1 year Original Manufacturer warranty.

We first covered the Huawei Honor 3C Play Edition back in August 2014 when it was officially announced in China. At the time, it was priced at CNY599 (RM308) and came with a design fairly similar to the Huawei Honor 3C. It turns out that we could soon see the Honor 3C Play as the Huawei Honor 3C Lite. Tech specs are more or less the same as mentioned earlier such as  a 1.3GHz MediaTek MT6582 processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB storage, 5-inch display at 720p pixel resolution, 8MP rear camera, 2MP front camera, dual-SIM support and Android 4.2. Huawei Malaysia have teased it officially with teaser images on their Facebook page and at VMALL.my so we expect the Malaysia release date to be very soon. No news yet on pricing but we expect it to go for the entry-level market at around RM299 to RM349. Stay tuned for more developments.