If you’re looking to buy a phone under $500/£500, the market is getting increasingly busy – and increasingly talented.

Honor is looking to add to that, with the Honor 90 – its latest mid-range, sub-flagship model. It brings with it some impressive on-paper specs, offering considerable upgrades on the Honor 70, the last model at this level to be put on sale outside of China.

But how does that hold up in the real world? We’ve spent some time with it ahead of our full review. Here’s how we got on.

Design and build

• 161.9 x 74.1 x 7.8 mm, 183g
• No waterproofing
• Silver, black, blue and green colours
• Plastic back panel

There’s no doubt that when it comes to design, Honor picks a theme and runs with it. We’ve seen that across its ranges in recent years, so when it finds something that works – it sticks with it. That’s certainly the case with the Honor 90, which offers a slim and tall build reminiscent of its predecessors – sitting a little higher in the hand than you might find in something like the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G thanks to its larger 6.7-inch screen.

The back panel of our review model is the Diamond Silver finish, which may not be to everyone’s taste – it has a bit of a chintzy pattern etched into the bottom half of it, while the other colours – a more pearlescent finish in emerald green, peacock blue or midnight black – don’t. It’s plastic, too – something Samsung ditched for the A54, in exchange for glass. That would be nice here, but it doesn’t take too much away from the feel of it in the hand – it feels solid with no creaking.

As is Honor’s way, the Honor 90 makes its rear camera design a huge focus of its overall look, with two large camera “islands” to house the three cameras and flash. When placed in the included clear protective case, this envelops the surrounds to make it look a little like a figure 8, and is as bold a design statement as the diamond pattern below it.

Overall the design and build feels about right for its price point, even if some of its competitors are starting to overtake it. We still miss any IP rating here, and wireless charging too, but this big screen feels undeniably nice in the hand, thanks to its slim 7.8mm thickness.

Display

• 6.7-inch AMOLED display, 1200 x 2664 resolution, 435ppi
• Up to 120Hz refresh
• 1600 nits brightness
• HDR10+ support

Honor has put a lot of work into its display credentials, packing a large 6.7-inch AMOLED display with a full HD+ resolution and 1600 nits peak brightness. There’s no doubt it looks great, going really bright that makes it easy to be seen outside – brightness that can also get behind HDR10+, with Netflix HDR and Amazon Prime Video HDR certification.

Honor is still pushing its Quad-Curved Floating display, with curves at each edge, front and back. It’s not a design you see manufacturers use as often these days, due to the occasional issues with responsiveness on the edges. However, I haven’t experienced any issues in my short time with it, and there’s no doubt it helps the make such a large phone easier to hold in the hand.

A 120Hz refresh rate should help to keep your content smooth, with the ability to have this adapting dynamically to what you’re doing on the phone, or setting it at 60, 90 or 120Hz – the latter will obviously offer the best in performance but will drain your battery quicker.

Like we saw in the Honor Magic 5 Pro, the Honor 90 is at the receiving end of several eye comfort features, including 3840Hz PWM dimming, a circadian night display and a TÜV Rheinland Flicker Free Certification – meaning it should be kinder and less fatiguing on your eyes at all times.

Under the display there is a fingerprint sensor which has worked pretty well in our time with it so far. Every now and then we have had to touch our finger down again, but often the built-in face detection camera jumps in before we need to anyway.

Hardware and performance

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 Accelerated Edition 5G chip
• GPU: Adreno 644
• 5000mAh battery ,66W charging

The Honor 90 uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 Accelerated Edition 5G chip – a fitting chip for its place in the market, with the Accelerated version able to push peak CPU speeds to 2.5GHz.

The Adreno 644 GPU has also increased by 20% compared to the Honor 70, while the AI performance has increased by 30% for smooth graphics and quicker responses.

From my time with it so far, I’ve found the performance here to be solid – not quite with the speed and immediacy of a flagship chipset – but that’s to be expected. It has still handled light gaming and streaming without getting even slightly warm, and I’ve noticed very little by way of stuttering under pressure.

There’s a 5000mAh battery here – a small upgrade on the Honor 70, and matching the battery of the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G. So far, the battery life seems very promising indeed. We have regularly been getting through a full day of medium-to-heavy use, with a battery test of a 1.5 hour stream at half brightness draining 11 per cent of total battery.

There’s no wireless charging here, but there is Honor’s 66W charger in the box for super-fast charging. From empty, I was able to charge the phone up to 51 per cent in 20 minutes, with the promise of 20 per cent of charge in just five minutes.

Cameras

• 200MP main (f/1.9), 12MP wide (f/2.2), 2MP depth (f/2.4)
• 50MP wide-angle selfie camera

Honor has once again gone big on its camera promises in the Honor 90, with a triple camera setup comprising a massive 200MP main camera with a 1/1.4-inch CMOS size, a 12MP ultra-wide and macro camera (f/2.2), with a 2MP depth camera (f/2.4). There’s also a 50MP wide-angle front-facing camera too.

As its 200MP bragging rights might suggest, and from our experience so far, the main camera is the star of the show here. The 1/1.4-inch sensor has increased by 25 per cent on the previous generation, allowing more light in for better, brighter pictures – particularly in low light.

With those low-light shots, the Honor 90 can make use of 16-in-1 pixel binning, to massively increase the amount of light captured in one pixel – equivalent to 2.24μm. There’s no OIS here though, so you will need to keep a steady hand to get the very best from it.

As for the 12MP ultra-wide and macro camera, it offers a 112-degree field of view with a minimum focusing distance of 2.5cm. It’s a step backwards from the 50MP effort on the Honor 70, but as we well know by now, megapixels do not a good camera make.

From our experience so far, the wide-angle snapper does a good job of maintaining the same character as the main lens, with a similar colour balance and a good handling of light – but zoom in and you will see that fine detail goes awry. Keep an eye out for our full review for more on this.

Finally, that 2MP depth sensor is a bit of a confusing addition – something we noted when Honor included it on the Honor 70 too. There is an enhanced Portrait mode here, with improved bokeh effects aiming to provide a more natural transition between the blur effect and the subject. However, from our experience so far, the bokeh looks good – but can still be caught out, and doesn’t offer any huge step up from those pictures that rely on software only. Hopefully in future, this lens space could be given to a dedicated macro lens or a telephoto lens instead.

First impressions

The Honor 90 looks like a promising mid-range handset to take the fight to the likes of the midrange favourites like the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G. Whether its impressive on-paper specs can play out in real world use remains to be seen. We’ll update this piece with our full review very soon.