Honor 5C review: all in the family

Honor 5C software

The Honor 5C runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Huawei’s EMUI 4.1 skin. Some Chinese manufacturers interfaces can be quite confusing, offering complicated copies of iOS, for example. What we find in the Honor 5C is, however, very pleasant to use. The interface is more intuitive, the settings menu has been modified and is now less confusing.

Interesting features

This new version of EMUI is not really revolutionary. Let’s go over some tools that make it good.

In the previous version of this interface, there was already a tool like Doze that allowed applications to run (or not) in the background. If they are not activated in a list, they’ll switch off when the phone is in standby. This can be a problem with instant messengers, as you could imagine. You can find the option in Settings > Advanced Settings > Battery management > Protected Applications.

Another interesting tool, too, existed on the old version: customizing notifications based on the application. For each, you can choose to receive a notification, plus one in the status bar and one also on the lock screen. This function has a bug in Lollipop and some users had problems with notifications not being displayed correctly. I didn’t encounter this problem with the Marshmallow release. Anyway, you can find this option in Settings > Notifications & Status Bar > Notification Center.

You can also set what type of connection each application can use: only Wi-Fi, mobile data, or both. You can imagine that it’s quite convenient for managing the consumption of data. To do this, simply enter the application menu, enter 'data consumption’ and apply your preferences.

For the rest, EMUI remains true to itself. The notification bar is still divided into two; left for notifications, right for shortcuts.

Bloatware

One of the toughest characteristics to overcome as a stock Android user is EMUI’s lack of app drawer. With a bunch of preinstalled applications, it’s obviously not pleasant to find the home screen full of unwanted apps.

The manufacturer has preinstalled some in-house applications. We find a pedometer among other health applications. This runs by default and in the background. You then find social networks like Facebook and Twitter, Opera browser, the game Asphalt and some other apps. The good news is that you can uninstall most of them.