Honor has finally made a re-entry into the Indian smartphone market with Honor 90, and the brand has a lot of competition to beat. However, it competes with another fairly new entrant to the market, and that’s the Nothing Phone (1). The smartphone came out last year and had some decent specifications to consider. So, let’s compare the two smartphones on the basis of their on-paper specs and find out which one of them is worth its price tag.
Design & Display
While design is always a subjective matter, both of them adopt their own distinctive design languages. While the Nothing Phone (1) has more of a flashy look, quite literally, thanks to the glyph LEDs, the Honor 90 stays minimal with a plain back design and two big circular camera cutouts. We feel both of them are decent for what they offer but if you want a design that offers more than just looking nice, then Phone (1) may be your cup of tea.
As for the display, the Nothing smartphone sports a 6.55-inch full-HD+ OLED display, which has adaptive 120Hz Refresh Rate support, 10-bit colour depth, HDR10+, 1200 nits peak brightness and 240Hz touch sampling rate. The panel has 402 pixels per inch and is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass. The device has symmetrical bezels around the display.
Honor 90 sports a 6.7-inch 1.5K Resolution (1,200 x 2,664 pixels) quad-curved OLED display with a Refresh Rate of 120Hz, up to 1,600 nits peak brightness, and 3,840Hz pulse-width modulation (PWM) dimming.
The Honor 90’s panel takes the win here, not only in terms of looks, as it has a quad-curved design that seems more modern, but also in terms of resolution, brightness, and PWM dimming performance. We have already used the smartphone, and we feel it is one of the best display panels in this price range.
Performance & Software
The Honor 90 is powered by a Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset, coupled with up to 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. The Phone (1) packs the Snapdragon 778G+ chipset with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. Both of these chipsets are quite similar in terms of performance, but as the 7 Gen 1 was announced post the launch of 778G+, it appears to be a slightly better chipset. However, that shouldn’t mean a drastic difference in terms of real-world performance unless the software is poorly optimised.
Talking of software, both of them run on Android 13 but have their take on Android. While Nothing OS leans more towards the Stock Android look, the Honor 90 runs on a heavily skinned MagicOS 7.1. In our opinion, we would prefer Nothing’s approach in terms of software due to only necessary additions to the software while Honor’s MagicOS actually lacks some of the basic Android features. You can read more about its software in our full review of the Honor 90.
Battery & Cameras
The Honor 90 is backed by a 5000mAh battery with 66W Fast charging support. The smartphone from Nothing is backed by a 4500mAh battery with support for 33W PD3.0 wired fast charging. Further, there’s 15W Qi wireless charging with dual charging support and 5W reverse charging.
Once again, the Honor 90 leads in the battery department with a bigger battery and faster charging unless you are someone for whom wireless charging is necessary, as that is lacking on Honor’s smartphone.
We cannot compare cameras unless we use them both side by side. But as we consider on-paper specs, the Honor 90 maintains its lead with a 200MP main sensor, a 12MP ultra-wide sensor, and a 2MP depth sensor. The 200MP main sensor is the first one in the segment, so there’s that.
Takeaway
The Nothing Phone (1) is selling for Rs 30,499 for the 8GB + 256GB model and Rs 28,499 for the 8GB + 128GB model. The Honor 90 on the other hand, is priced much higher at Rs 37,999 for the 8GB + 256GB trim and Rs 39,999 for the 12GB + 512GB model. However, when applying the launch offers including Rs 3,000 bank discounts and Rs 2,000 exchange discount, it brings the phone down to Phone (1)’s territory at Rs 32,999.
Positioned in a similar price range, the Phone (1) and Honor 90 are both decent offerings but thanks to Honor’s better cameras, faster charging, bigger battery and a sharper display, it takes the win in this battle against the Nothing Phone (1).
