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Tag: Honor

  • Honor’s upcoming flagship wants a seat at the champions table

    Honor’s upcoming flagship wants a seat at the champions table

    Although specs and price should be the deciding factor when purchasing a phone, “brand” is one of the most important aspects that convinces customers to buy certain products.

    To put it bluntly, Apple and Samsung have monopolized certain markets like the United States through the sheer power of their branding. But other companies are making products that are at least as good and are priced much lower.

    Honor is one of the brands that have been trying to enter the US market for years before Chinese companies have become undesirable in the country. The most recent Honor flagships offer good value for money, especially since they typically cost less than Samsung’s top-tier phones.

    The upcoming flagship to be released by Honor later this year definitely wants a seat at the champions table. The first details about the unannounced Honor Magic 8 Pro indicate that this will be a real beast.

    Honor’s flagship will be equipped with Qualcomm’s not-yet-release Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 processor. Also, reliable tipster Digital Chat Station claims the Magic 8 Pro boasts a very powerful triple camera system that includes 50-megapixel main, 50-megpaixel ultra-wide, and 200-megapixel periscope telephoto cameras.

    Yest, this is the same camera configuration as the Magic 7 Pro, except that the upcoming Magic 8 Pro will use the OmniVision OV50Q sensor to power its main snapper. On top of that, DCS says the camera system supports “smooth frame transition” and “super frame synthesis.”

    In addition, Honor managed to further improve focus speed and optimized high dynamic range. More importantly, the Magic 8 Pro camera is said to consume a lot less power than the Magic 7 Pro, another key aspect that Honor decided to fine-tune.

    These are all the details about the Magic 8 Pro that have been leaked so far, but it’s more than we expected considering that the phone isn’t expected to arrive until later this fall.

    Even though Honor hasn’t announced anything about the Magic 8 Pro, the Chinese company usually launches its second flagship for the year in Q3, so there’s still time to learn at lot more about the device.

  • Honor sees gains as China smartphone sales fall

    Honor sees gains as China smartphone sales fall

    Former Huawei unit Honor posted the fastest growth in China’s smartphone market in the first quarter, even as overall handset sales fell 14% year-on-year to levels close to those seen in the pandemic-ravaged first quarter of 2020.

    Android handset brands Vivo and Oppo, both under the privately owned BBK Electronics, claimed the largest share of first quarter sales, with 19.7% and 18% of the market respectively, research firm Counterpoint Research said.

    Apple, which was China’s top-selling vendor in the previous quarter for the first time in six years thanks to the release of the iPhone 13, was the third-largest seller in Q1, claiming 17.9% of the market.

    Honor made the biggest gains in Q1, taking the fourth biggest slice of sales with 16.9%, with sales up 15.5% on the previous quarter. Huawei Technologies sold its Honor unit in December 2020 to a consortium of agents and dealers as U.S. sanctions crippled the parent’s smartphone sales.

    Huawei, once China’s best selling brand, held 6.2% of the market in the first quarter.

    Chinese retail sales lagged in the key coastal economic regions of Guangdong and Jiangsu in the first quarter, with areas hit by COVID-19 outbreaks also showing particular weakness, regional data showed.

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  • Honor introduces two new 5G phones, the X30 and the Play 30 Plus

    Honor introduces two new 5G phones, the X30 and the Play 30 Plus

    Continuing to celebrate its separation from Huawei, which allows it to install the Google version of Android on its phones, Honor today unveiled the X30 handset. The device sports a 6.81-inch LCD display with a resolution of 1080 x 2388, and thin side bezels that weigh in at 1.05mm. The screen refreshes 120 times each second for buttery smooth scrolling, enhanced animations, and more.

    Under the hood (another area where Honor is no longer restricted thanks to Huawei’s $15 billion sale of its former sub-brand) you’ll find a 5G Snapdragon 695 SoC built on the 6nm process node by TSMC. Compared to the MediaTek Dimensity 900 that powered the X20, the chip powering the new phone will deliver CPU and GPU performances 15% and 30% higher, respectively.

    On the back, the camera array includes a 48MP primary camera, a 2MP macro camera for extreme close-ups, and a 2MP depth sensor. There is a small punch-hole in front for the 16MP selfie snapper.

    Keeping the lights on is a 4800mAh battery that charges at 66W. At that rate, you might be able to juice up your phone to 80% in only 30 minutes. Memory ranges from 6GB to 12GB with storage options of 128GB or 256GB. Honor’s Magic UI 5.0 is found on top of Android 11 and the X30 will be available in silver and black (Las Vegas Raiders’ colors), gold and blue.

    The Honor Magic X30 is priced at CNY1,499 (equivalent to $235) for the base 6GB RAM/128GB model and rises to CNY 2,299 ($361) for the 12GB RAM/256GB variant. The phone goes on sale in China on Christmas Eve and Honor has yet to mention anything about a global version of the device. While the X20 had a limited release, Honor CEO Geroge Zhao has hinted at wider distribution of the X30.

    The executive said, “Through both online and offline channels, we have been able to expand our offerings to even more consumers,” he said. “We are grateful for the trust of our retail and carrier partners around the world and look forward to introducing more products together in 2022.”

    Also introduced today was the Honor Play 30 Plus. A less ambitious phone than the X30 is, the Play 30 Plus carries a 6.7-inch LCD screen that refreshes 90 times each second. It is equipped with MediaTek’s Dimensity 700 chipset and does support 5G. The phone comes with 4GB-8GB of memory and 128GB of storage. On the back is a 13MP camera with a 2MP depth sensor. In the front is a teardrop notch with a selfie camera that weighs in at 5MP.

    A 5000mAh battery is inside the handset although charging is no faster than 22.5W. The color options are the same as the four available for the X30 (silver, black, gold, and blue), and the software (Magic UI 5.0 on top of Android 11). The model with 4GB of memory and 128GB of storage is priced at CNY 1,099 (equivalent to $173). The version with 8GB of memory and 1238GB of storage trim and maxes out at 8GB RAM and 128GB storage which will set you back CNY1,499 ($235).

    Honor is also celebrating its freedom by announcing that it plans on becoming an “iconic global brand.” In a release, the company said, “HONOR spent the past year developing strategic collaborations with its global supply chain partners and established over 30 partnerships with leading suppliers including AMD, Intel, MediaTek, Microsoft and Qualcomm.”

    Honor CEO Zhao said, “Thanks to the support of our friends and partners over the past year, HONOR has been able to deliver on our promise to help consumers go beyond as well as expand our brand to provide both premium and accessible technology to a wider range of users. I am so proud of the industry breakthroughs we have introduced as a result of the dedication and passion of my colleagues and collaborations with our leading global chain partners.

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  • Check out this render of the 5G Honor Magic Fold

    Check out this render of the 5G Honor Magic Fold

    Talk about a foldable Honor handset started all the way back in February of this year when we passed along a report that the former Huawei sub-brand would release a foldable model later this year. Then in June, we let you know that the Honor Magic Fold was going to be inward folding like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3.

    The Magic Fold is expected to be introduced sometime in the first quarter of 2022. But that doesn’t stop us from showing you renders of the device which were posted on Twitter. Similar to Samsung’s last two Galaxy Z Fold models, the exterior screen runs the complete length of the back of the phone’s left panel (when fully opened with the large tablet-sized display showing).

    Rumored specs for the device include an 8-inch display when the phone is fully unfolded, sporting a resolution of 2200 x 2480. An octa-core CPU is reportedly under the hood featuring one Cortex A-77 core running at a clock speed of 3.13GHz, three Cortex A-77 cores running at a clock speed of 2.54GHz, and four Cortex A-55 cores running at a clock speed of 2.05GHz.

    The chipset will be paired with 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage. The render shows a rear camera with a 108MP sensor for the primary snapper. After taking into account the likelihood of 9:1 pixel binning, it would appear that the device will deliver 12MP images. Besides the obligatory ultra-wide and telephoto cameras, we could see a 16MP camera grace the front of the handset for selfies and video chats.

    A 4500mAh battery could be called on to keep the lights on, and Android 11 will be pre-installed. No word on when to expect an update to Android 12.

    You might recall that Huawei ended up selling Honor last year to prevent the firm from having to abide by all of the restrictions placed on Huawei by the U.S. While it was a Huawei sub-brand, Honor could not access its U.S. supply chain which forced it to stop using Google mobile services (GMS). It also prevented the company from purchasing cutting-edge chips after a revised U.S. export rule prevented foundries using American tech from shipping cutting-edge chips to Honor.

    But once Honor became free after its sale to a consortium for a reported $15.2 billion, Honor was free to use the Google version of Android, and could receive shipments of any chip it wanted to buy. As a result, the Honor 50 Series was launched with the GMS version of Android and was powered by the Snapdragon 778G allowing the device to support 5G.

    Honor is rapidly growing in China with its third-quarter handset shipments in the country rising a whopping 96% on an annual basis. It now has a 15% slice of the Chinese smartphone market which is good enough for third place after Vivo’s leading 23% and Oppo’s 20%. Xiaomi is fourth, followed by Apple.

    While last year Huawei was the top smartphone brand in China with 30% of the market, the U.S. restrictions are biting and biting hard. Now, the beleaguered manufacturer has seen its share of the Chinese smartphone market declined to just 8%.

    Some Huawei executives are surprised that they continue to be on the U.S. Entity List. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump cited security as his reason for placing Huawei on the list. After all, both Huawei and ZTE are considered national security threats to the U.S. Exactly a year to the day that its inclusion on the Entity List had been announced, the U.S. changed its Export Rules that prevent a foundry using American technology to manufacture chips from shipping cutting-edge components to Huawei.

    It doesn’t appear that Huawei will be removed from U.S. restrictions for some time. Meanwhile, we should continue to see Honor go from strength to strength as it takes the knowledge it gained from being a Huawei sub-brand and uses it to move up the league tables in China.

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  • Honor TVs launched by Huawei running it’s own OS

    Honor TVs launched by Huawei running it’s own OS

    Chinese smartphone brand Honor has launched a flat-screen television it claims “ushers in a new era for the future of TV”.

    Unveiled at the Huawei Developer Conference, the Honor TVs come equipped with three Huawei self-developed intelligent chipsets and is the first television set in the world to carry Huawei’s own operating system HarmonyOS.

    “Honor Vision is not just television as we know it,” said the company’s president George Zhao. “It defines the future of television with Honor’s ‘Sharp Tech’ innovations.”

    Zhao says the Honor TVs will play a more critical role in the future of smart family life. “It is not only a home entertainment centre, but also an information-sharing centre, a control-management centre and a multi-device interaction centre,” he said.

    Huawei launched Harmony to deliver what it describes as a “cohesive user experience across all devices and user scenarios”. Some industry analysts have already commented that the development of the OS mis linked to US tech giant Google discontinuing upgrades for Huawei devices running Android due to security concerns in the west.

    But Huawei says HarmonyOS will be optimised and gradually adopted across the brand’s smart watches, smart screens, in-vehicle systems and smart speakers. It will be released as an open-source platform worldwide to encourage adoption by other tech companies.

    Meanwhile, the new Honor TVs come with a ‘Family Note Function’, allowing users to transfer 600M images between their smartphone and display via Huawei Share software in just 20 seconds – that’s 100 times faster than transferring via Bluetooth.

    The Honor Vision sets will also act as an in-home control and management centre, using software called HiLink, an open ecosystem for the smart home. “The platform as well as the technology will be accessible to other smart home providers in the industry, allowing users to connect their preferred smart home products together,” the company said in a statement.

    The Honor Vision range of 55” 4K TVs includes 2GB+16GB standard versions and 2GB+32GB Pro versions, priced at RMB3799 (US$538) and RMB4799 (US$680) respectively.

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  • Honor Starts Looking for Market Dominance

    Honor Starts Looking for Market Dominance

    Huawei’s CEO has revealed details of how the telecommunications giant will foster its spin-off Honor brand in Asia.

    The strategy includes store rollouts, an increasing focus on online sales and revised price positioning differentiating the two brands.

    Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer BG, posted details on his Sina Weibo account, predicting Huawei will become the world’s largest smartphone maker this year through its two-brand strategy. Honor on its own is tipped to become China’s second largest-selling smartphone brand and fourth in the world.

    “The company will support Honor in the development of cutting-edge products and continue its investments in technology innovation, channel distribution and retail strategies while maintaining a firm dual-brand strategy between Honor and Huawei,” said Yu.

    Both brands will maintain “a forward-thinking mindset and help create an intelligent, fully-connected world”.

    While IDC figures show global shipments of smartphones fell by 3.1 per cent in the first three quarters of last year, Honor’s volumes soared 27.1 per cent.

    Last year, Huawei’s consumer business grew by 48.4 per cent, outperforming the company’s carrier-network business and becoming the company’s largest revenue earner.

    George Zhao, Honor’s president, told the recent Mobile World Congress that Honor is “on the brink of yet another breakthrough and there is no slowing down for us”.

    “As the going gets tough, the tough get going. We’ll treat each day as an opportunity to deliver greater value to our fans. For Honor, the best is yet to come,” he said.

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  • Honor debuts in Vietnam with first offline store

    Honor debuts in Vietnam with first offline store

    Huawei sub-brand Honor Vietnam has opened its first physical store in the country after three years selling online and via distributors.

    Located on Nguyen Hue Street in downtown, the new store attracted hundreds of Honor’s fans from the early morning.

    Apart from products already on sale in the country, Honor introduced its newest lines, including the Honor MagicBook.

    Vietnam is a part of Honor’s overseas expansion in Asia Pacific, along with Europe and the Middle East.

    Zhao Ming, Honor president, said overseas sales have doubled during the past five months, and he expects them to rise further in the second half of the year.

    The brand entered the Philippines last month.

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  • Honor going to ground to boost presence in Philippines

    Honor going to ground to boost presence in Philippines

    Chinese smartphone maker Honor said it plans to open brick-and-mortar stores in the Philippines in a bid to become one of the top three vendors in the nation.

    Honor entered the market last month, initially offering its flagship Honor 10 and other devices through online retailers. The Huawei sub-brand accounts for 10 per cent market share in China after just four years, says its country director for the Philippines, Wang Yang.

    “We believe the Philippine market is perfect for Honor brand because we see the brand as being for the young,” says Yang.

    Physical retail stores will open as early as next month, starting in the capital, with the possibility of opening regional outlets, he says.

    Honor entered the Philippines through Shopee on May 15 with 500 units being sold in an hour during a flash sale.

    Its flagship Honor 10 has AI-enhanced cameras, dual 24 + 16 megapixel lenses on the rear and 24 megapixels on the front. The in-house Kirin 970 processor helps the phone recognise about 500 scenarios in 22 categories.

    The Honor 10 has four gigabytes of RAM, 128 gigabytes of storage and a 3400 mAh battery that can recharge 50 per cent of power in 25 minutes.

    Yang says the handset’s biggest draw would be its iridescent paint job inspired by the Northern Lights. A fingerprint sensor is practically hidden on the phone’s chin, below the 5.84-inch full-HD screen.

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  • Honor Opens its First Flagship Store in Myanmar

    Honor Opens its First Flagship Store in Myanmar

    A flagship store for Honor, a smartphone brand from China’s Huawei Group, has opened in Yangon.

    With its slogan “For the brave”, the brand was created for digital natives and offers internet-optimised products and high specifications at an accessible price level.

    Honor president George Zhao says the Myanmar flagship is a milestone for the brand’s Southeast Asia expansion journey. “Globally, we are confident we will see Honor rise to become a top-five smartphone brand within three years.”

    Four of Honor’s top-rated products feature in the new store: Honor 7X, its first FullView Display smartphone aimed at gamers; Honor V9 Play, a minimalist Scandinavian-style smartphone; Honor 6X, offering budget technology for digital natives; and Honor Holly 6, am affordable high-performance model.