Those of you looking forward to the reveal of Honor's next phone don't have much longer to wait. Today the company announced that it will reveal the Honor 20 series at an event in London next month. Honor obviously doesn't get specific about what to expect out of the new device, but as is usually the case, we have leaks we can turn to to give us a better idea of what's on the way.
Just last week, Huawei unveiled its new P30 series. While it shares many traits in common with the Samsung Galaxy S10, it quickly took the smartphone camera crown. So why review an Honor phone that launched months ago? For the simple reason that the Honor View 20 is a prime example of how you don't have to break your bank just to get some of the best that the smartphone market has to offer. Provided, of course, you're willing to accept some compromises here and there.
Huawei may have turned heads at MWC 2019 last week with its Mate X foldable phone but its actual 2019 star is still coming in a few weeks. While Huawei is warming up the hype machine, however, its sub-brand Honor may already be preparing the Huawei P30's biggest rival. Although nothing is certain yet, a new leak paints a picture of an Honor 20 that could very well make Huawei's early 2019 flagship almost irrelevant.
Honor, an independent Huawei subsidiary, is well-known and well-loved for offering high-end specs, higher than Xiaomi's, at lower prices. In some cases, it almost rivals its parent by putting almost the same specs and features as, say, a P or Mate series into a more affordable package with only a few compromises. That said, it also has room for smartphones a little lower down the ladder for those with even tighter budgets. The Honor 10 Lite is the latest in that roster and we take it for a spin to see whether it cuts off too many corners in the process.
Huawei seems to be the favorite target of conspiracy theories in the tech industry these days. Especially when you consider recent news about arrested executives and government bans against Huawei happening not just in the US but worldwide as well. So when something out of the ordinary happens on users’ Huawei and Honor phones, like, say, vanishing photos downloaded from Twitter, the Interwebs unsurprisingly goes crazy over what almost seems like a vendor’s unauthorized backdoor access to phones.
This afternoon the Honor View 20 was revealed in full, officially, with details that let us know the Honor brand means serious business. This device looks a lot like the front facade of several phones coming in 2019 - but it's done quite well right here and now. The back side - well - the back side is something altogether new - it's dazzling.
Although it’s often described as Huawei’s sub-brand, Honor has been making big waves in the market. In fact, one report claims that the sub-brand is responsible for more than half of the shipments that put Huawei as the 2nd biggest smartphone maker this year. With the Honor View 20, what is known as the Honor V20 in China, the company is proving again why it deserves that, well, honor with some of the best features to rival even its own parent company.
Huawei's next Honor phone definitely seems like one worth paying attention to. Today, the company announced the Honor View20, a View10 follow-up that's sporting some pretty impressive hardware. The full specifications list is being kept a secret for the moment, but in today's announcement, Honor revealed some of the phone's biggest features.
The trends are in, and we've got a pretty decent idea of the next big smartphones from device makers in 2019. The features you're going to want to watch out for are only slightly different from what came in 2018 - and we're pretty much set on what the phones will look like already. What's it going to take for you to get a deal on a smartphone in 2019?
The quest for “edge to edge” bezel-less screens have forced smartphone makers to search for solutions to a problem of their own making. Unless you completely ignore it the way Samsung does (at least for now), there is no escaping the notch, a.k.a. the cutout, in its various shapes and sizes. Some, like Vivo and OPPO, have briefly toyed with and quickly abandoned the idea motorized elevating front cameras. Others, like Meizu and ZTE’s nubia, ditched the front camera entirely but put a second screen on the back instead. Another path, which may still gain some traction, is the one taken by Honor in the Honor Magic 2. But no matter how the Huawei sub-brand spins the narrative towards AI and cameras, there will be little doubt in people’s minds: the slider takes center stage.
Vivo and OPPO have started the elevating camera trend but it seems that they have also ended it with the NEX S and Find X, respectively. Huawei sub-brand Honor and Xiaomi, on the other hand, have opted for a less eccentric solution to that same problem. With the Magic 2, Honor is jumping into the fray with the return of the slider phone. And despite not having a motor to power its gimmick, the smartphone’s insides are just as interesting to see.
Because of their heavy changes and customizations, Chinese OEMs are actually just as notorious as Samsung was (or still is) in how slow they are at rolling out new Android versions even to their latest smartphone models. That is also a by-product of their market, where Google and Android hold less weight that the names of Huawei, OPPO, Xiaomi, and the like. So even when it’s a few months overdue, the fact that Huawei will actually be rolling out Android 9 Pie to a few of its phones this week is definitely worth taking note.