Huawei’s sub-brand Honor launches three new Android smartphones

Huawei’s sub-brand Honor has launched three new smartphones at a global event at the Battersea Evolution Convention Centre in London. This launch comes even as the Chinese company is involved in an intense stand-off with the US government.

The Honor 20 Series phones are camera-centric devices, with quad and triple camera set-ups meant to offer more affordable alternatives to the parent brand Huawei’s phones like the P30 Pro. Also included in the trio of new devices is a mid-range youth-oriented smartphone, which was already launched in China in April.

Huawei's new Honor 20 smartphone is seen at a product launch event in London, Britain, May 21, 2019.   -  REUTERS

All three new Honor 20 Series smartphones function on Google’s Android 9 Pie operating system, but in a shock move on Monday, Google said it would be suspending business with Huawei, generating confusion and uncertainty regarding the updates to existing Huawei phones, and of course all future phones and tablets from the company that are based on Android.

Subsequently, according to a Reuters report, Huawei is to receive a “90-day temporary general license” to continue to use the US technology that it already has a license to.

Youth-centric

Meanwhile, the Honor 20 Series smartphones were introduced by Honor’s President George Zhao, who did not talk about the situation with the US government or Google.

He presented the new phones as being aimed at young people everywhere.

Leading the series is the Honor 20 Pro with a quad-camera array. The primary sensor is a 48 MP camera with an f/1.4 aperture. Its tele-photo lens is able to zoom 3x optical and 30x digital. There's also a 16MP ultra-wide angle sensor with an f/2.2 aperture.

A 2MP macro lens with an f/2.4 aperture allows for really close focus. It supports 4cm macro photography. It has a 32 MP selfie camera in front using a punch hole format.

The 20 Pro is powered by the Kirin 980 SoC, has 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage. On the software front, the Honor 20 Pro runs Magic UI 2.0, based on Android 9 Pie.

Launch date

The expected date of launch for the three devices is June 11, with the flagship possibly being priced around ₹46,000, though the India pricing has not yet been revealed.

The Honor 20 and Honor 20i are somehwat scaled down in both cameras, specs and price. These are attractively designed phones using a holographic light reflecting look, which is likely to appeal to the youth.