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Journalism of Courage
Honor, the former sub-brand of Huawei, is back in India with a bang. The company has launched a new smartphone, the Honor 90, in the country today, after a three-year hiatus fueled by geopolitical tensions that resulted in increased scrutiny of top Chinese smartphone brands. The Honor 90 is a mid-range device that boasts a 6.7-inch OLED display that’s curved from all edges, a Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset, and a whopping 200MP main camera.
The biggest highlight of the phone is perhaps the display, which is curved from all four sides, creating a floating effect and a more immersive viewing experience. That display also features a 1.5K resolution and 3840Hz PWM Dimming tech. Honor talked about the PWM dimming tech a great deal at the event, going on about how it’s much easier on the eyes than the displays found on other smartphones because it almost completely eliminates flickering.
The Honor 90 also runs on Android 13-based MagicOS 7.1, which should be a blast from the past for former Huawei users. It promises a clean and bloatware-free user experience, although the software updates promise is a bit of a letdown at 2 Android upgrades and 3 years of security updates – certainly behind the competition at this price point.
Under the hood lies a juiced-up edition of an older chip, dubbed the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 Accelerated Edition (4 nm). Photography is handled by a 200MP primary camera sensor, backed by a 12MP ultrawide and a 2MP depth sensor. The battery is sized 5000mAh and supports 66W fast charging.
The launch of the Honor 90 marks Honor’s return to India after a lengthy break. While the company did stop selling smartphones in the country, it never confirmed that it had ceased operations. But now that it’s back, the company is betting big on India and plans to start local manufacturing of its phones by early next year, under a licensing deal with PSAV Global – a local partner that will handle marketing, distribution, and after-sales service of Honor phones in India. The company has invested $120 million to kickstart its Indian business and aims to generate a revenue of $1.2 billion by the end of 2024.
Honor’s top brass has seen some shuffling too. The company is now headed in India by Madhav Sheth, who was previously the CEO of Realme India. Sheth said to The Indian Express that he is confident that Honor will be able to regain its market share and compete with its rivals in India. He also revealed plans to bring Honor’s entire portfolio of products to India, including smartwatches, IoT devices, and foldables.
The Honor 90 comes in two storage variants: 8GB RAM + 256GB storage and 12GB RAM + 512GB storage, priced at Rs 37,999 and Rs 39,999, respectively. The phone will be sold exclusively on Amazon.in starting from September 20.
