The Honor 50 series welcomes back the big G
Guest of Honor
It’s not news that Huawei and Google have been at loggerheads in recent history, culminating in a messy divorce. But sold off and standing alone, the newly independent Honor has patched things up with the search giant. And what better way to kick off the rekindled relationship than with a batch of freshly baked smartphones? Honor has announced the global rollout of the Honor 50 and Honor 50 Lite – both of which will run Android 11 and feature Google’s apps and services. Which is a pretty big deal for the mid-range marque.
The vanilla Honor 50 ships with a quartet of cameras: a 100MP main lens, plus an 8MP wide-angle, a 2MP macro and a 2MP depth camera. Up-front, its 32MP snapper covers a 90-degree angle (ideal for group selfies) and occupies a hole-punch cutout in the Honor 50’s sizeable 6.57in OLED display (good for 120Hz refresh rates). Under the hood lives Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 778G 5G processor which, paired with either 6GB or 8GB RAM, should be punchy enough for most multi-taskers. And downtime will be diminished by the 66W SuperCharger, which can refuel the 4300mAh cell to 70% within 20 minutes. A 128GB version with 6GB RAM will set you back a not insignificant €529 (£449), while the larger, more powerful 256GB variant will ship with 8GB RAM and cost €599 (£530). Deliveries are due to start from November 12, with pre-orders available from today.
Also set to ship globally is the Honor 50 Lite. For a more affordable €299 (around £255), you’ll get a larger 6.7in display, 6GB RAM, 66W fast charging and a quad-camera setup (with a 64MP main snapper). With Google Maps back on the agenda, this looks like a step in the right direction for Honor – but it’ll face stiff competition from Android rivals Xiaomi and Motorola.
Natalya Paul
