Honor is one of the largest Chinese smartphone brands in the world. Founded in 2013 as a subsidiary of Huawei, it targeted young audiences and online sales before it became mainstream. Honor smartphones were cheaper than its parent company's products but offered comparable quality. This was precisely the strength of the brand, which was growing before our eyes, but this should also become its weak point. To put it bluntly, there was no independence in him. Honor has even become a household name, becoming a symbol of everything that is done quite well, but exclusively within the framework of a stronger brand. After this, Chinese companies even began to create their own sub-brands for more affordable devices. I don’t really like this dominance of names, but that’s not about that now. Let’s better try to understand what will happen to Honor after the separation from Huawei, and find out whether the brand can survive.
Will Honor be able to get ahead of Huawei?
Why Honor split from Huawei
Last year, Huawei had to divest its subsidiary to prevent the brand from going down with it due to US sanctions. It was bought by Zhixin New Information Technology Co. Ltd , which is a consortium of 30 agents and the Shenzhen government. So Honor became a separate independent business not related to Huawei. This will allow Honor to continue making full-fledged smartphones, but will cut it off from the developments that Huawei generously shared with it.
The Honor brand is taking over from Huawei, but can it handle it?
Despite the problems, Huawei is still the largest smartphone brand in China .
But Honor is determined to surpass it in its claims. It’s just not clear which Huawei it’s going to surpass. The current strong one or the one that will be in a couple of years - producing several million smartphones a year and hanging out at the end of the first (at best) ten manufacturers.
⇡#Camera
Honor 10X Lite received a block of four cameras, but, as is most often the case in the near-budget segment, you should not count on many available focal lengths in this regard. Two of the four cameras are responsible for different viewing angles, and two more are responsible for macro photography and assistance with software background blur.
The main camera has a 48-megapixel Quad Bayer sensor (physical dimensions - 1/2.0 inch) with an ƒ/1.8 aperture lens, phase detection autofocus and an equivalent focal length of 28 mm. The second camera is responsible for an expanded viewing angle - it is an 8-megapixel module with an ƒ/2.4 aperture lens, giving a coverage angle of 120 degrees. It lacks autofocus. This is the same pair that we saw on both last year's Honor 9X and the recent Honor 30i.
| On the left are pictures taken with the main camera, on the right – with the wide-angle camera | ||
The main camera gives you some freedom when choosing lighting for shooting, producing a high-quality image (both in terms of detail and dynamic range) both outdoors on a cloudy day, in sunny weather, indoors, and even at night with street lighting. In the dark, the quality of shooting naturally drops, but it is still possible to take a sharp shot. I note both good color rendition and well-set white balance. But the wide-angle module no longer shines with image quality - you can get decent shots only during the day or indoors in bright light. Moreover, even in this case there will be a very noticeable drop in sharpness at the edges (with generally mediocre detail) and the white balance will not be changed for the better compared to what was obtained on the main module.
Zoom is only available digitally – up to six times. Despite the presence of a camera with a Quad Bayer sensor, which allows for “tricky” cropping, the loss in quality is already noticeable at a two-fold zoom, not to mention a six-fold one. You can get a discernible image, but you can’t talk about quality.
| On the left is a photo in standard mode, on the right is in night mode | ||
In the dark, it’s no longer possible to get a high-quality picture with a wide-angle camera - it’s simply impossible to shoot without serious blur, the percentage of defects is too high. And when it does work out, the sharply decreasing detail attracts attention - the noise reduction is very active. The proprietary night mode, which combines several images into one with increased clarity and expanded dynamic range, is available only for a standard viewing angle - and it works well: yes, contour sharpness is noticeably improved, but it cannot be said that this is definitely detrimental to the images. Sometimes, however, in an attempt to increase the brightness of a sky that is too dark, a smartphone can add quite a lot of noise.
| On the left is a photo in standard resolution (12 megapixels), on the right - in maximum resolution (48 megapixels) | ||
The Honor 10X Lite camera can shoot with both the default resolution of 12 megapixels and 48 megapixels - this mode is manually selected.
There is also - using machine learning technologies, the smartphone recognizes many scenes and adapts the picture taking into account this knowledge. As a rule, the same operations are performed - contrast and saturation are raised. This usually has a rather good effect on the result.
The third camera is responsible for macro photography. Due to the two-megapixel sensor, the pictures are of low resolution and weigh only half a megabyte, but in principle it is possible to take an interesting close-up for posting on social networks, the main thing is to do it in good lighting: the optics are not fast (ƒ/2.4), yes and the sensor is tiny.
The fourth camera is a depth sensor used in portrait mode, in which a single focal length is available, which encourages shooting full-length or half-length portraits: in them, spatial distortions are not noticeable. Close-ups come out so-so with this camera, although in our age of winning selfies, such stretched faces will no longer surprise anyone. The Honor 10X Lite “washes the background” normally, although it cannot do without artifacts, and it still cannot draw truly spectacular bokeh in the manner of flagships or conventional mid-range camera phones (like vivo V20).
The camera application is typical for smartphones with EMUI: horizontal navigation, a set of familiar settings. A “professional” mode with manual settings is available, but without the ability to shoot in RAW.
Gallery of pictures
View all images (19)In video shooting, the Honor 10X Lite's capabilities are limited to Full HD resolution at up to 60 frames per second. There is no stabilization. In terms of video, inexpensive Honors are for some reason massively inferior to their competitors.
The front camera has an 8-megapixel sensor and ƒ/2.0 aperture optics. There is no autofocus or flash. The shooting quality is average (the dynamic range is weak, the camera is lukewarm in terms of color rendering, the angle is too wide), but there is a portrait mode and a beauty feature.
Honor is Huawei?
As a sub-brand of Huawei, Honor often offered almost the same products, but a little cheaper. In smartphones this was not so noticeable, but the accessories were produced identically without any embarrassment at all. In fact, they simply painted a new logo on them and that’s it. Some of them were even first launched under the Honor brand and only then came out as Huawei, while others were the opposite.
Many Honor and Huawei accessories are too similar to each other.
However, the manufacturer did have some exclusive products. An example is the Honor Magic line of smartphones and the Honor Hunter line , which includes gaming laptops, routers and accessories. It could be said that these standalone products represent Honor's first steps, which demonstrated that the company was not completely tied to Huawei.
Whether Honor's products were advertised or not, the dual-brand strategy has helped the company become one of the leading Chinese manufacturers. Honor was even a powerful, self-sufficient force in some markets. For example, in Russia, sales of its smartphones confidently crossed the 10% mark of the total number of devices sold and made it the number one brand.
The US has officially lifted sanctions on Honor. What will happen next
Honor still has partners who will help sell a large number of devices, and the market is ready for new products, knowing what they were. The question is whether Honor itself will be able to create smartphones so beloved by users, or without Huawei it will be impossible. For example, the company has already lost its Kirin processors.
Comparison of models
We come to the most interesting part. In this section of the article we will compare phones from two brands of different price categories. Go!
Honor 10 or Xiaomi mi 8?
First, let's compare the flagships of both brands. We took the 6/64 configuration of both models for analysis. These are 2021 phones, both octa-core, with the same battery capacity (3,400 mAh) and Android 8.1 Oreo pre-installed.
Honor 10 4/128GB
xiaomi mi 8
Honor 10 is inferior in its technical characteristics to its competitor. It has a smaller case length and width (150 mm and 71 mm, respectively), while the thickness is greater - 7.7 mm. For comparison, the competitor from Xiaomi has these parameters of 155, 75 and 7.6 millimeters, respectively.
However, the weight of the Xiaomi phone is 175 g versus 153 g from Honor.
Xiaomi has the following colors available:
- Golden
- Black
- Blue
- White
Its competitor has the following colors available:
- Purple (gradient)
- Blue (gradient)
- Black
- Blue
Mi 8 has a chipset from Qualcomm (Snapdragon 845, video accelerator - Adreno 630 GPU), and Honor 10 has Hisilicon Kirin 970 (video accelerator - Mali-G72 MP12). In terms of processor frequency, Huawei again loses. Compared to 2,800 MHz from Xiaomi, there is 2,360 MHz from Honor.
- Honor 10 has a lithium-ion battery, while its competitor has a lithium-polymer battery.
- The main camera is 12 MP (20 MP front camera) for Mi 10 and 18 MP (24 MP front camera) for its competitor.
Which phone should I choose? It's not up to me to decide. However, most of my relatives use Mi 8 (it looks more like a flagship)
Prices for Xiaomi start from 23,500 rubles, and for Honor from 22,190.
In the battle xiaomi mi 8 vs honor 10, the first device wins.
Honor 8x or Xiaomi mi 8?
Honor 8x
Xiaomi Mi8
Both phones are considered strong competitors and can beat one or the other. So, honor 8x vs xiaomi mi 8, let's go.
- For Honor 8x, a 6/128 GB version is available, and for Mi 8 – 6/64 GB, 128 GB or 256 GB.
- The preinstalled system is Android 8.1 Oreo.
- Xiaomi has the following colors available:
- Golden
- Black
- Blue
- White
Its competitor has the following colors available:
- Black
- Blue
- Pink
- Red
- Both phones have dual cameras (main ones), 20 MP for Honor 8x and 12 MP for Xiaomi mi 8. However, the front camera for Xiaomi is 20 MP, while Honor has only 16 MP.
- Among the additional goodies, Xiaomi Mi 8 has an infrared port (for a TV, projector, air conditioner and other household appliances), as well as infrared facial recognition.
- Connectors for two phones: USB Type-C, there is an NFC port (for linking a card and contactless payment by phone in stores), Li-Po batteries. Honor battery capacity is 3,750 mAh.
- Prices for a phone from Xiaomi start at 23,490 rubles, and for Honor from 15,884 rubles.
Which one do I choose? I'll probably stick with Mi 8 again.
Xiaomi Redmi 6a vs Honor 7a
Honor 7A
"Pre-retirement" state employees. However, even now they are selling well, so let’s compare these 2 devices.
Honor 7A was announced and launched in April 2021, and Redmi 6A in June.
Many people will now start to complain that I said that the phones launched a year ago are already old. Yes - this is the absolute truth. Technology becomes obsolete and disappears very quickly, especially mobile phones.
Let's continue to look at the technical specifications.
- Honor has an aluminum body, while its competitor has a metal body.
This is exactly the case when manufacturers changed processors. On Honor Qualcomm MSM8937 Snapdragon 430, on Xiaomi - Mediatek Helio A22. It is worth noting that Mediatek processors heat up very quickly, so some users who buy Xiaomi Redmi 6A notice that the device heats up quickly and begin to prove to everyone that Xiaomi is a pathetic Chinese knockoff iPhone. No, that's not true.
- Honor 7A has versions with 2, 3/32 GB of memory, while Xiaomi 6A has only 2/16.
- The pre-installed OS on Xiaomi is Android 8.1, on Honor – Android 8.0
Xiaomi has the following colors available:
- Golden
- Grey
- Blue
- Pink
Its competitor has the following colors available:
- Black
- Blue
- Gold
- Two devices have main cameras of 13 MP, and front cameras of 8 MP (for Honor) and 5 MP (for Xiaomi)
- Radio support is present.
- Honor has a fingerprint scanner as an additional feature. Xiaomi does not have such functionality.
- The battery of both devices is non-removable, 3,000 mAh, lithium-ion. Enough for 360 hours of waiting. But this is only according to the manufacturer’s statement; it can be safely divided by 2.
- The price range for the Honor 7A device is from 7,000 rubles to 9,000 rubles. The Xiaomi 6A device will cost the buyer 6-9 thousand rubles.
What to choose? This is exactly the moment when I would prefer a device from Huawei, since it was the one that won this battle in terms of technical characteristics.
Xiaomi Redmi note 7 or Honor 8x?
Xiaomi Redmi note 7
Now there are a lot of rumors (both positive and negative) about the Redmi Note 7 phone. Therefore, let's compare it with the Honor 8X performance to find out: xiaomi redmi note 7 vs honor 8x: which is better?
- The release year of the phone from Xiaomi is 2021, and Honor is 2021.
- The screens of the devices are exactly the same: 6.3 inches.
- Redmi processor - Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 MSM8976 Plus, Honor - Huawei HiSilicon KIRIN 710.
- Redmi modifications: 3,4,6/32,64,128 GB, Honor – 6.4/128 GB.
- The Honor phone's camera is 19.7 megapixels, while its competitor's is 48 megapixels.
Model comparison table:
| Redmi Note 7 | Honor 8X | |
| Width | 75 | 77 |
| Length | 159 | 160 |
| Thickness | 8.1 | 7.8 |
| Colors | Blue, red, black | Blue, red, black, purple |
| OS | Android 9.0, MIUI 10.2 | Android 8.1 |
| Cores | 8 | 8 |
| Battery | 4,000 mAh | 3,750 mAh |
I would take Redmi for myself, without even thinking about Honor. And a similar opinion will flash below.
What to buy instead of Honor
While Honor's launch of phones with support for Google services will help win back lost customers, it will have to do more to expand its customer base. The competition is pretty tough these days with Xiaomi, Redmi, Realme and Vivo launching phones almost every week. And then there's Samsung, whose new focus on the budget and mid-range segment has helped it regain lost share in key markets. To succeed, Honor will have to release not only inexpensive products, but also quite advanced ones.
Honor has made and makes good smartphones.
Honor's plans for the year include the global release of new flagships, such as the Honor View 40 and the Honor 40 series. It was also reported that the Magic series will also continue, which will reportedly be a foldable device. Several mid-range 5G phones have also been certified in Europe and should be available soon. Everything seems to be fine, but there is somehow no confidence in success.
How to correctly pronounce Honor or Onor
Let's return to the main question: how to correctly pronounce the name of a smartphone? You don’t need to think long here, just open an online translator, like Google, and enter the name Honor. The word is translated into Russian as honor, glory, honor, treat, observe. It is difficult to say with certainty exactly what meaning the manufacturer had in mind, but nevertheless, the meaning can be understood.
By opening it with Google Translate, you can see not only the translation from English, but also a transcription that shows the correct pronunciation. So, the word Honor, in transcription – [ˈänər] is read as (One). Even if you do not know how to read English words and transcriptions, you can use the voice acting in the translator.
It turns out that it is correct to call the phone Honor, but not Honor. If you take into account the rules of the English language, the first letter H (H) is not readable. It is considered illiterate and incorrect pronunciation to call a smartphone Honor. Because according to the rules the first letter is not pronounced.
Now it’s clear how to correctly pronounce and translate the name Honor. To avoid looking like an illiterate person, name devices according to the rules.
Magic UI update for Honor
Honor phones use their own Magic UI shell. The brand once used EMUI from Huawei, but later the software was moved to the side. It’s just that the content hasn’t changed much due to the name change. As a result, Magic UI is a slightly redesigned EMUI. But is this bad if the latter always had a lot of fans and was generally quite successful?
Google has released the Android 12 beta. What's new and how to install
Now that Honor is no longer part of Huawei, it will have to remake its skin to be more fundamentally different from what Huawei has left. Most likely, it will retain the name, but the appearance will change quite a lot. This will not be an easy job and will take some time. There will be fewer specialists doing this than in the days of Huawei. This means there may be some stability issues that will take longer to fix. Most likely, a stable and new version of Magic UI will appear no earlier than version 5.0.
Is Magic UI essentially EMUI? but the situation must change.
How to say Honor or Onor correctly - translation from English into Russian
“What is the correct way to say Honor or Aunor?” - a question that arises among all English-speaking users of Chinese brand smartphones. Technobrand occupies more than 10% of the world market share, competing in quality with famous manufacturers. Users of the Chinese phone brand periodically wonder how to pronounce the name correctly, since the Chinese language has 5 different intonations in conversation.
New Honor
Honor offers an extensive product line that includes smartphones, computers, tablets, fitness trackers and smartwatches, headphones, speakers, smart TVs, routers and several lifestyle products. We can expect the brand to continue launching new products in these categories as well as adding new ones. For example, it would be great if the Hunter series grew into a full-fledged gaming line with gaming keyboards, mice and headsets.
Honor laptops can help her on her way to survival.
