Honor has announced its latest budget flagship smartphone at a launch event in Paris, the Honor 90. The new phone is the successor to the Honor 80 and theHonor 70. It packs almost all the goodies you could want in agreat budget smartphone, with a big 120Hz screen, a 200MP camera, and fast 66W charging, complete with unique designs on some of its colorways. It’s joined by the Honor Pad X9, the company’s latest entertainment and education-focused tablet.
The Honor 90 was first introduced in China last month, and there are no surprises here if you’ve seen it before. The new device stays true to the Honor N series in its design, with its rounded edges all around and the dual camera bumps in the top left corner, though this year, they’re ovals rather than perfect circles. The phone is available in four very different colorways, with the glossy black and soft-touch green variants representing a more traditional style. Meanwhile, the Diamond Silver version wants to position itself as jewelry, with intricate details in the form of a diamond pattern on the lower half of the back. The funnest color is likely Peacock Blue, which offers a frosted texture with blue-and-orange colors sprinkled throughout the back, supposedly representing opals and peacock feathers.
On the front, Honor is using its signature quad-curved display design, offering a 6.7-inch OLED with a dynamic 120Hz refresh rate and extra fast 3840Hz PWM dimming, which is supposed to help with eye fatigue when looking at the screen for extended periods. It also supports HDR10+ with Netflix and Amazon Prime certification out of the box.
The camera system offers some of the highest megapixel counts in current smartphones, going all the way up to 200MP on the main camera with its 1/1.4-inch sensor. It’s joined by a 12MP ultrawide, a depth sensor, and a 50MP front camera. The Honor 90 is supposed to offer a re-engineered portrait mode. The company promises better bokeh effects, and finally supports 2x zoom for portrait shots. Honor phones were previously limited to 1x zoom here.
Within the Honor 90, the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 is responsible for CPU tasks, supported by up to 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. There are also 8+256 and a 12+256GB variants. Power is provided by a 5,000mAh battery that can be charged at 66W, with Honor claiming it can go from 0 to 20 percent in 5 minutes. Software-wise, the Honor 70 runs MagicOS 7.1, which is based on Android 13. The company confirmed to us in a briefing that we’re looking at two Android updates and three years of security updates, which is on the lower end of promises, and a particularly big bummer given thatAndroid 14is just around the corner.
The Honor 90 shared the stage with the Honor Pad X9. It offers an 11.5-inch 2000x1200 display, audio provided by six speakers, up to 128GB of storage and 4GB of RAM, and it weighs 495g. The tablet is very much an entry-level device, but it might be just all you need if you just want a simple entertainment option that’s bigger than your phone.
The Honor 90 starts at a very competitive £450 for the 8+256GB variant and £500 for the 12+512GB version. you may preorder the Honor 90 from July 7, and there will be a special 5% off deal for anyone who pre-orders via Honor’s own HiHonor store using the codeAUKH905. If you preorder Amazon, Very, and Currys, you can alternatively get a free Honor Pad X8 with your purchase, the predecessor to the one Honor announced today. Meanwhile, this new Pad X9 costs £180 and it will beavailable from July 10 on HiHonorand July 19 on other UK retailers. As with most Honor products, we don’t expect a US launch.
Meanwhile, the more budget-conscious Honor 90 Lite has already been launched in Europe without much fanfare last month, availablefrom Amazon for £250.
The Honor 90 is the latest budget flagship, offering some of the best hardware at its sub £500 price point. It packs a 200MP camera, some interesting colorways, cruved screen, and more.
