Smartphone maker Honor is banking on its newest product — the Honor 90 5G with a 200MP camera — to drive sales in the Philippines, and to stay competitive in a cutthroat smartphone market driven by social media users who are always on the lookout for the best camera for both photos and videos.
The new phone was launched Tuesday, Aug. 15, amid a massive marketing push on social media and it seems the push is working for Honor, with advanced orders reportedly pouring in massive numbers.
As part of this marketing push, the Honor 90 5G launch was preceded by a photo contest with contestants required to use certain hashtags. The launch was held in a resort in Bataan and was attended by a throng of print and online media practitioners, as well as bloggers, celebrities, and influencers, among others.
Currently, there are only a handful of smartphone brands with a 200MP sensor, and most of these brands can be considered “premium” brands (read: expensive). Honor seems to want to break this mold, with the Honor 90 5G with an announced retail price of P24,990.
First impressions
Here’s a very brief rundown of our first impressions of the Honor 90 5G and its 200-megapixel (MP) camera.
The Honor 90 5G 200MP camera delivers when it comes to photography. The lens produces crisp and clear photos, making it easier for amateurs to take photos that seem to have that “professional” feel.
A quick note: According to Honor, the new phone has a triple camera system consisting of the 200MP main camera with a 1/1.4-inch sensor, a 12 MP ultra-wide, and a macro camera with a 112° field of view and a 2MP depth camera that helps the camera more accurately gauge distance.
Our take: We used some of the features of the triple camera system, particularly the 200MP camera, the ultra-wide, and the macro camera, and overall, we were able to take decent photos. A 200MP image sensor ensures that details will remain even if you zoom in on the photo.
Conversely, the picture will also still have decent details even if you zoom out at maximum level. There are presets to allow you to shift effortlessly from the main camera to the wide-angle sensor, although you can also do it manually.
The macro mode is also quite decent, and although macro pictures taken via a built-in smartphone image sensor do not have the same clarity — or depth — of DSLR macro lenses, the macro mode serves it purpose if you want to try out macro photography.
The Portrait Mode is another good feature of the phone, and what we like is the control that you can have on“bokeh” to add a professional touch to your photos.
Scrolling and using the phone is a breeze, although in the few days that we were able to test drive the Honor 90 5G, there have a few moments when the phone ”froze” or slowed down, particularly when we opened multiple apps, and using browsing and editing high-resolution photos.
A quick disclaimer: We were not able to use all of the features of the Honor 90 5G, but overall, the camera performs exceptionally well.
The sales pitch
As mentioned, Honor seems to be positioning the phone for the tech-savvy consumers who are consistently on social media.
“Honor is bringing a new powerful and innovative device to cater to the needs of our consumers. Whether you’re a professional seeking on-the-go productivity, an avid content creator capturing life’s fleeting moments, or simply someone who values the convenience of modern technology, the new and powerful HONOR 90 5G has been designed to be your ultimate companion,” Stephen Cheng, VP for Honor Philippines.
Honor said the new phone is designed to help vloggers streamline their workflows. The new phone also uses artificial intelligence (AI) for video denoising and video mode recommendations, as well as for AI Vlog Assistant which enables users to generate a social media-ready 15-second video with just a few taps. Further, the company said the Honor 90 5G achieves omnidirectional noise reduction with a signal-to-noise ratio of 20dB, which is close to a professional recorder, allowing users to capture clear human voices without other noise disturbance.
Tech specs
Equipped with a 6.7-inch Quad-Curved Floating Display, the Honor 90 5G supports a high resolution of 2664×1200, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut and up to 1.07 billion colors, bringing visual content to life in stunning colors and vivid clarity. Furthermore, the Honor 90 5G supports a peak HDR brightness of 1600 nits, which allows for improved display readability even under bright light.
The display is fast and responsive with an adaptive screen refresh rate of up to 120Hz which is dynamically adjusted according to the displayed content to strike the optimal balance between visual fluidity and battery life.
In addition, with HDR10+ support and HDR certifications from Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, the Honor 90 5G ensures that users can enjoy an exceptional multimedia experience whether they are on the road or in the comfort of their homes.
The company further said the Honor 90 5G is equipped with industry-leading eye comfort features. Receiving the TÜV Rheinland Flicker Free Certification and achieving the risk-free dimming level, the Honor 90 5G is perfect for today’s entertainment-hungry generation who spend long hours viewing and watching content on their smartphones. The display supports the industry’s highest Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) Dimming frequency of 3840Hz, effectively minimizing the strain it puts on users’ eyes when it is set at low brightness.
The display also features Dynamic Dimming which simulates natural light to alleviate eye fatigue, as well as Honor’s Circadian Night Display technology which filters blue light and promotes natural melatonin secretion to improve user sleep quality at night.
The Honor 90 5G is embedded with a large 5000mAh battery to support all-day use. On a single charge, the smartphone can provide up to 19.5 hours of continuous local video streaming. When its battery is low, users can take it back up to 45% with 66W HONOR SuperCharge in just 15 minutes, keeping downtime at a minimum. The Honor 90 5G is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 Accelerated Edition, which has a 20% better GPU and 30% better AI performance compared to its predecessor.
The internal temperature is kept in check by a 147% larger vapor chamber, facilitating efficient heat dissipation that allows the Honor 90 5G to stay cool to the touch even under load.