HONOR 7 official with 20MP camera and fingerprint sensor

Huawei may sell handsets under its own name but the company also offers devices under the HONOR brand in both China and Western developed markets. HONOR was initially launched as HUAWEI’s answer to low-cost competition from the likes of Gionee and Xiaomi but the HONOR 6 and HONOR 6 Plus from last year represented some of the best mid-range devices on the market.

Today, HUAWEI has just finished unveiling its next HONOR smartphone – the HUAWEI HONOR 7, which comes in three different variants and has a lower price tag that rumors previously suggested.

The price tag is simply phenomenal given the incredible specs included in the handset, which is a mini version of the popular Ascend Mate 7 phablet from last year. The lowest variant of the HONOR 7 costs 1999 Yuan ($322) and offers 16GB storage with LTE while the middle option offers the same storage and dual SIM 4G LTE for 2199 Yuan ($354). The top end model offers 64GB internal storage and dual 4G LTE SIM support for 2499 Yuan ($402).

Other than these differences in storage and SIM support, all three models have the same specs. The all-metal device has a 5.2-inch Full HD (1920×1080) display offering a respectable pixel density of 423 pixels per inch and above the display is an 8MP front facing camera with fixed focus and F2.4 aperture.

Switch to the back and the HONOR 7 uses a Sony IMX230 camera with 21 megapixels and Phase Detection Auto Focus allowing it to focus on a subject in just 0.1 seconds. Beneath the camera is the fingerprint sensor which initially debuted on the Ascend Mate 7 and can be used to unlock the phone with one tap. The fingerprint sensor can also be used for security measures in some banking and payments applications for additional security.

Under the hood, the HONOR 7 is powered by an octa-core Kirin 930 processor, which has 4 Cortex A53 cores clocked at 2.2GHz and 4 more clocked at 1.5GHz. There’s also a Mali T628 GPU, 3GB RAM and a microSD card expansion slot allowing you to increase the storage by up to 128GB. The HONOR 7 runs Android 5.0 Lollipop with Huawei’s Emotion UI v3.1 on top and is powered by a 3100mAh battery with fast charging allowing you to charge the phone to full in 1 hour and 25 minutes or charge to 50% in just 30 minutes.

Like most HUAWEI phones, the HONOR 7 is rich in connectivity, including NFC, dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz – 5GHz), Bluetooth 4.1, GPS and LTE Cat 6. The HONOR 7 is currently only available in China and the LTE bands supported are FDD-LTE B1/B3 but a global variant should be available in a few months supporting all major LTE frequencies (dependent upon market).

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The HONOR 7 will go on sale in China on July 7th and is available to pre-order now. I personally hope that HONOR bring this handset to every market in the world as, on paper at least, it’s a really exciting phone. Having used both the HONOR 6 and the HONOR 6 Plus, I have high hopes for the HONOR 7 but what do you think? Is the feature-rich and stylish HONOR 7 smartphone, the one for you? Let us know your views in the comments guys!