The honor 7 makes its international debut

Following its Chinese launch, the honor 7 is finally announced for the international market. Almost a year after the release of its honor 6 in Malaysia, the new successor steps up with a premium build and enhanced features to close the gap with its flagship rivals. For those who are unfamiliar, Honor is Huawei’s sub-brand that’s digitally driven through its Vmall online stores. In China, the honor 7 did tremendously well with 200,000 sold online in just 2 minutes.

To recap, the honor 7 is slightly larger at 5.2 inches and the IPS-Neo display pushes a Full HD resolution of 1920×1080. Under the hood is an updated 64-bit Octa-Core (4X 1.5GHz + 4X 2.2GHz) Kirin 935 processor that’s mated with 3GB of RAM. For the international market, it gets 16GB of on-board storage which can be expanded with microSD up to 128GB.

The overall build of the honor 7 is pretty solid with its unibody metal back that comes with a slight curve for a more comfortable grip. On the right, it gets a power button in the middle and a volume rocker right next to it. On the left side, you’ll find a Smart Key button which can be customised to your reference and a SIM tray slot that supports dual-SIMs.

The main speaker and microphones are placed at the bottom alongside its microUSB port, while the top comes with the standard headphone jack and an infrared blaster.

For photography, the honor 7 gets a much larger 20MP IMX230 sensor from Sony and a f/2.0 aperture lens. The new sensor comes with Phase Detection Auto Focus which provides an ultra-quick focusing time of 0.1 seconds. While the camera lens has a protruding bump, it uses sapphire glass to protect it from scratches. In terms of features, it supports a wide range of filters, slow-mo, time lapse and even light painting, a key feature that was introduced with the Huawei P8 flagship.

At the front, it gets an 8MP f/2.4 shooter with soft flash. Over at the back, the honor 7 also gets a fingerprint scanner which unlocks instantly on a single touch. Like the Huawei P8, it also supports knuckle sense, allowing you to double tap using your knuckle to take a screenshot but at the same time, it still supports the standard double tap to wake while the screen is switched off.

Keeping the lights on is an embedded 3,100mAh battery and it also support quick charge which does 0-50% in 30 minutes. Overall the honor 7 weighs 157 grams and has a thickness of 8.5mm. Out of the box, it runs on EMUI 3.1 that’s based on Android 5.0 Lollipop.

The honor 7 is expected to come to Malaysia officially in September. In China, the dual-SIM 4G LTE variant with 16GB is priced at 2,199CNY which is about RM1,436. Meanwhile in the UK where the device is being launched, the honor 7 is priced at £249.99 (about RM1,611). We should be getting some price indication closer to local launch. In the mean time, do check out our first impressions with the honor 7.

Honor 7 Hands-on Photos