Honor 30 and 30 Pro: Everything you need to know

Honor has just announced the Honor 30 series, and following the trends of other smartphone brands, there will be three variants that are now available. The Honor 30 Pro+ is joined by the Honor 30 and 30 Pro, with 5G connectivity supported across the range.

Let’s talk about the Honor 30 and Honor 30 Pro—here’s everything you need to know.

Price and availability

The series has been launched in China for now, and there are quite a number of colour options available. For the base model Honor 30, there are black, green, silver, and purple versions, while you have memory configurations that start at 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for CNY2,999 (~RM1,843), and top out at 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for CNY3,499 (~RM2,151).

For the Honor 30 Pro, there are colour options of black, green, and silver. The base variant has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which is priced at CNY3,999 (~RM2,457), while the top spec variant features 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage at a price of CNY4,399 (~RM2,704).

Full pricing is as follows:

Honor 30 – 6GB RAM, 128GB storage – CNY2,999 (~RM1,843)
Honor 30 – 8GB RAM, 128GB storage – CNY3,199 (~RM1,966)
Honor 30 – 8GB RAM, 256GB storage – CNY3,499 (~RM2,151)
Honor 30 Pro – 8GB RAM, 128GB storage – CNY3,999 (~RM2,457)
Honor 30 Pro – 8GB RAM, 256GB storage – CNY4,399 (~RM2,704)

Pre-orders are now open in China, with sales expected to start on the 21st of April 2020.

Honor 30 specs

As mentioned, even the base model Honor 30 has 5G support, with the help of the new Kirin 985 5G chipset, which is mated to up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. You get a 20:9 6.53″ AMOLED display pushing a FHD+ resolution of 2400×1080 pixels, while there is a hole-punch cutout in the display.

Within that cutout sits a 32MP camera for selfies, while there is also an in-display fingerprint scanner. On the back of the device, there is a quad-camera setup comprising a 40MP main camera, an 8MP ultra-wide angle shooter, an 8MP telephoto lens with OIS, and a 2MP macro camera. Honor says that the rear camera module will enable 5x optical zoom, 10x hybrid zoom, and even 50x digital zoom.

Keeping the lights on is a 4,000mAh battery, which supports 40W fast charging, although wireless charging is not supported.

Honor 30 Pro specs

As for the Honor 30 Pro, you get the same cinematic 20:9 aspect ratio with a larger 6.57″ AMOLED display pushing a Full HD+ resolution of 2340×1080 pixels. One of the more obvious upgrades for the Pro is the Kirin 990 5G chipset powering the device—the same chip used in parent-company Huawei’s flagship devices like the Mate 30 Pro 5G.

As mentioned earlier, you can have up to 8GB of RAM, with a max storage option of 256GB. Just like the Honor 30, we’re seeing an in-display fingerprint scanner, as well as another hole-punch cutout.

However, the Honor 30 Pro sports dual front-facing cameras, so the cutout is a little wider—reminiscent of the Galaxy S10+. This is made up of a 32MP main selfie camera that’s complemented with a 8MP shooter.

Interestingly, the Pro version “only” has a triple-camera setup on the back of the phone, compared to the quad-camera setup on the standard Honor 30. There’s a 40MP main camera, an 8MP telephoto lens with OIS, and a 16MP ultra-wide angle shooter. Again, you get 5x optical zoom, 10x hybrid zoom, and 50x digital zoom.

Sustaining the device is the same 4,000mAh battery, which you can also charge via USB-C at 40W. Just like the base model, wireless charging is not supported on the Honor 30 Pro. However, the Pro model features stereo speakers—this hardware feature is only available on the Pro and Pro+ models. Additionally, only the Pro and Pro+ models are rated at IP54 for ingress protection.

Both the Honor 30 and 30 Pro do not have 3.5mm headphone jacks, and both run on Honor’s Magic UI 3.1.1 that’s based on Android 10. As the devices have only been launched in China at the moment, we don’t have any concrete details on when the Honor 30 series will make its way to Malaysian markets.

Given Huawei (and Honor)’s issues with the U.S. government, we expect to see Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) instead of Google Mobile Services (GMS) in the Honor 30 series when it does eventually reach global markets. This was already the case for recent Honor phones such as the Honor 9X and Honor View 30.

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