Honor’s New Phone Packs Some Pretty Nifty Features

It’s a brave time to be launching a new phone, but Honor’s new phone packs some pretty nifty features which may (or may not) catch a few eyes.

Honor isn’t strictly new to the market, although they are relatively unknown compared to the leading brands. Honor was actually launched by Huawei, it is thought they launched the brand to try to break into markets and demographics they wouldn’t normally be contenders for.

Their latest phone, the Honor Magic, does however have all the additional features you’d expect to find in a flagship phone made by the like of Samsung or Apple. To be honest, i’d never heard of the brand until recently, so if this is a common trend, it seems a shame their efforts are going somewhat unnoticed.

Here are some of the features along with some examples of how they might be used. The first and probably most impressive of these features is something they are calling ‘WiseScreen’. This uses a sensor in the frame, plus a sensor in the front facing camera to recognise the owners hand and eyes.

Once the owner picks up and looks at the phone, the screen will unlock, if they put it down, the screen will lock. It’s a slightly different way of approaching phone security but I quite like it.

Another feature is something they are calling ‘FaceCode Intelligent Recognition’. The phone will only show notifications to those who have their face pre-registered. I am aware that Android at least has ways to make notifications not display the message, but I do like how Honor have come up with their own twist on it.

There are some other great features, but from looking through them, it seems you’ll need a constant internet connection for them. This has been somewhat of a sore point for people and data usage concerns will no doubt be voiced. Here are a few things the company had to say;

• Imagine when you are chatting about movies with your friends on Wechat, Honor Magic will then be able to recommend the latest blockbusters for you.
• Imagine when you are on the road, Honor Magic automatically recognizes that you are driving and will prompt a reminder for you to switch the device to driving mode.
• DeepThink – Press and hold the home button and Honor Magic will offer multi-facet information based on the current webpage you visit.
• Once you use Honor Magic to order a cab, the driver’s license plate information will be shown on the display under locked screen mode.
• Once you arrive at the theatre, Honor Magic will automatically display the ticket booking number.
• When you approach the parcel collection counter, Honor Magic will automatically display the tracking number.

The phone is also supposed to launch certain features on the fly, one example of this is that once it senses you have entered a dark space, the phone will automatically launch the flashlight for you. I can imagine this isn’t ideal if you’re trying to cause a little mischief.

Here’s a link to the specs if you want a deeper look.

The Honor Magic will only be available in China to begin with, although I can imagine they will have plans to bring this phone to other parts of the world. Huawei has some very big partners and customers, so there’s very little doubt at least some of them will have this phone available at some point in the future.

Have you ever owned a Huawei phone? Would you be tempted by this one?