Honor 90 First Look – Hands On with their latest 200MP camera packing phone
After parting ways with Huawei, Honor has blazed their own path and carved out their own design identity with the advent of their Magic series flagship phones and foldables as well as their value oriented numerically designated Honor series phones of which the Honor 90 is the latest to arrive in Malaysia after its debut in China. We managed to get a sample for field testing and ahead of our full review, here’s our Honor 90 first look where we share our initial impressions of their latest phone.
Honor 90 First Look – Build and Design
The Honor 90 stands midway on the brand’s totem pole of 2023 devices with its mix of features that is below the likes of the cutting edge Magic5 Pro and Magic Vs foldable while still being a cut above the entry level Honor X9a.
At the time of writing, Honor hasn’t quite yet furnished the price of the Honor 90 in Malaysia but the prior Honor 70 in 2022 and the earlier Honor 50 were priced just at RM1,999 at launch. Logical extrapolation would infer as such but until the phone launches this coming 20th July 2023, it’s safe to say that it would be around the circa RM 2,000 mark.
Bundled with our Honor 90 first look sample features a 66W fast charger and accompanying USB cable, a soft TPU casing and a pre-applied screen protector which adds quite a bit of value to the phone as you needn’t have to invest in all the usual accessories after purchasing it unlike some higher end flagship phones that skimp on everything save for the charging cable.
Compared to its immediate predecessor the Honor 70, the Honor 90 upguns almost every aspect of its specifications including the size and quality of its display, its processor, battery and cameras to impressive new heights though it is understandably a bit heavier while also being a bit longer and wider to accommodate its sundry improvements.
When seen at a glance, the Honor 90 does have a somewhat similar layout to the older Honor 70 with its dual raised camera housings on the rear and its top-centre punch hole for its selfie camera on the front display with the biggest difference being its finish with Malaysia getting a choice of three possible colourways – Peacock Blue, Emerald Green and in the case of our Honor 90 first look unit, a shade referred to as Diamond Silver.
On closer inspection, the Diamond Silver colourway is a mirrored pearlescent white finish with subtle crosshatched lines spread across two thirds of the backplate.
These textures are obvious when held up to the light though they are primarily for aesthetic purposes and don’t do much for enhancing grip.The raised textures do have the unusual side benefit of concealing fingerprints nicely. The upper portion of the backplate near the cameras that lacks this texturing is a fingerprint magnet.
The left and top sides of the Honor 70 are otherwise unremarkable with the right featuring a power button and volume rocker with the base featuring a dual SIM card tray, a USB-C port for charging and docking duties as well as a grille for the mono speaker.
Up front is the main draw – a 6.7-inch quad-curved AMOLED display with 1,200 x 2,664 pixels resolution, a smooth 120Hz refresh rate as well as a rated 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut and HDR10+ support which makes it ideal for enjoying movies; Honor also claims that the display is Netflix HDR Certified and Amazon Prime Video certified too to play well with HDR content from these respective streaming platforms.
The AMOLED display also packs a host of other technologies that make it easier on the eyes that include 3,840Hz PWM Dimming and dynamic dimming tech to ensure that it flickers less to the naked eye. Not only that, it even hosts TUV Rheinland Flicker Free Certification that ensures that it truly is flicker free.
These display technologies make the Honor 90’s touchscreen perfect for viewing in dim light conditions such as when you’re reading ebooks or catching up on a few shows in bed. For biometrics, the phone also has an under-display fingerprint reader.
In terms of build quality, our Honor 90 first look sample certainly passes muster at first blush with good tactility belying its polycarbonate backplate and an event heft that allows it to be wielded one-handed though the Diamond Silver finish isn’t as visually appealing as the other two available colourways. Unfortunately, the phone lacks any IP dust or water resistance so some care needs to be taken when outdoors.
Honor 90 First Look – Specifications
On paper, our Honor 90 first look sample has the following specifications. At the time of writing, Honor has only confirmed that they will be bringing in three colourways for the phone. In China, the Honor 90 does appear in different permutations of 12GB and 16GB RAM as well as 256GB and 512GB of storage so it’s still unconfirmed as yet whether our sample is the only variant coming to Malaysia or if there will be more.
| Price | TBA |
| Display | 6.7-inch AMOLED, 1,200 x 2,664 pixels, 120Hz, HDR10+ |
| Processor | Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 Accelerated Edition |
| OS | Android 13 w/ MagicOS 7.1 |
| Memory | 12GB RAM/ 512GB storage |
| Cameras | 200MP F/1.9 w/ PDAF + 12MP F/2.2 ultrawide angle + 2MP F/2.4 depth sensor [rear] / 50MP F/2.4 [front] |
| Battery | 5,000mAh w/ 66W fast charge |
| Size/Weight | 161.9 x 74.1 x 7.8mm / 183g |
At face value, the Honor 90 is an all around upgrade to the earlier Honor 70 that released last year with a larger, better and higher quality display, a slightly dated but still potent flagship-grade Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 Accelerated Edition CPU and has a massive 200MP camera on the rear with gyro electronic image stabilisation (EIS) with a 12MP ultra wide angle camera and 2MP depth sensor riding shotgun.
Even the front selfie camera gets an upgrade with a large 50MP sensor. Both the front and rear camera arrays are capable of up to 4K@30fps video capture. At first blush, shots with the rear camera look lovely with great colours and dynamic range at the evening event where we were issued the phone but we’ll field test it more thoroughly later in more diverse shooting scenarios.
Connectivity is superb with fast WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 and the phone itself runs full-fat Android 13 will full access to the Google Play Store overlaid with their own Magic OS 7.1 firmware. Thus far, our Honor 90 first look sample handles well and runs smoothly across all the usual tasks expected of a phone. In the meantime, stay tuned to our full review!
Honor 90 first look unit courtesy of Honor Malaysia. For more details please visit https://www.hihonor.com/my/
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