It wasn’t that long ago that Chinese smartphone maker Huawei launched the Honor V8. The dual-camera flagship boasted a massive 5.7-inch screen, an octa-core processor, and up to 64GB of storage. Incredibly, it retailed for just $350.
Now, rumor has it that Huawei’s preparing to launch a successor. The Honor V9 was originally thought to debut as soon as March at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona, Spain, but a recent report from GSMArena says it will be unveiled on February 21.
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Here is everything we know about it so far.
Design
The Honor V9 is almost a dead ringer for its predecessor. Leaked images show a smartphone with rounded corners, an extra-wide dual-screen camera module, a rear fingerprint sensor, plastic antenna lines, and a volume rocker and power button on the front right side. It’s relatively minimalist, save for the Honor logo near the bottom of the Honor V9’s front and rear.
The leak showed an Honor V9 in gold, but if history is any indication, the smartphone will ship in a variety of color configurations. For comparison’s sake, the Honor V8 shipped in six colors, including white and rose gold.
Specs
Thanks to a listing on Chinese certification website Tenna, the Honor V9’s specs are less of a mystery than they otherwise might be.
The 157 x 77 x 6.79mm handset boasts a 5.7-inch screen with a curved, 2.5D-style Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440 pixels) resolution and a Huawei’s own 2.4GHz Kirin 960 octa-core processor, a powerful chip that’s capable of besting the iPhone 7 in certain circumstances. In terms of other internals, it packs a combination dual SIM/MicroSD card slot, a USB Type-C port, and support for 4G LTE, GPS, and Bluetooth.
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Huawei offered a choice of a screen resolution with the Honor V8 (Full HD or Quad HD), but that doesn’t appear to be the case with the V9. Instead, the models seem to be differentiated by storage and RAM: 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM, or 128GB of storage and 6GB of RAM.
When it comes to cameras, the Honor V9 is no slouch. It sports an 8MP selfie camera on the front and on the back, it features the same dual-lens rear camera system as its predecessor. Huawei’s two laser autofocus sensors, one 12MP color and one 2MP monochrome, fire at the same time, but the latter at twice the exposure. The two snaps are combined to produce a single composite picture with superior contrast, reduced noise, and superior sharpness.
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Supplying power for all those components is a beefy 3,900mAh battery — one bigger, it’s worth noting, than the Honor V8’s (3,500mAh). Considering the Honor V8 supported fast charging, it’s a safe bet that the Honor V9 will, too.
The Huawei Honor V9 is expected to run Emotion UI, Huawei’s proprietary theme atop Google’s Android 7.0 Nougat operating system. Rumors suggest Huawei’s developing a new version of Emotion UI with an improved interface, but one that is not expected to launch until this fall.
Release date and availability
If the Honor V9’s pricing is in line with its predecessor, it will go on sale between $350 for and $430.
Given the Honor V8 launched beyond China last year, it’s unlikely that the Honor V9 will be made available broadly. But there is a slim chance things will be different. The Honor brand, a spinoff of Huawei, launched in the U.S. last year with the Honor 5X. It’s tough to see where the Honor V9 might fit in Honor’s global lineup, but considering Huawei’s desire to boost stateside business, a U.S. launch isn’t out of the question.