Honor 200 series comes to Mzansi with premium ambitions

Honor South Africa is bullish on its chances in a saturated smartphone market

Honor is definitely winning over the public and reviewers alike with the brand reaching top three among contract sales.

“We don't have the final official figures, but right now I can guarantee you it's top three for all postpaid models in the market for September for July,” said Honor South Africa CEO Fred Zhou during the media briefing at the launch event in Johannesburg.

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The flagship Magic6 Pro is also the Bizcommunity pick for best Android handset of 2024, but the R24,000 price tag is a major part of that consideration alongside the otherworldly battery endurance and secure face unlock.

At R20,000 the Honor 200 Pro is exposed to tough competition that will require more than a Harcourt partnership to overcome.

AI, but done different

When it comes to the current industry trend – AI – Honor is also bringing a refreshing approach.

The Chinese brand may not be benefitting from the Circle-to-Search goodness that is still a Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel exclusive, but it has a unique implementation.

“We separate the AI to 4 layers. The first layer is the cross-device ability, which means that if your phone has this ability, it's easier to use an AI to share information, to share everything,” Zhou told Bizcommunity when questioned about the Google AI features not coming to the wider Android ecosystem.

“The second layer will be the platform level, which means that, using this AI, we can give abilities your phone doesn't have.”

“The third area we saw is application-level AI – if you download application, you can have access to its full functionality.”

Zhou maintains that the Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel exclusive example is mainly focused on that application level.

“For example, I think the functional part is easy, if you download similar application, you can have exactly the same experience with that,” he says.

So, the fourth layer is cloud AI. For owners, we think all the smartphones will do is the third and fourth layer because, to be honest, that’s what Google Gemini or OpenAI does

Premium camera experience

The non-Lite Honor 200 variants (Honor 200 and 200 Pro) both benefit from customised camera sensors with the primary 50MP Omnivision snapper ported over from the Magic 6 Pro flanked by a 50MP Sony telephoto and 12MP ultrawide.

For the main party trick, Honor enlisted the help of Studio Harcourt to train its image processing algorithm on 1,000 lighting scenarios and millions of datasets over 400 days.

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The company claims to have successfully encapsulated Studio Harcourt’s essence in smartphones via the Honor AI Portrait Engine.

Zhou believes that smartphone makers should be investing in this kind of innovation and that it will be a key differentiator for the new devices.

Both devices are powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, with the 200 Pro gaining the latest 8S Gen 3 – a confusingly watered-down variant of the top-end 8 Gen 3 which performance slightly lower than last year’s 8 Gen 2 – and the vanilla 200 predictably settling for the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 that is designed for midrange handsets.

Brand extension

The August issue of GQ was shot on Honor 200 Pro

Honor also took the opportunity to announce collaborations with fashion brand GALXBOY and an upcoming GQ South Africa cover which was shot on the 200 Pro.

There’s also a sponsorship deal with SuperSport United – which it picked up after Huawei didn’t renew.

The Honor 200 Pro 5G and HONOR 200 5G will be available from Thursday, 1 August 2024, at the recommended retail price of R20,000 and R16,000, respectively.