Dubai: After two weeks of teasing customers on the availability of the Honor 7, Huawei’s e-brand launched its latest flagship smartphone at an event hosted in the Art Sawa Gallery, Al Qouz, last night.
TLDR: The Honor 7 will be available at Dh1,399 exclusively on Souq.com from the 18th of this month. For the first month, customers using the promo code “H7ME” will get Dh150 knocked off the price which makes it Dh1,249 until November 18.
Read on for the launch, key features and specifications. And click here for a hands-on review of the device.
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For those who missed it, here’s how the evening went down:
17:30
• Traffic in Al Quoz, Gotta love it.
18:00
• The launch event is quite lively, the presentation zone inside is cordoned off.
• There’s a special touch screen set-up towards the rear of the gallery where guests can design, customise and personalise Honor 7 covers. Line’s too long.
• I'm getting a juice instead.
18:30
• Parkour, acrobatics, freestyle dancing and stunts around the gallery. The best part of the performance was when one of the crew ran up a wall. I’ve heard of “driving up the wall,” since my mum used to always tell me I constantly inspire her to do so – but this was something else.
18:40
• We’re inside the presentation area. Should have taken another juice in - these usually take a while.
• Chris Sun Baigong, Vice President of Huawei Honor in the Middle East, welcomes us to the launch event and begins with a brief background of the brand. “Honor was born in 2013 from the internet, and by its nature is for digital natives,” he begins. Sun explains that in 2014, Honor sold 20 million units worldwide – a figure that has already been reached in the first 6 months of this year. By the end of 2015, Sun estimates that 40 million units will be shipped offering a revenue of $5 million.
19:00
• Bernard Sebahieh, e-Commerce Business Development Manager at Honor, Middle East, takes to the stage – announcing the Honor 7 at 7PM. No idea if this was a coincidence or if that amazing timing was planned. If it was: Well played Honor, well played.
• Sebahieh offers a quick run-down of the device’s several features starting with the 7’s self-learning fingerprint sensor which improves its response time as you keep using the phone.
• Other features mentioned were its 20MP rear camera with a sapphire lens together with its several camera modes such as Time-Lapse, Light Painting, Graffiti and Stargazing.
• An interesting feature on the 7 is its ‘Knuckle screenshot’ where you knock the screen twice with your knuckle. I wasn’t such a fan of this form of ‘knuckle touch’ earlier, however, as the saying goes, don’t knock it till you try it. In this case, I knocked it, tried it and liked it.
• One of the last of the many features mentioned was the dedicated smart key on the left of the device. Once set-up, a long press, single or double tap, automatically opens pre-set applications, which is quite convenient.
19:20
• 20-minutes later and that’s it. The Honor 7 will be available exclusively on www.Souq.com from the 18th of October onwards at a retail price of Dh1,399. Interested customers can also avail of a Dh150 discount by using the “H7ME” promo code.
• Speaking to #GNTECH after the launch Sebahieh said that Honor have expected sales upwards of 15,000 units in the region within the first week of its launch. “No one will ever go without an Honor. We are making sure that before we run out there is new stock coming in,” he added. “The discount code is also valid for the first month, so that’s until November 18th”
• So there you have it: a flagship smartphone at an affordable price, just in time for the festive season.
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Specs:
Dimensions: 143.2mm x 71.9mm x 8.5mm
Weight: About 157g
Display: 5.2-inch LCD
Resolution: 1920x1080(FHD)
Main Camera: 20MP PDAF Auto Focus
Secondary Camera: 8MP
Operating system: Android 5.0
Processor: Hisilicon Kirin 935
Battery Capacity: 3,100mAh
Standby time: Up to 350 hours
Talk time: Up to 500 min
Memory: ROM: 16MB/GB | RAM: 3MB/GB | ROM User Available: About 9GB | microSD card (up to 128GB)
