Honor announced the new V40 5G flagship phone, its first since Huawei sold the company to a consortium of Chinese partners based in Shenzhen. The phone is exclusive to China at the moment, but Honor’s V series typically makes its way to the rest of the world under the “View” brand.
The V40 has a 6.72-inch OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 1000+ processor. The main camera has a 1 / 1.56 inch 50 megapixel sensor. The 4000mAh battery can be wirelessly charged to 50W or 66W with a cable.
Huawei said it was selling Honor in November due to “huge pressure” and difficulty securing a proper supply chain. While Honor operated independently from Huawei, it relied on the parent company for much of its technology, like HiSense’s Kirin processors. That meant he was just as badly hit by US sanctions banning US companies from doing business with Huawei.
The V40 phones will of course be in development since early November, but now that Huawei has parted ways with Honor, the international “View 40” version of the V40 may be able to ship with Google services on board. This would allow Honor to sell phones in Western markets and beyond without the huge downside of having to rely on Huawei’s AppGallery, which still can’t compete with Google’s Play Store outside of China. , where Google is not present.
At the same time, Honor no longer has the advantage of relying on Huawei’s supply chain, so it will have work to establish itself as a strong brand in its own right once the phones are launched elsewhere. For now, it’s available in China with prices starting at 3,599 yuan (~ $ 550) for a model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. 3,999 yuan (~ $ 620) doubles the storage to 256 GB.
