The much-awaited Honor 90 5G was formally launched in India on Thursday at an exorbitant price of Rs. 37,999! But it showed on stage a starting price of Rs. 27,999, with the actual price in small print.
Why was Honor trying to mislead its customers? The reasons are many, the top reason is simply that the phone is not worth Rs. 37,999 because of its outdated hardware.
The Honor 90 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 SoC, which is more than a year-old processor. The processor is paired with an Adreno 644 GPU.
Today, smartphones like the OnePlus 11R 5G are selling with the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC at the same price. So yeah, it’s not worth it from the get-go.
The company has lately been running a “walnut challenge” across its outlets to show how “unbreakable” is the Honor 90, at this point, it seems that is the only USP the phone has.
Its ridiculously pumped-up primary camera with a 200MP sensor lacks Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS), which is standard at this price range. The phone also has a 50MP front camera for selfies.
The primary camera has something called “Honor Image Engine support” and is paired with a 12MP sensor with an ultra-wide-angle lens and a 2MP sensor with a macro lens alongside an LED flash unit. A 2MP macro on a value-flagship handset in 2023, yes, you read that right.
The phone is powered by a 5,000mAh battery with 30W wired SuperCharge technology. But the funny thing is, there is no adaptor in the box so you’ll have to buy it separately to actually enjoy the technology.
The Honor 90 comes with a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 1.5K (2664 x 1200 pixels) and offers a refresh rate of up to 120Hz and a peak brightness level of 1,600 nits. The peak brightness is pretty impressive.
In terms of software, the phone ships with Android 13-based Magic OS 7.1. The company said that it will provide two years of Android OS updates and three years of security updates for the smartphone, which is not up to the industry standard in 2023. Brands are offering up to four years OS updates and five years of security updates with phones priced lower.
The Honor 90 5G will be available in Diamond Silver, Emerald Green, and Midnight Black color variants.
The phone is available in the 8GB RAM + 256GB storage variant, which costs Rs. 37,999, and the 12GB RAM + 512GB storage variant which is priced at Rs. 39,999.
Going back to the first point, why did the company mislead its customers? The “early bird” price is just bank discounts and goodies that it is offering the early buyers.
The phone will be up for purchase starting September 18 at 12 p.m. from Amazon. There is an exchange discount of Rs. 2,000 and customers using ICICI and SBI cards at the time of purchase will get an additional instant discount of Rs. 3,000.
On top of that, the company is giving away goodies worth Rs 5,000, bringing the price down to Rs 27,999. But does it really?