Honor Could Unveil “True Flagship” Smartphone with Snapdragon 888 Chipset in July: Report

Chinese budget smartphone brand Honor could release a “true flagship” device as soon as July, according to media reports.

The smartphone would likely be included in the brand’s Magic series and would be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 chipset, media outlet Yixian of Tencent News reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Honor officially launched its V40 series in January, representing the company’s debut smartphone model following its separation from Huawei in November last year.

The Honor V40 5G runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 1000+ chipset, considered by industry insiders to be a slightly less advanced chip. This suggests, according to Yixian, that the phone cannot be called a flagship in the truest sense.

The report added that Honor is still in the process of refining its overall structure, causing delays in product deployment.

SEE ALSO: Honor V40 with 50MP Camera, MediaTek Chip Sells Out within Minutes after Launch

Although all of Honor’s past suppliers – including AMD, Qualcomm, Samsung, Microsoft, Intel and MediaTek – have now resumed working with the company, they no longer consider Honor to be a priority client following its separation from Huawei, the report said. This continues to make it rather difficult for Honor to keep up with the pace of the industry.

Huawei sold its budget smartphone sub-brand Honor to a consortium of over 30 agents, dealers, and government-backed entities in November 2020, citing “tremendous pressure” to do so amid US sanctions threatening the firm’s hardware supply, including key chipsets.

Honor has set an ambitious target of producing 100 million smartphones in 2021, a 40% increase from the number of phones that the company shipped in 2020. The majority of the company’s sales are generated from within China.

Honor’s Magic series will not be just a single device but will likely refer to a wider range of products, the person familiar with the matter told Yixian.

Following the V40 series, Honor is rumored to staging the launch of a new mid-range tablet named HONOR Pad 7 later in March, according to leaked information posted by Chinese blogger Pengpeng Jun Jiadao on March 8.

The new tablet is said to be optimized for multi-screen collaboration, featuring a 10-inch+ LCD panel and a mid-range processor.