Honor 70 Revealed But You May Want To Wait For The Foldable

Popular tech-focused trade show IFA — held annually in Berlin — is making a major comeback this year. IFA 2022, as this year's edition of the trade show is known, will likely become the venue for several significant product announcements. The confirmed product announcements expected at IFA 2022 include new foldable notebooks from Asus' Zenbook Fold series, home appliances and monitors from LG, and similar products from Samsung. In addition, Qualcomm may also have some interesting announcements to make at the event — although we do not expect the chipmaker to announce any flagship-grade mobile chipsets at IFA.

One company that seems to be taking IFA 2022 with utmost seriousness is the Chinese smartphone brand Honor. The erstwhile Huawei sub-brand has been performing exceedingly well ever since it split from its beleaguered parent with a renewed focus on its mid-tier and flagship offerings. 2022 also saw Honor make its foray into the world of foldable smartphones with its Honor Magic V. 

At IFA 2022, Honor launched three new products across as many categories. The new products include an interesting mid-range smartphone called the Honor 70, a similarly positioned notebook called the Honor MagicBook 14, and the Honor Pad 8 tablet. Besides these devices, Honor also announced its intention to launch its next generation of foldable smartphones in the coming months. The company used its IFA keynote address to preview a new Android-based operating system called MagicOS 7.0.

Honor's new mid-range smartphone targets the vlogging crowd with several interesting features. Chief among them is something Honor refers to as the Solo Cut Mode, which allows users to put the spotlight on a specific individual. The phone also features the ability to record two videos simultaneously (using multiple cameras), with one video focusing on an individual and the other capturing the mood of the entire group.

The camera hardware on the Honor 70 looks impressive for a mid-range device. It consists of a 54MP primary camera and a 50MP secondary camera that doubles up as an ultrawide camera and a macro camera. The front-facing camera gets a 32MP sensor. Powering the Honor 70 is Qualcomm's fairly powerful mid-range chipset — the Snapdragon 778G Plus 5G. The international variant of the Honor 70 packs a 4800 mAh battery which supports 65W fast charging using Honor's proprietary charger. The phone runs Honor's Magic UI 6.1 interface that is based on Android 12. The color options on offer include Midnight Black, Crystal Silver, and Emerald Green.

The Honor 70 goes on sale starting today across Europe. It'll be priced at 549 euro for the 8GB/128GB configuration, or 599 euro for the 8GB/256GB version.

Honor's new MagicBook 14 is a successor to the similarly named machine from last year — albeit with many upgrades. The new device offers significantly better battery life of up to 17 hours — primarily because of the massive 75Wh battery — and is up to 20.8% more power efficient. Some credit for the improved battery life could be attributed to the efficient Intel's 12th Gen Core i5-12500H processor. Potential buyers have the option to configure the Honor MagicBook 14 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2050 graphics card. The machine comes in a single color option — Space Gray — and is available for pre-order across Europe.

As for the Honor Pad 8, this is a full-sized tablet that Honor claims is designed for students and young professionals. Interestingly, the "8" in the tablet's name doesn't represent its display size. Instead, the device features a massive 12-inch display that boasts a resolution of 2000 x 1200 pixels. At 520g, the Honor Pad 8 is also on the heavier side.

Honor

Specs-wise, the Honor Pad 8 slots itself into the mid-range segment thanks to the device using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 SoC. The camera setup is also relatively unexciting, with the front and rear cameras using 5MP sensors. Rounding off the hardware specs is the large 7250 mAh battery and an 8-speaker system that should make the device a very good-sounding tablet. The Honor Pad 8 also goes on pre-order starting today in a single blue color option.