Samsung’s old rival HONOR is back in India with 200MP camera phone

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Samsung faces tougher competition in the Indian smartphone market than it does in other regions, like the US. It has a lot more rivals to worry about in India. Unfortunately, the competition is getting even tougher as HONOR is stepping back in the Indian market with the launch of the HONOR 90. HONOR is a former subsidiary brand of Huawei but now claims to be independent. It made an exit from India a couple of years ago, and its phones used to closely rival Samsung.

HONOR 90 uses Samsung's 200MP camera sensor and Samsung-made 4nm processor

Let’s start with the most interesting feature of the HONOR 90, its 200MP camera. It uses Samsung’s 200MP ISOCELL HP3 camera sensor, the same unit that Xiaomi used on the Xiaomi 12T Pro. It has a 1/1.4-inch sensor with an F1.9 aperture, 0.56µm pixels, phase-detection autofocus, and 4K video recording. The primary camera is aided by a 12MP ultrawide camera and a 2MP depth sensor. For selfies, you get a 50MP front-facing camera. It can record 4K 30fps videos using all its cameras.

The smartphone has a 6.7-inch AMOLED screen with Full HD+ resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, and 1,600 nits peak brightness. HONOR also claims to offer the world's best PWM screen dimming at 3,840MHz for enhanced eye safety and reduced eye strain. The HONOR 90 is equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 Accelerated Edition processor that is made using Samsung Foundry's 4nm process. The phone is available in 8GB RAM + 256GB storage and 12GB RAM + 512GB storage configurations. It runs Android 13 (MagicOS 7.1) and will get two major Android OS updates.

A 5,000mAh battery powers the HONOR 90, and it supports 66W fast wired charging. Connectivity options include dual-SIM 5G, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, and a USB Type-C port. There’s also an in-screen fingerprint scanner

HONOR 90 competes with all-rounder Galaxy A5

The HONOR 90 is priced at INR 37,999 (~457) for the 256GB variant and INR 39,999 (~482) for the 512GB model. The company is offering an instant cash discount of INR 3,000 with select credit and debit cards. It competes with the Galaxy A54 5G, which starts at INR 38,999. It would be interesting to see in which smartphone among the two would majority of the people go for.

The HONOR 90 has a 200MP camera and 66W charging, while the Galaxy A54 has a 50MP primary camera and 25W charging. Both can record 4K videos using front and rear cameras. The HONOR 90 has a faster processor, but the Galaxy A54 has OIS, a microSD card slot, stereo speakers, an IP67 dust and water resistance rating, and four major Android OS updates.