What you need to know
- Honor has confirmed that its upcoming phones will ship with Google apps and services out of the box.
- The Honor 50 will be the brand's first phone since Huawei's U.S. sanctions to come with Google apps.
- The brand has also confirmed that it plans to continue using Magic UI for its phones.
In November last year, Huawei sold its Honor brand in an attempt to save it from U.S. sections. After becoming an independent brand, Huawei has been focusing on restoring partnerships with companies such as Qualcomm, Intel, Sony, and others.
Replying to a query about the upcoming Honor 50 series, the company has now confirmed on Twitter that the phones will launch with Google apps and services. Since Honor was a Huawei sub-brand when the company was added to the U.S. Commerce Department's "Entity List" in May 2019, it couldn't ship phones with Google services. Now that Honor is an independent brand, it is no longer subject to those restrictions. Additionally, Honor has confirmed that its Android phones will continue to use the Magic UI skin.
The upcoming Honor 50 will be among the first phones to be powered by Qualcomm's new 6nm Snapdragon 778G 5G chipset. Although Honor hasn't revealed a specific launch date yet, the phone will likely debut sometime next month.
A new flagship phone called the Honor 50 Pro is also expected to debut alongside the vanilla Honor 50. The Pro model is rumored to feature the same Snapdragon 888 chipset as the best Android phones on the market right now. The Honor 50 series may also come with a 120Hz AMOLED display, a 50MP main camera, and dual selfie cameras.
