After weeks of rumors and leaks, the Honor Smart Screen and Smart Screen Pro have finally seen an official launch! We already know that the company is extremely proud of the product, but now we finally get to take a closer look at what Honor considers to be a revolutionary product. So, let’s take a look at what makes the Honor Smart Screen special.
The Honor Smart Screen and Smart Screen PRO both come with 55-inch 4K HDR displays. These feature an NTSC 85% wide color gamut, 360nit brightness and wide viewing angles. There are 8 interchangeable display configs, including standard, soft, cinema, sports, children, games, pictures and bright, which should make things simpler for the average consumer. On top of that, the display also has German TUV Rheinland low blue eye protection.
When it comes to design and build, the Honor Smart Screen is pretty excellent all around. The displays are contained within a three-sided, borderless frame, with an impressive screen-to-body ratio of 94%. The chassis is also nice and thin at 6.9mm, with a diamond textured “beauty back” and colourful breathing lights for aesthetic. Honor also touts their seamless 3D arc full metal bent middle frame, which should allegedly improve stability and durability.
Software is one of the big selling points of the Honor Smart Screen and Smart Screen PRO as they’re first commercial devices officially running Huawei‘s own HarmonyOS. It’s one of the most interesting things about the Smart Screens. Honor claims HarmonyOS will users to integrate their devices better, and the company plans to do this through a feature called Magic Link and their own AI assistant, YOYO.
Now, Magic Link is, to put it simply, an advanced version of syncing and casting. By connecting your smartphone the your Smart Screen with NFC, you can sync downloaded apps, cast content and use your phone as a remote. What takes Magic Link further is its ability to integrate itself as a smart home system. The Smart Screen can be used to control and utilize almost anything in one’s house, from security cameras to computers.
In terms of specs, both Honor Smart Screens come running the brand new Honghu 818 SoCs. The Honghu 818 features a quad core CPU, with 2 A53 cores and 2 A73 cores, paired with a 4-core Mali-G51 GPU. It supports 8K@30fps and 4K@120fps super video decoding. In graphics decoding, the chip supports 64MP image decoding ahead of time, which is beyond the highest resolution that can be captured by the current smartphones.
On top of all this, Honor also claims that the Honghu 818 also brings dynamic image compensation (MEMC), high dynamic range imaging (HDR), super-segmentation (SR), noise reduction (NR), dynamic contrast enhancement (DCI), and automatic color management (ACM), as well as 7 image quality technologies such as zoning control (LD), picture clarity improvement, contrast, and color performance.
That’s not even the end of it. In addition to everything already mentioned, Huawei’s Honghu 818 allows Honor to integrate what they’re calling “Histen” into the device. Histen is essentially a sound optimizing algorithm that’s meant to simulate a cinema sound quality experience via the usage of field expansion, transient distortion correction, dialogue enhancement, loudness adaptation, and intelligent bass.
That’s about it when it comes to the Honor Smart Screen, but the Smart Screen PRO has a few more tricks up its sleeve. While the Honor Smart Screen has 4*10W speakers, the Smart Screen PRO has 6*10W speakers. The PRO’s main advantages however are its bigger 32GB of internal storage, and the built-in AI lifting camera.
The “AI lifting camera”, as Honor puts it, is powered by the company’s own HiSilicon Hi3516DV300 NPU chip. As you’d expect, the chip allows the device to learn and recognize faces and improve image taking capabilities. The camera also uses Honor’s patented pop-up mechanic, as it slides back in when not in use to give users a sense of privacy.
So, what about pricing? The regular Honor Smart Screen comes in at a price of 3799 yuan, which is roughly $538. The Honor Smart Screen PRO on the other hand will set you back at 4799 yuan, or about $680. Both come with support for Huawei video, Tencent Aurora TV, Youku Cool, Mango TV , and has exclusive music channels that feature lossless audio. We’re very excited to see the Smart Screen launch, and we hope to hear more in the future.
UP NEXT: Huawei unveils HarmonyOS at 2019 Developer Conference
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