Honor View 30 series launches into the affordable 5G space

If things had gone according to plan, the Honor View 30 and View 30 Pro - announced in China on 26 November - could have been an affordable route to 5G globally.

Based on similar hardware to the Huawei Mate 30 launched in September 2019, the Honor View 30 is a predictable spin, as we've seen Huawei and Honor pushing out closely related devices for a couple of years. The advantage that Honor often brings, is that it's a little cheaper.

The price tag on this new handset is RMB3899 - about £430 - although such exchanges are never quite so direct.

Honor is, however, in the same position as Huawei and battling against the US's trade ruling laid down in May 2019. The Huawei Mate 30 launched without Google services, so it's no surprise to see the Honor View 30 launch in China, for China, with little clue as to whether it will be available in other regions.

Honor says that it has global ambitions for the phone, but we doubt we'd see it, unless it could launch with the full Google experience. 

And that's something of a shame, because this phone sits on the new Kirin 990, offering 5G hardware that supports all types of networks - so it's a step ahead of other 5G phones launched in 2019 on other hardware, although we expect that to quickly change in 2020.

There's the magnificent 6.57-inch display with a pair of in-display front cameras, very much following the line of the Samsung Galaxy S10+ (although the summarily dumped for the Note 10, so we're not sure this size of punch hole really works), here offering a wide-angle selfie camera. 

On the rear there's an exciting combination of a 40-megapixel main camera, 12-megapixel wide-angle camera and an 8-megapixel zoom camera. We know that Huawei has been doing great things in cameras, and Honor often follows along with a similar experience. The Honor View 30 (the not Pro version) takes a dip in the camera to offer an 8-megapixel wide angle on the back instead.

The whole thing is powered by a 4100mAh battery, with 40W fast charging, and 27W wireless charging (you'll have to buy the wireless charger as an accessory). 

Honor talks up the gaming prowess of the phone, mentioning that it has oodles of power - and if it's anything like the Huawei Mate 30 Pro (which it will be) then that power will be evident.

As things stand currently, don't hold your breath for the launch of this phone in Europe unless there's a turn around of the US's position on Huawei. We've heard in the past that phones could basically be updated overnight and we have our fingers crossed that that happens.

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