Honor (company)

Honor Device Co., Ltd., commonly known as Honor (Chinese: 荣耀; pinyin: Róngyào), is a Chinese consumer electronics company. It was majority-owned by Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co. Ltd. Before that, it was a subsidiary of the well-known company Huawei. Huawei sold the Honor brand in November 2020.

Honor makes many useful gadgets that people use every day. These include smartphones, which are like pocket computers that can call and connect to the internet. They also make tablet computers, bigger screens for watching videos or reading. In addition, Honor creates wearable devices such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, and mobile device software that helps all these gadgets work better together.

History

Honor started in 2013 as part of Huawei. It made smartphones that helped Huawei compete with other brands in China and around the world. Honor mostly sold its products online, but some could also be found in stores in certain places.

In May 2019, the US government banned Huawei and Honor. This meant that some apps, like the Play Store and Google Maps, could not be used on Honor phones. To keep going, Honor was sold to a group of 30 Chinese companies called Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co., Ltd. This group is partly controlled by the government of Shenzhen City. By November 2020, Huawei had fully sold Honor.

Honor began selling products outside of China in 2014, starting with the Honor 3C in Malaysia. By June 2015, Honor products were available in 74 countries. In 2016, Honor introduced its first smartphone in the United States, the Huawei Honor 5X, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Honor also started selling fitness trackers that year. In 2018, Honor began selling laptops and smartwatches, followed by earbuds and TVs in 2019.

After the US sanctions and the sale in 2020, Honor continued to grow, especially in India. In 2021, Honor released its first phone without Huawei, the V40, and later the Honor 50, which could use Google Play Services again. Honor plans to focus on making foldable smartphones at affordable prices.

Logo since 2018

.svg)

Standard

Chromatic

Products

Honor makes many kinds of gadgets, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, watches, earbuds, TVs, and smart home devices.

Their smartphones come in several groups. The main group, which includes the current model called the 500, increases by 10 with each new version. There are also “Lite” and “Pro” versions of some phones. Another group of phones has different names in different places — called the V series in China and the “View” series elsewhere. This group often tests new features before they appear in the main phones. There is also a budget-friendly group called the X series with big screens and long-lasting batteries, sometimes with “Pro” and “Lite” versions. Honor also has a special group of high-end phones called the Magic line, including foldable phones like the Magic VS. They also have other less well-known groups such as the S, A, I, and C series.

Honor started making laptops in April 2018 with their MagicBook series, and they continue to release new models regularly.

In 2019, Honor began selling TVs, starting with the Vision and Vision Pro models.

Since 2016, Honor has offered fitness trackers, and since 2018, they have also sold smartwatches. These are sold under the names Honor Watch for smartwatches and Honor Band for fitness trackers.

Since 2019, Honor has also released wireless earbuds in different models.

MagicOS

MagicOS is a mobile operating system made by the Chinese company Honor. It is based on Android and is used on Honor's smartphones and tablets.

Before Honor became its own company in November 2020, MagicOS was developed by Huawei. It started as a version of EMUI, another operating system, with some small changes just for Honor devices. Over time, it has had several names. It began as Magic Live on the first HONOR Magic phone, then became Magic UI with the HONOR Magic 2, and finally was renamed to MagicOS in 2022.