Honor introduced its first phone since being independent in January, followed by the Honor 50 series in June, which signaled the return of Google Mobile Services to Honor’s phones. The Honor 60 series is the latest addition to the company’s lineup.

In some ways, history repeats itself: the Honor 50-series was the first to use the Snapdragon 778G chipset, and the Honor 60 Pro is now the first to use the Snapdragon 778G+. This chip retains the original’s 6 nm design, but increases the clock speed of the Kryo 670 primary core to 2.5 GHz (up from 2.4 GHz), and the Adreno 642L claims a 20% performance boost. The vanilla model, on the other hand, keeps the original 778G chip.

The vanilla and Pro models are very similar, as they were last time, with the exception of a few critical modifications on the Pro. However, unlike last time, there are only two phones.

The Honor 60 and Honor 60 Pro have 10-bit OLED displays with a 120 Hz refresh rate, 100% DCI-P3 coverage, and HDR10 certification (HDR10+ for the Pro). It’s worth noting that they use 1,920 Hz high-frequency PWM. This reduces flicker compared to traditional PWM systems, but it is still not DC dimming.

This is where the first distinction between the two is made. The Honor 60 Pro has a quad-curved display, which the company claims provides a more comfortable grip. With a diagonal of 6.78″, the display is also larger. The standard phone includes a curved display as well, but only on two sides: the left and right sides arc at a 58o angle. This one is 6.67″ tall.

The main camera on the back has the same 108 MP sensor as previously. It’s a 1/1.52″ sensor with 9-in-1 pixel binning and a 2.1-m effective pixel size.

The Pro model, on the other hand, has an updated ultra wide-angle camera with a 50 MP sensor and a field of view of 122o for this version. It also includes autofocus, allowing it to take macro photos with a focal distance of just 2.5 cm (1 in). The standard model retains the previous generation’s 8 MP super wide camera. A 2 MP depth sensor is the third module on the back of both models.

We must return to the screen for the selfie camera. Some of you may have observed that the Pro phone only has one front-facing camera (the 50 Pro also had an ultra wide selfie cam). The 60 Pro’s single selfie camera has a 100-degree lens and a 50-megapixel sensor, allowing it to crop in for a closer look. The front-facing camera on the vanilla model is 32 MP.

Honor feels the 60-series makes fantastic vlogging phones, so it incorporated AI to offer a hands-free experience — you can operate the camera with movements like “raise hand,” “flip,” “slide,” and others (e.g. switching between front and back cameras or enabling picture-in-picture mode).

In comparison to the 50-series, the two phones have larger batteries. Both have the same capacity of 4,800 mAh this time around, up from 4,000 mAh on the 50 Pro and 4,300 mAh on the vanilla 50. Both phones now charge at 66W as a result of the capacity upgrade. Charging times are still quite rapid; the first half of the battery is charged in 15 minutes. The 50 Pro, on the other hand, featured 100W charging and could complete a full charge in 25 minutes (again, with a smaller battery).

One last improvement over the 50-series phones, which are now a few months old: the new phones will come pre-installed with Magic UI 5.0, which is based on Android 12. The new version includes advancements to privacy and security, as well as other features.

Honor has organized a global design competition in anticipation of the Year of the Dragon. It gathered more than 5,000 submissions from more than 40 nations around the world and put the top ideas into Honor 60 series cases.

Owners of the Honor 60 will be able to choose from a wide range of cases.

In China, the Honor 60 and Honor 60 Pro are presently available for pre-order. The 8/128 GB model starts at CNY 2,700 ($425/€375/31,800), although there are other 8/256 GB and 12/256 GB models available (each step adds CNY 300 to the price). The 60 Pro starts at CNY 3,700 ($580/€515/43,500) for an 8/256 GB model, with a CNY 300 upgrade to 12/256 GB available for an additional CNY 300.

There’s no news on when the two new models will be available in the United States, but the Honor 50 series took a few months to launch.