Huawei a few days ago unveiled its first mobile operating system, called HongmengOS in China and HarmonyOS everywhere else. At the time, the company revealed the first HarmonyOS product would be unveiled later this year, powering “screen products” before moving to other platforms. At the time, we thought the first “screen product” running HarmonyOS would be the Mate 30 Pro flagship that’s hitting stores this fall. But that’s not the case, as Huawei’s Honor just announced that the world’s first product to run HarmonyOS would not be a smartphone.
The Honor Vision, “the world’s first smart screen equipped with HarmonyOS,” is a smart TV. The device was unveiled during Huawei’s 2019 Developer Conference (HDC), which is also where the operating system was announced a few days ago.
The Vision TV comes in two versions, each sporting the same 55-inch 4K HDR three-sided bezel-less Full-View display. The screen-to-body ratio reaches 94%, and the TV is just 6.9mm thin. The standard model packs 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, while the Pro model has double the flash memory. These versions cost either 3,799 ($538) yuan or 4,799 yuan ($680).
Honor Vision will pack three processors, including the Huawei Honghu 818 Intelligent Display chipset, an AI camera NPU chip, and a “flagship-level” Wi-Fi chip.
The octa-core Honghy 818 processor packs several “advanced image-processing technologies,” according to Honor’s press release, including “Motion Estimate and Motion Compensation (MEMC), High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDR), Super-Resolution (SR), Noise Reduction (NR), Dynamic Contrast Improvement (DCI), Auto Color Management (ACM) and Local Dimming (LD).” The chip also helps with resolution, contrast, and color optimization and performance. The TV will support high-resolution images, superior sound, and far-field voice interaction, all thanks to the 818 processor that features an “industry-leading bandwidth utilization rate” that outperforms rivals by over 50%.
The camera AI chip powers a smart pop-up camera with face recognition, body tracking, and posture tracking support. Honor says the camera goes away when not in use, which sounds similar to Huawei’s laptop cams.
The HiSilicon Hi1103 Wi-Fi chip is the world’s first to support 160MHz bands, sporting download rates of up to 1.7Gbps.
When it comes to smart features, the Vision comes with Huawei Video preloaded, which should deliver access to plenty of content. The Vision also features a Family Note Function, allowing users to transfer images from smartphones via Huawei Share 100 times faster than Bluetooth. The Honor Magic-link feature lets users turn the smartphone or tablet into a remote for searching for content and adjusting settings. Projecting content to the Vision is done via the same app, with NFC handling the connectivity between devices — Miracast and DLNA modes are also supported. HarmonyOS will presumably play a role in handling all these smart tasks, as well as talking to whatever Android version happens to run on the Huawei or Honor devices that connect to the Vision.
The Mate 30 series, meanwhile, might be unveiled very soon if, a hi-tech.mail.ru report is to be believed. The blog says the next-gen Huawei flagship phone will be launched on September 19th, several weeks ahead of the expected October launch. The Mate 30 Pro, which will compete directly against Apple’s newest iPhones, that will be available for preorder in mid-September, will feature a brand new Kirin 990 processor, the report notes.
