Huawei launched a new mid-range smartphone in China to compete with selfie-focused handsets in the market. Huawei Honor 7i is the company's latest smartphone with a rotating camera that puts 13 megapixels on both sides. The flip-up camera module with a flash unit serves as both the rear and front facing camera in the phone. It also has a uniquely placed fingerprint scanner on the left side.
It is an interesting concept to have a swivel camera module to replace the traditional dual-camera set up. Initially tested by Oppo in N1 and N3 smartphones, the concept of swivel camera received limited success in the market. Huawei is looking to tap in the similar strategy with hopes to gain a better response in China.
If the rotating camera module raises durability concerns, Huawei claims the camera can withstand over 100,000 turns and 50 kilograms of weight, PC World reports.
Huawei Honor 7i is not only about the camera and fingerprint scanner. The handset boasts a 5.2-inch Full HD display and is powered by a 64-bit octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 processor clocking speeds at 1.5GHz. It comes in two variants, one with 16GB storage and 2GB RAM and the other packs 32GB storage with 3GB RAM. The handset uses a 3,100mAh battery.
According to Tech First Post, the smartphone's camera can be rotated up to 180 degrees from its resting position and let users shoot from different angles. Honor 7i has a SLR grade image signal processor to deliver better low-light performance and less noise. Other camera features include automatic face recognition, auto white-balance, auto exposure and auto smile shutter.
Honor 7i runs Android 5.1 Lollipop with company's own EMUI 3.1 skin on top. The handset has dual SIM slots and supports 4G LTE. It will be available in China starting 1 September for 1,599 yuan (approx. Rs 16,500) for the 16GB variant and 1,899 yuan (approx. Rs 19,600) for the 32GB model.
