After weeks of teasers and half-official hints, Honor has finally circled a date on the calendar: November 24 will see the debut of the Honor 500 and Honor 500 Pro. 
Thanks to a comprehensive specs leak, we already have a very clear idea of what this pair is bringing to the table, and it looks like Honor is trying to squeeze truly flagship-grade hardware into phones that can comfortably last well beyond a single day of heavy use.
Both models are built around a 6.55 inch LTPS flat OLED display with a 1264×2736 so called 1.5K resolution, a 120 Hz refresh rate for smooth scrolling and gaming, and 3,840 Hz high frequency PWM dimming designed to be gentler on your eyes during long sessions, especially in dark environments. A metal frame, dual stereo speakers and seriously aggressive IP68, IP69 and IP69K dust and water resistance ratings suggest that the 500 series is meant to survive rain, splashes, dusty job sites and the occasional accidental dunk better than the average stylish slab.
The camera setup is another headline feature. On the Honor 500 you get a 200 MP main camera using a large 1/1.4 inch type sensor, paired with a 12 MP ultrawide for landscapes and tight interiors, plus a 50 MP selfie camera on the front. That combination promises plenty of detail for cropping, social media and night shots, provided Honor image processing is up to the task and does not smear away the fine textures people expect from such a high resolution sensor.
The Honor 500 Pro keeps the same main, ultrawide and front cameras but adds a dedicated 50 MP telephoto module based on Sonys IMX856 sensor with 3× optical zoom. That third lens should make portraits cleaner, give you more flexibility when shooting events or travel, and reduce the need for fuzzy digital zoom. For a lot of people, this will be the deciding factor between choosing the standard 500 and stretching the budget for the Pro model.
Under the hood, the vanilla Honor 500 is reportedly powered by Qualcomms Snapdragon 8s Gen 4, a chip aimed at bringing near flagship performance and modern AI tricks to slightly more affordable devices. The Honor 500 Pro, meanwhile, steps up to the Snapdragon 8 Elite, positioning it squarely in premium territory for gamers and power users who care about sustained performance, high frame rates and snappy multitasking.
Battery life is where the two phones start to look almost excessive, in a good way. Both pack a huge 8,000 mAh cell, which on paper should easily deliver two days of moderate use and maybe more for lighter users. Fast 80 W wired charging is supported on both models, while the Pro adds 50 W wireless charging for those who prefer to drop their phone on a stand instead of hunting for a cable at the end of a long day.
Rounding things out, the Honor 500 Pro also includes an ultrasonic in display fingerprint scanner, a feature usually reserved for higher end devices and typically more reliable with wet or slightly dirty fingers than conventional optical readers. Coupled with the tank like IP ratings and the oversized battery, the entire 500 series is shaping up as a practical, hard wearing daily driver rather than just another thin, fragile showpiece designed only for spec sheets and press images.
The big unknown, and the point already frustrating some fans in comment sections, is availability. So far the launch date has only been confirmed for Honors home market, and many observers suspect the 500 line will start life as a China only affair. Enthusiasts abroad are cautiously excited by the spec sheet but wary of yet another impressive Honor phone that may arrive late, in limited regions or not at all. If Honor can nail global pricing, software polish and a wider release window, the Honor 500 and Honor 500 Pro could easily become two of the most talked about long lasting Android phones of the season rather than just another pair of great devices that most people will only read about from afar.
1 comment
50w wireless on the pro is nice but i bet they cut stuff on the base 500 like always 😂