With the announcement of the launch for Honor Play, a mid-range gaming smartphone, it left us with one lingering question: why? Obviously, the answer would be “Why not?”- a smartphone that can run games smoothly, if not smoother than the premium RM2000+ smartphones as Honor claimed, is really good idea. But from our point of view that’s a legitimate question. Every other brand goes balls-to-the-walls with their gaming smartphones, so why Honor didn’t follow the trend and only offer a mid-range gaming smartphone?
After the official media briefings were done, we sat down with George Zhao Zhi Wei (pictured below), Head of Honor Malaysia and asked why they went with this direction.
The simple answer was: That’s what’s Honor is all about.
“Honor is a young brand,” he said. “What we do is to offer everything young people want. So young people maybe don’t have high income or high purchasing power.
“So, we think that everyone want to play [games]. They want to have the same experience that anyone who have a RM2000, RM3000, premium gaming phones.
“So we do the same. We offer Honor Play for everyone.”
For The Young And Young-At-Heart
Honor, another brand under the Huawei group, has managed to carve its own niche. A niche even bigger than the main Huawei brand when it comes to sales in China. In the media briefing, the Honor Play is described as a “Gamephone for Everyone”. The b-roll before the event started proper shows Honor sponsoring extreme sports events and athletes. The launch event itself had interviews with players of Mysterious Assassin (MYA), a local Mobile Legends team sponsored by Honor. Mobile Legends is the new hotness here in Malaysia, especially among the youths with access to smartphones.
When George said that Honor is a young brand, they meant it. The way they market their brand- which made us compare them to what Red Bull has done- and how they priced their lineups definitely lined up. Note that the flaghsip Honor phone in Malaysia- the Honor 10- is only around RM1500.
The Honor Play launches in Malaysia on August 10th. Purchases can be done online via Shopee, hihonor, Lazada, and 11Street, with pre-orders available in the first two stores. It will also be available at authorised Honor stores and SenQ.
