Honor Win hands-on

Honor is set to dip its toes in the gaming phone sphere with the unveiling of the Win series. The phone is going official on December 26, but we managed to spend some time with it earlier and see what it's about.

The headline feature of this one is a 10,000mAh battery! Yes, 10k, not a typo.

The Honor Win will become fully official on Thursday, and we'll have the full details then. The teasers suggest excellent gaming performance and an active fan to help maintain the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 nicely cool. It's paired with 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.1 storage. The company claimed an AnTuTu v10 score of over 4.4 million points, though we weren't able to test that at this point.

The Honor Win

The company also confirmed IP69K rating for excellent dust and water resistance, despite the extra aperture for the fan. A dual speaker setup is also going to be on board.

We have to say, the Honor Win doesn't immediately give notice that it has a fan built in. It's very subtly integrated into the camera island.

Another thing that's not immediately noticeable is the massive battery packed into the Honor Win. Handling the phone, we would've never guessed the mammoth capacity as it doesn't feel noticeably heavier or bulkier than 6,000mAh or 7,000mAh phones.

The power pack inside is a Qinghai Lake battery with a Dujiangyan Power Management System and an E2 power-enhancing chip. The battery uses Honor's proprietary silicon-carbon anode technology and is named for China's largest salt lake.

The Honor Win has an identical control layout to the Magic8 Pro flagship. All the buttons are on the right side - you have a volume rocker, a power button, and what's likely a physical camera control key (though it may have switched over to some gaming or performance mode duty).

Controls

There are three cameras on the back of the Honor Win, alongside the Ultra Fan. We don't have the full specs yet, so we can't say what sensors sit behind the lenses.

However, looking at the focal length options in the camera app, there's a wide angle, an ultrawide, and a 3x optical camera with the option for a 6x digital zoom. Don't expect the same camera as on the Magic8 Pro - that one's a 3.7x and a proper flagship telephoto with a massive sensor.

Honor will unveil the Win series on December 26. The series comprises the flagship Honor Win and an Honor Win RT with one less camera (but still with a built-in fan). Expect the Win to arrive in White, Black, and Blue - the model we handled. We are hoping to hear more about its potential arrival outside China in the following weeks too.

The Honor Win in the hand