Honor has announced the global availability of its Honor Band 6 fitness tracker and the Honor MagicBook Pro Windows laptop. Both devices have already launched in China, but the company has used CES 2021 as a platform to confirm the wider launch. While Honor is best known for its smartphones, the company’s smartwatches, other wearables, and laptops have become increasingly important to it, due to the U.S. government’s restrictions on Huawei.
Honor Band 6
The Honor Band 6 is the latest in a long line of simple, but highly effective fitness bands from Honor. This time the design has changed considerably compared to the Honor Band 5, and shares more with the recently released Honor Band ES. It has a 1.47-inch AMOLED touchscreen attached to a silicone band with a proper clasp, rather than a simple pin-and-eye system seen on most low-cost fitness bands.
It comes with 10 workout tracking modes, including running, cycling, rowing, and swimming. The Honor Band 6 is water-resistant to 50 meters, and can be used in the pool, when it will return data including SWOLF and stroke rates. Additionally, the heart rate sensor on the back of the band works when swimming too. Beyond activity tracking, the band will monitor sleep if worn overnight, keep track of stress levels, and menstrual cycles too. It has a blood oxygen monitor, which is most helpful for sleep tracking purposes.
The battery is expected to last between 10 and 14 days depending on your use. It will connect to your smartphone using the Huawei Health app, where plenty of data is shown, plus notifications from your device will be shown on the screen. There are three color options: Meteorite Black, Sandstone Grey, and Coral Pink.
Honor has kept the price right down, charging around $35 to $45 for the Honor Band 6, making it cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy Fit 2, which features on our best fitness tracker list. It will be available through Honor’s online store before the end of January. Good news if you want a low-cost fitness tracker that looks a little different than usual.
Honor MagicBook Pro
The latest in the MagicBook Pro range features the 10th-generation Intel Core i5 10210U processor, with Nvidia GeForce MX350 graphics, and a 16.1-inch FullView screen. The big screen has a 16:9 aspect ratio, a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, and the 4.9mm bezels around three sides of the screen give the laptop a 90% screen-to-body ratio.
This model comes with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, along with cooling system with dual fans and dual heat pipes. There are three USB Type-A ports, a single USB Type-C, an HDMI port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. A fingerprint sensor is built into the power button, and the front camera is hidden inside one of the function keys, so it’s easily hidden away when not in use.
A 65W charger comes in the box and takes the 56Wh battery to 50% in 30 minutes, and on a full charge, the MagicBook Pro will stream Full HD content for more than 11 hours before running out. The laptop is 16.9mm thick and weighs 1.7kg. Like the Honor Band 6, it will be sold through Honor’s own online store and will be priced at approximately $1,000. If you’re looking for a laptop but don’t want to spend so much, we have plenty of recommendations here.
While these are established products from Honor, and variations on what we’ve seen before, it’s going to be interesting to see what the company has planned for 2021, now it has been sold by Huawei and able to go its own way.