There’s no word yet on whether or not Huawei will be launching its Honor 6 Plus smartphone in South Africa, but suffice it to say that if it does, we’ll be lined up as potential customers. It’s not because of its respectable spec sheet either – it has a great 5.5inch screen, a top end Kirin K930 processor, 3GB RAM all shoved into a crisp white wafer of metal and plastic much like any other. It’s the camera that makes it stand out.
The Honor 6 Plus is the first smartphone to use a camera capable of focussing images after they’ve been taken. Around the back of the phone, there’s two separate lenses which capture depth information as well as light from a scene. The upshot is that by tapping anywhere on a picture, you can focus-change the focal point and bring it into sharp relief.
These two images below are exactly the same. Just refocussed after they’ve been captured.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen this type of technology, of course. It was pioneered by Lytro, a firm which has been selling cameras capable of exactly this for a few years. As far as I know Huawei hasn’t licensed the technology from Lytro.
According to Huawei, even without the retro-focussing feature the Honor 6 Plus is still capable of pretty smart shots – it claims its on a par with DSLRs quality, and while some demo shots from MWC are promising, I’ll have to test that claim properly at a later date.
I’m looking forward to it.
