The Honor 7's tricked-out fingerscanner puts Touch ID to shame

Huawei Honor 7

Update: We've spoken to Huawei and confirmed that the Honor 7 will be available in Europe later this year.

Huawei also told us that there will be certain revisions to the hardware and software for the European market, so the specifications below might not reflect what we'll see later in the year.

Original story follows...

Huawei has launched its latest flagship device, the Honor 7, with the Chinese manufacturer packing in a number of exciting new features including biometric authentication.

The Huawei Honor 7 comes with a full metal body and a fingerprint sensor that resides just below the rear camera.

The fingerprint scanner isn't just for unlocking the phone, however, as it can also register gestures and depending on the ones you use can display notifications, launch the camera and even take photos.

Packing a punch

Huawei has eschewed chips from popular manufacturers such as Qualcomm or MediaTek, and has instead gone for its own Kirin 935 chipset for the processor that's powering the Honor 7,

This 64-bit CPU has eight cores with four running at 2.2GHz and four running at 1.5GHz. This is backed up with a decent 3GB of RAM and internal storage beginning at 16GB.

A 1080p 5.2-inch display handles the visuals, and Android 5.0 Lollipop is installed by default, with Huawei's Emotion 3.1 launcher overlaid as the default user interface.

Sony has provided the rear sensor that's capable of 20MP, f/2.0 aperture and fast 0.1 second autofocus, with the front camera sporting a 8MP sensor.

The 16GB version with a single SIM card slot will cost around $320 (around £200, AU$415) with a dual SIM variant costing $355 (around £226, AU$460).

The top of the line version with 64GB storage and dual SIM card slots will cost $400 (around £255, AU$519) and all versions support LTE Cat 6 networks and NFC.

The Honor 7 will go on sale in China on July 7 and we're waiting to hear back from Huawei about when the rest of the world can expect the handset.

Via SlashGear

Matt Hanson
Managing Editor, Core Tech

Matt is TechRadar's Managing Editor for Core Tech, looking after computing and mobile technology. Having written for a number of publications such as PC Plus, PC Format, T3 and Linux Format, there's no aspect of technology that Matt isn't passionate about, especially computing and PC gaming. Ever since he got an Amiga A500+ for Christmas in 1991, he's loved using (and playing on) computers, and will talk endlessly about how The Secret of Monkey Island is the best game ever made.