Current affairs: Honor WaterPlay Tablet With Dual-Cameras Might Launch Alongside the Magic 2 on October 31st

Monday, October 29, 2018

Honor WaterPlay Tablet With Dual-Cameras Might Launch Alongside the Magic 2 on October 31st

Last year, Honor launched the WaterPlay tablet at the Honor 7X launch event in China. The company has now released a teaser; the successor to the WaterPlay, on Chinese microblogging site Weibo. According to the teaser image, the launch will take place on October 31st, which is the same day when the Honor Magic 2 is expected to launch, which hints that both the devices will be launched on the same event. The teaser hints that the successor to the WaterPlay will have dual-camera setup at the back and an 8-inch display at the front. Although, the second-generation WaterPlay hasn’t leaked much yet, we do have a fairly good idea of what the device will have to offer.

What Will the Second-Generation Honor WaterPlay Offer?

The first-generation Honor WaterPlay is a waterproof tablet, and the teaser of the second-generation WaterPlay hints that it will have a waterproof body too. As mentioned earlier, the second-generation WaterPlay will have an 8-inch screen. Our best guess is, the display will be an IPS LCD unit with Full HD+ resolution. Considering that other Android tablets nowadays come with a stylus, it is possible that Honor might equip the WaterPlay with the same. However, we aren’t quite sure about that.

The teaser of the upcoming WaterPlay reveals that the tablet will feature a dual-camera setup. Most probably a 16MP + 2MP unit with phase-detection autofocus and an LED flash. At the front, there will be at least an 8MP camera, if not, a better one.

The Honor WaterPlay was powered by HiSilicon’s Kirin 659 processor. The Kirin 659 has now been replaced with the Kirin 710, and I think the second-generation Honor WaterPlay have this updated processor. The Kirin 710 is based on 12nm architecture. It features four Cortex-A73 cores for carrying out heavy tasks and four Cortex-A53 cores for carrying out the lighter tasks. The SoC features ARM Mali-G51 GPU, which is not very powerful, but a big step ahead than what the Kirin 659 offered. The Honor WaterPlay was launched in 3GB RAM + 32GB storage, and 4GB RAM + 64GB storage variants. Its successor, however, might come in 4GB + 64GB, and 6GB + 128GB variants.

On the software front, the Honor WaterPlay will have Android 9 Pie, if not, the Android 8.1 Oreo. The OS will be customized with Huawei’s EMUI 8.2. The UI customization from Honor will offer additional features over the stock Android UI. The original WaterPlay already had modern connectivity options such as USB Type-C port, dual-band Wi-Fi ac/b/g/n, and cellular connectivity with LTE. The second-generation Honor WaterPlay will have all that plus the new Bluetooth v5.0 connectivity, courtesy of the Kirin 710 SoC.

The Honor WaterPlay had a 6600mAh battery with 18W fast charging support. Its second-generation device may feature the same capacity battery. It might, however, offer better battery backup as the Kirin 710 SoC, which it is expected to come with and is more power-efficient than the Kirin 659 used in its predecessor. The charging speed is expected to remain the same.

The Android tablet market is on the verge of a free fall. There are not many new Android tablets left in the market because of its low sales. People usually don’t buy Android tablets as most of the Android application are not optimized for tablets. Owing to this, the tablet market is dominated by Apple iPads.

Please let us know your opinion on the new Honor device, Will you buy it? Leave us a comment below. Meanwhile, check out this video on the Honor Play.