Badge of Honor: Huawei’s old sub-brand gives Xiaomi a run for its money

And so it has proved: Huawei’s market share is falling while rivals like Xiaomi – another Chinese brand that was almost unknown here two years ago – are on the rise.

However, Huawei was formerly not one brand but two, turning out almost identical products under its own badge and that of its “sub-brand”, Honor. Both ranges were originally affected by the Google restriction but earlier this year Honor was sold off as an independent company – and now it’s back with a vengeance.

Severed from its link with its former parent, Honor’s new phones have the same access to the Google app store, Gmail and all the other core apps as Samsung, Moto or any other Android handset, and they look like giving them all a run for their money.

The £350 Honor 50 is the first to be released over here, and for a mid-range phone it has some surprisingly top-end features. Chief among these is the facility to shoot two videos simultaneously, either from the front and rear cameras or from the main and ultra-wide lenses. For those who rely on their phones to shoot material for YouTube – and a lot of people do these days – that puts it head and shoulders above many phones costing twice as much.

Even for users with better ways to fill their time, the Honor 50 is a compelling proposition. It supports the new 5G networks being rolled out across parts of Yorkshire and its curved, 6.57-inch screen is better than you’d expect for the price.

Yet it’s not the only bargain out there as the far eastern phone industry regroups to take advantage of Huawei’s decline.

Xiaomi, the rising star of the sector, is now rated on a par with Dell among the world’s most valuable technology brands, and has already cornered the market in cheap, wrist-worn fitness trackers. Its foray into Android phones is proving equally successful, with the Mi 10T Lite launching as the cheapest 5G phone in the UK.

Like Huawei before it, Xiaomi has a sub-brand, badged as Poco, and its X3 NFC phone is one of the best-value handsets currently available. Currently available with a hefty six gigabytes of memory and 128GB of storage for around £175, the X3 represents outstanding value for money. It doesn’t shoot two videos at once but it does have four onboard cameras with ultra-wide-angle and macro lenses, and a processor powerful enough to play games fluidly.

The £230 Mi 10T Lite also has quad cameras, simultaneous front-rear shooting and a “timed burst” facility which lets you take a series of still images at intervals of your choosing and then convert them to video. This is how professionals achieve shots of clouds or star formations that appear to be whizzing across the sky – though you’ll need a tripod for that.

All of these handsets significantly up the game on what you could reasonably expect from an affordable phone two Christmases ago, and any will make a decent gift this time around, whether for yourself or someone else.

But do study the specification before you buy, for although these handsets are now officially available in the UK, some online retailers are still passing off models intended for other markets, and the features available may differ. The best deals are often to be found on the manufacturers’ official websites, so check those before you head to Amazon.

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