Huawei announced its flagship Mate 30 Pro today, but the company also unveiled another surprise: its new Huawei Vision TV with 4K resolution, HarmonyOS, and rechargeable remote.
Huawei Vision TV
Sizes
The new Huawei Vision TV comes in four sizes, with two sizes (65-inch, 75-inch) available now and two others, 55-inch and 85-inch models, available later.
Design
The TV has thin metal bezels, making it slim (which seems to be the design trend for consumer products nowadays). Samsung’s own Frame TV aims at the same design for utility: to make the TV part of the furniture and thus, unify the environment into one coherent, seamless “whole.” Huawei’s goal is to make the device thin enough to move around if needed, which isn’t a bad aim, but it’s likely Huawei is chasing the same “subtle” look that Samsung’s Frame TV is after.
Visual: 4K, video camera, facial recognition, Quantum Dot, blue light filtering
The Vision TV brings 4K resolution for quality picture viewing, a camera for video conferencing and video chatting (it slides back into the TV when you’re not using it), and facial recognition, blue light filtering, and AI capabilities. Quantum Dot technology helps to provide more vivid screen color by way of the use of liquid crystal diode (LCD) displays instead of the oft-preferred OLED panels.
Quantum Dot panels are known for being affordable for consumers and low-cost for manufacturers while still providing comparable OLED panel viewing quality. OLED panels are the standard in the TV and mobile device industries, as their deep, inky blacks, and vivid color contrasts are second to none. Huawei’s Vision TV follows in the footsteps of Huawei’s Android rival (formerly for Huawei), Samsung, whose QLED TVs (“QLED” is short for “Quantum Dot LED LCD TV) offer not only Quantum Dot technology but also offer lighting within the display itself. Few LCDs outside of LED LCDs offer such an advantage.
HarmonyOS
Huawei’s Vision TV runs (yes, you guessed it!) the company’s proprietary HarmonyOS, its new mobile/internet-of-things (IoT) operating system. There’s little word on exactly what makes HarmonyOS stand out at the moment, but the OS itself is open-sourced and open to development. Huawei is hoping that the open-sourced nature of Harmony will encourage user and developer adoption. The company this week stated it is offering $1.5 billion to developers in its development program to come make apps and grow the fledgling platform.
Huawei has been forced to go with HarmonyOS, an operating system the company previously stated was only for IoT, not mobile, due to its Android license revocation by Android owner Google. Its Android license revocation came about due to the national ban US President Donald Trump placed on the company back in mid-May. A few days later, Android owner Google followed suit and gave Huawei an Android license suspension. The company issued a revocation at that time, and, with two new temporary stays, has been allowed to continue issuing security patches and software updates through November 19th.
Though Huawei still has some weeks in its latest revocation stay, there appears to be no return to Android, as the US still considers Huawei a national security threat. President Donald Trump appeared to be in a conciliatory mood with Huawei’s Beijing Government earlier this summer. Now the US President says that he’s not willing to address Huawei in US-China negotiations at the moment.
Rechargeable Remote
One of the most exciting announcements surrounding the new Huawei Vision TV would have to be the TV’s rechargeable remote, an accessory that comes USB Type-C-equipped. What this means is that users can charge the Vision’s TV remote by way of a USB Type-C charging cable, just as many do their current smartphones. USB Type-C is the universal standard for Android-powered smartphones, with Google going with USB Type-C charging instead of wireless charging a few years back.
The rechargeable remote is smart, meaning that it features voice command and a trackpad for navigation, but the Vision’s rechargeable remote is an excellent feature. Here’s to hoping smart TV giant Roku brings recharging capabilities to its TV remotes across the board in the future. Batteries in remotes are ancient now, seriously.
Other features
The Vision TV includes more than the features discussed here, such as a smart hop projection capability from one’s smartphone to the Vision TV (something akin to Google’s Chromecasting feature on Android smartphones) as well as a “Smart Key” that can likely be programmed for a favorite feature.
There’s no word on the cost surrounding the Huawei Vision TV, but if the Honor Vision Pro TVs announced back in August are an indication, potential buyers could be looking at a price of $1000 USD or more. The reason behind the quote pertains to the fact that the Huawei Vision TV will be a smart TV under the Huawei brand, as opposed to the more affordable pricing of the company’s Honor sub-brand. Additionally, it is highly unlikely (read: impossible) for Huawei’s smart TVs to debut or sell here in the US considering the financial ban Huawei is under at the moment.