Honor 700 Series Puts a Screen on the Back of All Three Phones. Will It Stick?

I’ve lost count of how many times a phone maker has told us the next big thing is on the back of the phone.

Meizu tried a rear screen years ago. Xiaomi tried it with the Mi 11 Ultra, then quietly dropped it, then brought it back with the 17 Pro series. The idea never quite dies, and it never quite takes off.

Now Honor wants a go. And unlike everyone before it, it isn’t hedging. Honor is putting a screen on the back of all three phones in its new 700 series. Not just the Pro. Not an optional accessory. The Honor 700, 700 Pro and 700S all get one, built into the camera island.

The phones launch in China on November 13, a date Honor confirmed in a teaser on its official Weibo account, and that little square screen is already the series’ biggest talking point. Honor calls the 700 series a complete redesign of its numbered line. Putting the screen on every model tells you how much it’s betting on this one feature to make people look twice.

So the obvious question is whether it’s actually useful.

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What the rear screen does

From what Honor has shown so far, not a lot yet. The promotional material shows it displaying the time, widgets, and some animations. Leaks put it at around 1.72 inches, about the size of a large postage stamp, though Honor hasn’t confirmed that.

But there’s one feature that I think could genuinely matter: selfies.

The rear screen can show a live preview when you shoot with the main cameras. That sounds minor until you remember that the rear cameras on almost any phone are far better than the front one. Most of us just don’t use them for selfies, because we’d be guessing where we’re pointing. A screen on the back fixes that. If Honor gets this right, it’s the kind of small thing people end up using every day.

The rest is still rumour. Leaks mention notifications, weather, music controls, flight reminders, and even heart rate and blood oxygen readings. I’d take the health claims with a pinch of salt until Honor shows them working.

The phones behind the screen

A clever screen won’t sell a phone on its own, though. What’s inside still matters, and here Honor has given us only part of the picture. The memory options and colours are on its pre-order pages. The chips and cameras come from leaks, so treat them as likely, not confirmed.

If the leaks are right, the Honor 700 Pro is the one to watch. It’s tipped to run Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, with a 200MP main camera, a 50MP periscope telephoto, and possibly 50W wireless charging with reverse wireless charging. It’s also the model most linked to the series’ rumoured battery of around 9,000mAh. If that’s true, it’s bigger than the 8,600mAh cell in the Chinese Honor 600, and the kind of number that makes two-day battery life believable. It comes in 12GB+256GB, 12GB+512GB, and 16GB+512GB.

The Honor 700 looks like most of the Pro for less. It reportedly drops to the slightly older Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 but keeps the 200MP main camera, and it has the widest memory range: 12GB+256GB, 12GB+512GB, 16GB+256GB, and 16GB+512GB.

The Honor 700S is the budget way in, reportedly with a Snapdragon 7 Gen 4, two rear cameras instead of three, and 12GB+256GB or 12GB+512GB. Still, it keeps the rear screen, and that’s the clearest sign of how central Honor thinks the feature is.

Beyond that, leaks point to a 6.57-inch flat 1.5K OLED main display, at least on the 700 and 700 Pro. All three have passed China’s 3C certification with chargers of up to 80W, and they’ll come in Cold White, Clear Sky, Blue Tone, and Pink Mist. The 700 and 700 Pro are also reportedly being prepared for a clip-on 200mm teleconverter for extra zoom, which Honor hasn’t confirmed.

When you can get one