Battery fear is real, at least for me; that’s definitely it. You know the feeling: you’re halfway through a long day, your phone’s capacity drops to 20%, and suddenly every notification feels like a threat. Honor has apparently had enough of it and is doing everything it can to fix the problem. Fresh from China comes a leak from Digital Chat Station that suggests Honor is in test production of a new battery with a rated capacity of 10,690 mAh, which is a typical capacity of 11,000 mAh for a smartphone. I’m pretty excited.
This isn’t Honor’s first giant battery rodeo
To be fair, Honor has been quietly making inroads in the large battery space for some time now. The Honor Power 2, which was launched earlier this year, already has a 10,080mAh battery with 80W charging power, which is enough for around 14 hours of gaming and over 17 hours of navigation on a single charge. Previously, the Honor Win and Win RT were launched in December last year with 10,000mAh batteries and an even more aggressive 100W wired charging speed. So when a tipster like Digital Chat Station suggests on Weibo that an 11,000mAh battery is entering test production, it doesn’t exactly come out of nowhere. Honor has prepared for this.
This part is still a bit unclear. The tipster hasn’t given the device a direct name, but the comments section seems pretty confident that it’s a successor to the Honor Power 2, which would presumably make it the Honor Power 3. Given that the Power series’ entire identity is based on endurance, this is a logical addition. The Honor Power 2 itself is a good foundation to build on. It runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 8500 Elite chip, features a 6.79-inch 120Hz AMOLED display and is rated IP66, IP68, IP69 and IP69 K. A phone that can survive a pressure wash And The two-day battery life sounds less like a smartphone and more like a survival tool.
The rest of the industry is also catching up
Honor isn’t alone in this battery arms race. OnePlus recently launched the Nord 6 with a 9,000mAh battery and Realme has included an 8,000mAh cell in the C100 4G. Brands are finally taking battery life seriously instead of shaving millimeters of thickness and calling it an innovation. But with 11,000 mAh, Honor would be in a league of its own, at least for now. This isn’t just a big battery. This is a battery that makes you wonder whether you even need a power bank anymore.
So should you be excited? Careful, yes. Test production means that the hardware exists in some form, but is still in its early stages. What we do know is that Honor has the momentum, precedent and technical ability to pull this off. If the Power 3, or whatever it ends up being called, comes to market with an 11,000mAh battery, fast charging, and a decent chip under the hood, it could redefine what “all-day battery” means.
