Honor's Next Moves: Rear Screen, 12,000mAh Battery

Picture a camera phone with a tiny display tucked behind its lenses. A window to notifications, a selfie preview, maybe an album cover. It sounds like a neat gadget trick, but Chinese tipsters suggest Honor is taking that idea seriously.

Tiny rear screen, huge battery: a study in contrasts

Reliable Weibo leaker Digital Chat Station says Honor is testing a native rear display about 1.7 inches across for a slim, camera-first handset. It won't be the Magic 9 flagship, which the company will unveil in China on September 28. Instead, the rear-screen concept is more likely to land on a new, camera-focused line — the rumor mill points toward the Honor 700 series, which could appear in China around November or December.

But while one project shrinks a display to fit on the back, another goes the opposite way on stamina. DCS also reports Honor has started trial production of a battery with a rated capacity of 11,790mAh and rated energy of 43.86Wh. Typical capacity is expected to be roughly 12,000mAh, which would put it among the largest batteries on modern smartphones.

Which phone would carry that beast of a cell? The tipster kept quiet, but industry chatter links the pack to the rumored Honor Power 3. Expect that device sometime in early 2027, possibly paired with a next-generation 3nm Dimensity 8600 chip. Long life plus efficient silicon—an obvious pairing if Honor wants to court power users and heavy media consumers.

And the company's ambitions don't stop with slabs and batteries. DCS adds that Honor is exploring a wide-screen foldable. The project hasn't entered formal development yet, but if it clears internal green lights the brand would be aiming beyond the current wide foldables, which generally sit in the 6.3 to 6.4-inch external display range. Previous leaks suggest the larger foldable could ship with a 20-megapixel main camera, Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, and a 7,000mAh battery.

Finally, Honor seems to be speeding up its gaming lineup. The Win 2 series of gaming-focused phones may launch as soon as October in China, a quick follow-up to the Robot Phone that the company recently debuted.

The throughline is clear: Honor is casting a wide net. Compact experiments like a 1.7-inch rear screen. Endurance experiments with a near-12,000mAh battery. Bold moves into foldables and gaming hardware. It’s a strategy that bets on diversification, and on offering distinct hardware hooks for different buyer needs. Will consumers bite? We’ll find out as these prototypes graduate from leaks to showroom floors.