Honor
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Huawei's Honor 7i has just one flipping camera
Even though Huawei is just two weeks away from its IFA launch event, it couldn't help but push out another eccentric device beforehand. In Beijing today, the company unveiled the Honor 7i which, like the Oppo N series, has a camera that can flip around for some quality selfies. The imager in question has a 13-megapixel resolution, an f/2.0 aperture, a 28mm wide-angle lens and dual-tone LED flash, so not bad on paper. Better yet, the Honor 7i can utilize the screen to brighten your selfies in the dark. There's also a fingerprint reader located on the left side of the mid-frame, and it doubles as a camera button for some easy left-handed selfies.
Richard Lai08.20.2015
By teaming up with Three, Huawei's Honor brand goes mainstream
Chinese firm Huawei is no stranger to the UK. Unbeknownst to many, it's an important provider of cellular infrastructure, and just a couple of weeks ago, it held its new flagship smartphone launch in London. Over the years, some of Huawei's top handsets have been ranged by major UK carriers, but these days you're more likely to see its name attached to low-cost, pay-as-you-go devices. Towards the end of last year, Huawei debuted its Honor smartphone brand in the UK and Europe, hoping this range of reasonably priced devices would find success in these parts. Perhaps to its detriment, Huawei went to great lengths to mask its ownership of Honor, instead introducing the brand as a new, pro-consumer smartphone manufacturer. Employing an online-only sales model, however, meant the name slid quickly into obscurity, but that changes in the UK today with Honor's first carrier partnership since the brand launched just over six months ago.
Jamie Rigg05.01.2015
Huawei's dual-lens phone lets you get artsy, shoot in the dark
Judging by Huawei's latest smartphone unveiled in Beijing today, it looks like someone has taken a leaf out of HTC's playbook. The Honor 6 Plus -- a follow-up to the reasonably priced Honor 6 -- is all about its dual rear 8-megapixel cameras, which claim to boost the effective pixel size to 1.98 microns for improved sensitivity and thus cleaner images. By comparison, this almost matches HTC's 2-micron UltraPixels. And similar to HTC's Duo Camera feature, Huawei's dual-lens setup lets you refocus the captured photos, adjust their simulated aperture (you can go from f/0.95 all the way to f/16) and apply fun filters like tilt shift, sketch and comics. Even the front-facing camera has an 8-megapixel resolution to give you the "888" blessing (it implies "triple the fortune" in Chinese), along with the usual beautification feature for photos and videos -- both recording and live chat.
Richard Lai12.16.2014
Honor gain increased for resource gathering in battlegrounds
There's been a bit of discussion and consternation about how honor gains are working currently. Rygarius posted to clarify how they're working (turns out there was no bonus honor at the beginning of patch 6.0.2, which was later mistakenly hotfixed to apply bonus honor to all battlegrounds, when it was intended for random BG's only) and that fixing the hotfix error was what had caused people to mistakenly think they weren't be awarded the proper honor. In the middle of that discussion, Rygarius shared the following. Rygarius - What's Going On With Honor? Wanted to give a heads-up that there's a hotfix being worked on (no ETA but soon without the TM) to increase the amount of Honor gains for Arathi Basin, Deepwind Gorge, Eye of the Storm, and The Battle for Gilneas. We're changing it so Honor is awarded for every 150 resources gathered (up from Honor awarding for every 250 resources gathered). source That's an interesting change and one I approve of - one of the things I dislike about that style of BG is how they can suck you into a prolonged and pointless battle (you know you're going to lose) and people stop even trying to take and hold places. With the resource gain now more strongly tied to honor points, maybe people will be more inclined to do their best.
Matthew Rossi10.30.2014Clarification on honor and upcoming PvP changes
Community Manager Lore has posted an update on honor changes that are coming to WoW, and more clarification on what's happening on what's happening at level 100 in PvP. One thing to note is that Blizzard is clearly making strategic decisions regarding PvP, and there's a renewed interest in making it a more active part of the game. Their designers are quite active on social media and other outlets in making sure that the community's feedback is heard loud and clear. Lore's full post is as follows: Blizzard Entertainment Okay, few updates and some more info: At level 100, Skirmishes and Battlegrounds will award Strongboxes as the primary reward mechanic. You'll get some Honor from a win, but the contents of the Strongbox will be what you're really interested in. Those are obviously not available at level 90, which is why PvP gearing feels slow right now. That said, we agree that 18 Honor is too low as a base value for a Skirmish win. We're going to bump that up to 36. That amount will still increase based on how long a match goes, starting at 45 honor past 1 minute and increasing from there. Again, keep in mind that we want shorter matches to give more Honor per time spent, so that players don't feel obligated to drag out Skirmishes for better rewards. As to why it's not a higher number ("this gear won't matter in a few weeks"), there's a few key points to keep in mind. First off, there's the relationship between Skirmishes and Battlegrounds. Battlegrounds take longer and often have longer queues, which makes them a much larger personal investment to participate in. We want to make sure that extra personal investment feels worthwhile, so we're tuning Skirmish and Battleground rewards so that you earn slightly more Honor per time spent in a Battleground than you would in a Skirmish. If an average Battleground takes 15 minutes, and an average Skirmish only takes 2 or 3, the Battleground should reward significantly more Honor. Also, keep in mind that there's no weekly cap on Honor gains. It's okay for a rated Arena match to reward 180 Conquest points, because after you get your 10 wins (or reach your catch-up cap), that's it for the week. You might earn Honor a little slower, but you could earn your entire Honor set in just a few days if you really wanted to. Finally, we don't want to set unrealistic expectations for Warlords and level 100 PvP. We're okay with letting players gear a little bit faster right now in preparation for Warlords, but we don't want you to feel like you've had the rug pulled out from under you once the expansion launches and you start gearing at level 100. We want Skirmishes and Battlegrounds to feel rewarding in the interim period, but we don't want them to be some kind of loot piñata either. source
Adam Holisky10.17.2014Warlords of Draenor: Call to Arms removed
Way back in 2005, patch 1.7.0 brought with it Battleground Holidays, intended to offer additional rewards to players who participated in particular battlegrounds over a designated weekend -- later renamed the Call to Arms in Wrath of the Lich King. Since then, the familiar sight of representatives from various battlegrounds has been a staple of the Warcraft experience. As new expansions were introduced, new battlegrounds came with them, and were subsequently added to the Call to Arms rotation. While the thought of getting bonus honor might have been pretty good incentive when the feature was first introduced, as the years have gone on, the Call to Arms weekends have been doing exactly the opposite of what they'd been introduced to accomplish. Unfortunately, some battlegrounds are still perceived as favoring one faction over another -- which means that on Call to Arms weekends, queue times can skyrocket as one side piles on to queue for the additional bonuses, and the other simply avoids the battleground altogether. So what's the solution? Removing the Call to Arms weekends altogether.
Anne Stickney08.30.2014
Honor changes not active until next week [Updated x2]
Last week we learned that honor changes were coming to battlegrounds across WoW. Too little honor was being earned in the multitude of BGs available, and in turn Blizzard decided to significantly adjust the rate at which bonus honor was awarded. For example, where previously you earned bonus honor every 260 points in Eye of the Storm, you'll now receive it every 130 points. At a small level this won't have a major effect, but when you add up running a few dozens BGs while honor farming, it's going to stack up pretty quickly. This change also seems to be a good way to allow players to catch up and enjoy the expansion's PvP offerings near the end of its run. However ... not quite yet. PvP Designer Holinka tweeted that the changes will be coming next week. We'll just have to wait for "moar honor." Update Part Deux: According to a source of Lore, this actually is happening next week.
Adam Holisky03.05.2014
Huawei's flagship phablet is only $300 in China, and its CMO explains why
Huawei's recently announced MediaPad X1 has caused quite a stir -- it's the lightest and smallest-ever 7-inch tablet (let alone a phablet), while also packing decent features like a 1,920 x 1,200 display, 5,000mAh battery and 150 Mbps LTE. The retail price quoted at the launch event was €399 or about $550 for the LTE model, but back in China, it appears that Huawei's slapped an insane discount on the same quad-core tablet, albeit under a slightly different name. Dubbed the Honor X1, the 3G model will retail for just CN¥1,799 or about $290, and the 4G version will go for just CN¥1,999 or $330. That's a $220 drop for the LTE model! So when we caught up with Huawei Device's CMO Shao Yang at MWC, we had to ask him: What was he thinking? Well, it's all about the way consumers perceive this device in different regions.
Richard Lai02.25.2014
Simplify point-based currencies in Warlords
We've covered in the past how the best way to gear for PvP is to grind justice points, and I have recently experienced this - since I wanted to get some pieces of Season 14 for transmog (and to do some PvP on the side, since I like running random BG's) I spent the past couple of days capping honor so that I could pick up several pieces as soon as possible. This led to running dungeons for justice points. Lots of dungeons. And this led me to realize that justice points themselves have a lot of uses - picking up older gear to catch up, converting to honor for PvP gear - but they feel strange and antiquated. There's literally two ways to get them in the current endgame - run scenarios or dungeons - and they only upgrade blue dungeon gear, so their use as an upgrade currency is fairly limited. While you can in fact also buy them with honor, that would have been self defeating in my case.
Matthew Rossi02.18.2014
Does PvP need more queueing options?
WoW Insider received a question to our tip line from a player who's lost their way a little when it comes to PvP: I greatly enjoyed PvP during Cata, but I just haven't been able to get into it during MoP at all. I'm part of a small guild (4 active players), and none of them enjoy PvP. Since I usually have to go it alone, I have a preference for the larger BGs -- AV and Isle. It's easier to be a part of the crowd where individuals carry less weight, but still feel useful and able to help in the smaller skirmishes along the way. PvE has several queuing options -- LFR, Flex (with a group), Scenarios, regular dungeons and heroics. There's a size and activity for everyone. PvP on the other hand has BGs (random or rated) or arena. While not quite adding more options, do you think Blizzard may consider separating out the BGs into different sized-based queues?
Olivia Grace02.04.2014
Why do we still have separate PvP and PvE gear?
While seeking out questions to a Queue I wrote, I was asked by a Twitter follower why we had separate PvE and PvP gear in the first place. A question I love, and that I wouldn't be able to respond to briefly enough for The Queue. I'm not going to go into a complete, exhaustive history of PvP gear. For starters, I didn't play in Classic, so I can't really comment on the gear then, but I gather that there was a lot more overlap between the two. Then, with Burning Crusade, back in 2006, the combat rating system and Resilience were both introduced, along with arenas. PvP gear was born. It's been through many different iterations since then -- too easy to get, too hard to get, too bad for PvE, too good for PvE, different effects, stat budgets, you name it. But history, while it merits repetition, shouldn't have too much bearing on this question in today's game.
Olivia Grace01.29.2014
Huawei's Honor brand challenges Xiaomi with 3X and 3C low-cost phones
Huawei's known for its Ascend smartphones around the world, but back in late 2011, the company also started toying with a small Honor series for select budget markets. Fast forward to today, the latter sub-brand has become Huawei's platform to compete with the sudden surge of affordable online brands in China -- most notably Xiaomi, the pioneer of that industry. With a little help from MediaTek (and ironically not Huawei's own HiSilicon), the phone maker is upping its firepower over this territory with two new dual-SIM devices: Honor 3X and Honor 3C. The Honor 3X joins the first wave of octa-core 1.7GHz MT6592-powered devices, and it boasts 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel f/2.2 main camera, a 5-megapixel 1.4-micron front imager plus a generous 3,000mAh battery. The 720p resolution on the glove-friendly, 5.5-inch IPS touchscreen may seem like a let-down, but in this case, Huawei reasoned that going 1080p would push power consumption up by as much as 20 percent, plus many folks may not notice the visual difference -- a point that Huawei Device Chairman Richard Yu has often echoed publicly.
Richard Lai12.16.2013
Patch 5.1: Upgrading your gear with valor
What do you do with thousands of Valor points when you already have all the gear that you can buy from the Valor vendors? Coming in with patch 5.1, one of the cool things is the ability to upgrade your own gear. In previous expansions, we'd reach a point where we'd have tons of Valor or Justice points and nothing to buy. Head on over to visit the local ethereals in the major capital cities and look for the item upgrade NPC. The process for upgrading items is simple. Drag the item you wish to upgrade over to the item slot, then hit the upgrade button. Only items that are 458 ilvl or higher can be upgraded. Blue quality items can be upgraded once for an 8 item level increase for 1500 Justice or Honor points. Epic quality items can be upgraded twice with a 4 item level increase per upgrade for 750 Valor or Conquest points. Once an item is upgraded, there's no way to get them refunded. Choose them wisely! If you're not sure what to upgrade first, I would suggest focusing on your weapons and trinkets. For most classes, you should notice a slight increase in your character's performance. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Matt Low11.27.2012
The Summoner's Guidebook: Making League of Legends a better place
It's no surprised that League of Legends has a very caustic community. Players on messageboards all over the internet (including our comments section) can attest to the fact that LoL's community leaves a lot to be desired. Unfriendly players and offensive language are the norm, and these bad attitudes keep many summoners from logging in. Riot hasn't let the issue lie, though. The Tribunal was a good first step toward building a better community, and if reports are to be believed, it does a fairly good job. However, simply punishing players doesn't encourage good behavior. That's where the latest effort, the Honor system, comes into play. Honor allows players to give positive feedback to friendly or supportive players, either friend or foe. Gaining honor alerts a player of his or her good behavior, and Riot has hinted that it may be the basis of future rewards. Is it a good step in the right direction, or will it just encourage "honor trading?"
Patrick Mackey10.04.2012
Quartermasters and where to find them
Okay, if you're running dungeons for justice or valor points, PvPing for honor or conquest, or grinding reputation with one of Pandaria's many factions, one of the questions that you may be asking is where do I go to buy stuff? If you are, then we have a list of vendors for you. First up, the Shado-Pan Quartermaster is Rushi the Fox, at the Shado-Pan Garrison in the Townlong Steppes. He sells a variety of items for justice and valor points. Commander Lo Ping is an all in one Justice Quartermaster selling every faction's justice point gear, at Niuzao Temple also in the Townlong Steppes. Commander Oxheart is a Valor Quartermaster who also sells tier gear for tier tokens at Niuzao Temple in the Townlong Steppes. She's standing right next to Commander Lo Ping, in fact. The Klaxxi Quartermaster is Ambersmith Zikk in Klaxxi'vess, right in the heart of the Dread Wastes. The Golden Lotus Quartermaster is Jaluu the Generous in front of Mogu'shan Palace in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. The August Celestials have two vendors, one for Horde and one for Alliance. Sage Lotusbloom can be found in the Shrine of Two Moons selling to the Horde, while Sage Whiteheart is to be found in the Shrine of Seven Stars - both are in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. For PvP vendors, both Horde and Alliance can be found on the Serpent's Spine itself. For Alliance, Honor Quartermaster Hayden Christopher, Conquest Quartermastery Lucan Malory, and Glorious Conquest Quartermaster Ethan Natice are all to be found on the Serpent's Spine in the Valley of the Four Winds. The Horde Quartermasters Lok'Nor Bloodfist (Honor), Doris Chiltonius (Conquest) and Acon Deathwielder (Glorious Conquest) are on the wall between Townlong Steppes and Kun-Lai Summit. Also remember that during the patch 5.0.5 hotfixes, several reputations has their requirements for various Valor point purchases dropped. The Klaxxi now sell necklaces at honored, the August Celestials sell bracers, the Shado-Pan sell cloaks and the Golden Lotus sell rings, all of which are iLevel 489 epics. So check those vendors in case you may have missed an epic you can pick up. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Matthew Rossi10.04.2012
Incoming hotfix buffs JP gear, nerfs honor point gear
If you thought the item level of endgame PVE gear purchasable with justice points was a little low, Blizzard apparently agrees with you. Bashiok just let the official forums know that a hotfix is incoming, bumping the ilvl 450 PVE rares to 458. Additionally, the hotfix brings down the item level (and rarity color!) of the ilvl 464 epic PVP gear available for honor to 458 and rare. In conjunction with the hotfix removing the reputation requirements to access the JP gear, it should be considerably less of a hassle -- and involve a lot less PVPing -- to gear up for heroics. The downside is that the PVP gear you probably bought just to cheat the queueing system is a little worse. I can live with that. The full post from Blizzard is after the cut.
Michael Sacco10.02.2012
League of Legends adds player-driven 'Honor' system
While reporting poor sportsmanship and offensive behavior during matches in League of Legends is standard, Riot Games has added a new feature to the game by which positive behaviors will be recognized. This new system, dubbed simply "Honor," will give players the tools to tag folks with a permanent thumbs up for making the gaming experience enjoyable. This new system has four categories that players can be rated on. At the end of a match, participants can indicate whether someone was helpful, was friendly, displayed teamwork, or was just an overall honorable opponent. Each player's Honor is recorded in his or her summoner profile and displayed for all to see. In the future, Riot Games might also reward those summoners with the highest honor.
MJ Guthrie10.02.2012
League of Legends 'Honor' system is now live
Riot Games has added a feature called "Honor" to its popular online PvP game, League of Legends, partially in the hopes of solving the issue of community management. Honor is something that players will be able to distribute amongst each other after every matchmaking game. After finishing matches, players will be able to award either their teammates or opponents with Honor for being friendly, helpful, or for showing great teamwork in the game they just played.Honor is "not a currency," says Riot (and it can't be traded or spammed), but it will be used to recognize worthy players over time, and the company says it is looking into possible "bonuses for the most Honorable summoners." For a long time, League of Legends players have been able to "report" each other for negative actions like being offensive or leaving a game early, but Honor seems designed to go the other way and reward positive actions instead. It remains to be seen how it will play out in the future. Riot is experimenting here, to see how players use the system before it's fully implemented.Valve's Dota 2 also has some innovative social features planned, including a reward system like this for working together with other players in the game. These MOBA games are very complicated to play, and so companies like Riot and Valve are doing their best to get players to work together and create a solid community, rather than lose new players to widespread offensive behavior.
Mike Schramm10.01.2012
Engadget's smartphone buyer's guide: spring 2012 edition
Springtime is here. It's a season of renewal, and similarly, an ideal time to replace your aging phone with one that you'll adore. With this in mind, we give you Engadget's smartphone buyer's guide -- your one-stop resource for selecting the best handset that fits your desires and budget. This time around, we're doing things a bit differently. In addition to naming the top phones for each provider, you'll now find more comparisons across carriers. This should help you find the best possible handset -- regardless of network -- if you're willing to make the switch. Also, you'll no longer see limited-time offers as our budget picks -- they'll still get a mention, but now, only phones that commonly retail below $80 will qualify for this coveted spot. Naturally, new smartphones are always coming onto the market, so before you make your final selection, be sure to consult our reviews hub for the very latest recommendations. With that in mind, read on as we round up the best smartphones of the season.
Zachary Lutz04.02.2012
Huawei Honor review
Phone makers love to take pride in the extravagant names they give their products, but it's likely that the Huawei Honor is more to its creator than just a decently-specced handset. After all, the introduction of the Honor -- followed by last week's announcement of the super-slim Ascend P1 S -- appears to represent a shift in the OEM's overall product placement strategy. Huawei has done a great job finding customers in emerging and prepaid markets, but now it has its sights set on cranking out noteworthy phones that will gain the attention of anyone looking for a high-end device. Huawei Honor shipping in December to select markets Huawei Mercury arrives on Cricket Huawei Honor gets Ice Cream Sandwich Based on its laundry list of specs, the Honor isn't a high-end handset compared to some of its LTE and dual-core competitors. And yet, it's still the best device Huawei's offered to date, and it's clear the company's upcoming phones are only going to get better. So we're really eyeing the Honor as a step closer to the OEM finally realizing its ultimate goal. Does it live up to its name? Can the Honor play with the big boys, or is it nothing more than just an outward indication of the company's future? Read on to find out.
Brad Molen01.21.2012