Apple and Samsung don't put secondary displays on the backs of their mainstream slab phones. Honor does — and it's doing so across an entire lineup rather than a single showpiece device.

Honor has officially revealed the Honor 700, Honor 700 Pro, and Honor 700S, all targeting the Chinese market, all carrying a compact square display embedded inside the rear camera plateau. Pre-orders are open through Chinese official channels, though Honor has not announced a launch date or published complete specifications.

What That Second Screen Is Supposed to Do

Honor's promotional material confirms the rear panel handles glanceable information and camera previews, though the full software feature set remains unverified.

From the promo material, the rear panel displays time-related information and animations, and can serve as a live viewfinder for selfies taken with the main cameras. Reported use cases include:

• Live viewfinder for selfies using the main cameras

• Time glances and decorative animations

• Music playback controls

• Notification and quick-information displays

Weather support, music controls, and notification access appear in secondary reporting as expected capabilities — but Honor has not officially documented them.

One caveat: the display's size, reported by tipsters at roughly 1.72 inches, has not been confirmed by Honor.

Honor's Version Is Smaller Than Xiaomi's

Xiaomi already ships a confirmed rear display on a flagship: the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max, with a 2.9-inch LTPO AMOLED panel running at 596×976 pixels and 120Hz (confirmed by GSMArena's review).

Honor's panel sits inside the camera module rather than spanning most of the camera island — making it notably more compact. If Honor prices the 700 series well below Xiaomi's flagship territory, it has a real shot at turning rear displays from a premium experiment into a midrange selling point. Pricing hasn't been announced.

The Specs That Aren't Official Yet

Leaked chipset and hardware figures deserve caution: Honor has confirmed none of them.

• Leaks associate the Honor 700 Pro with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset

• The standard Honor 700 is expected to run a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4

• The 700S chipset hasn't been reliably established

Other leaked figures (primarily linked to the Pro model) include a 6.57-inch main display, a 200MP primary camera, and a battery near 9,000mAh. Again — none of these are confirmed by Honor.

What Honor has confirmed:

• Colors: Blue Tone, Cold White, Clear Sky, and Pink Mist

• Storage: starts at 12GB RAM with 256GB

• The 700 and 700 Pro reach up to 16GB RAM with 512GB

• The 700S is reported with 12GB configurations only

Where Apple and Samsung Stand

Neither Apple nor Samsung currently offers a rear secondary display on mainstream slab phones. Adding one introduces real tradeoffs: greater manufacturing complexity, durability concerns around the camera island, and a larger power-management burden. These are plausible engineering considerations, though the available evidence doesn't quantify them specifically for the Honor 700.

The feature's staying power will depend on whether software support runs deeper than a clock face and animations.

What Still Needs Answering

Final pricing, global availability, confirmed hardware specs, and a launch date all remain unknown. But the more consequential open question is this: does a rear display at midrange prices earn a place in daily routines — or does it stay a feature that looks better on a spec sheet than it performs in a pocket?

Would a rear screen actually change how you use your phone, or is it a gimmick? Tell us in the comments.