Red phones are having a moment this year

We are months away from next year’s Lunar New Year, yet phone companies like Huawei and One Plus have already begun announcing red phones that people may opt to give each other during the festivities.

That makes sense, considering red is a lucky color in parts of Asia and it’s heavily associated with the Lunar holiday. If you don’t live in China or South Korea but you have family or friends who do, these are some holiday-timed red phones available now.

Samsung Galaxy S8

Samsung released a new burgundy edition of its flagship Galaxy S8 phone in South Korea today, with wider availability to follow. Only the S8 is getting the new color and not the S8 Plus. The S8 has one rear 12MP camera and a 5.8-inch OLED screen. For more on Samsung Galaxy S8 specs, we’ve covered them here, and you can read The Verge’s review of both the S8 and S8 Plus here.

In an new ad for the promotion, Samsung’s red phone is shown to resemble the changing autumn leaves and matching flannel outfits of a couple, emphasizing fall rather than February’s Lunar holiday:

OnePlus 5T

The OnePlus 5T came out a little over a week ago, and so far has only been available in black. Today, OnePlus announced that the phone is getting a bright “Lava Red” color, currently only available in China, as spotted by 9to5Google. It’s got skinny bezels and a 6-inch OLED display.

The Lava Red OnePlus 5T costs $454 in the Chinese store and there’s no word yet on when the color will see a wider release.

Huawei’s Honor V10

Huawei’s bright red budget Honor V10 phone has a nearly 6-inch display and very thin bezels. It also has a fingerprint scanner on the front, a 3.5mm headphone jack, dual 16MP and 20MP rear cameras, and runs Android 8.0 Oreo. On the component end, the V10 contains a Kirin 970 processor, a sizable 3,750 mAh battery, 6GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage.

The newest Honor smartphone will be available in China on December 5th for $454 before opening up for wider availability. You can choose to get the phone in “Beautiful Red,” but it also comes in black, blue and gold. Those colors, however, don’t get the “beautiful” modifier from Huawei.

Honor V10

It should be noted that Samsung, Huawei, and OnePlus aren’t the first companies to release all-red phones an eye on Asian markets. Apple released an AIDS-day red iPhone 7 back in March that was marketed in China as simply a red iPhone. And Taiwanese company HTC, which is now owned by Google, came out with the red U11 over the summer, which is one of the best looking shades of red out there. It’s shiny enough that light bounces off the red into orange, yellows, and pinks, as noted before by Verge senior editor Vlad Savov.

HTC U11 Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge

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