Honor lost a prototype phone and is offering $5600 to whoever returns it

by Joshua Swingle / Apr 23, 2019, 6:01 PM

Honor lost a prototype phone and is offering $5600 to whoever returns it

The general public doesn’t officially hear about smartphones until there are announced, but before these unveilings take place companies typically lend pre-production units to employees in order to ensure there are no issues.

Huawei sub-brand Honor, which will be presenting the Honor 20 series in London on May 21st, has been doing just this lately. But as reported today in local media, one of the company’s prototypes has gone missing in Germany.

Following a short trip to Dusseldorf to visit his family over the Easter Holidays, yesterday Honor marketing employee Moritz Scheidl caught the train back to Munich. Throughout the journey, Scheidl claims that the prototype phone he was give was tucked away inside his backpack. But as he arrived back home and went to pull out the device to charge it, he realized it was gone.

️Bitte helft uns ️
Hinweise an de.support@hihonor.com oder jeden Servicemitarbeiter der Deutschen Bahn! pic.twitter.com/vI5ZjDOlpN
— HonorDE (@HonorGermany) April 22, 2019

At this point, it's unclear if the phone simply fell out of his backpack or if it was stolen, but either way, Honor is now offering a €5000 ($5,611) reward to whoever retrieves the phone. According to the company, the smartphone was wearing a gray protective case that obscures the cameras and the rear design. It is believed that the phone went missing on the ICE 1125 train that departed at 6:06 am and arrived at 11:08 am CET.

Reacting to the news, a number of fans accused the Chinese company of “cheap” marketing. Honor, however, is adamant that this isn’t a publicity stunt of any kind.