Honor is again at it once more with but every other extremely swanky flagship smartphone within the Magic6 Professional. Relying on which continent you name house, you could or will not be acquainted with this Asia language logo, as they normally goal the Asian and Ecu markets, however there’s each explanation why you will have to be aware of what they’re in a position to production.
In case you’re keen to name your smartphone “Magic” then there’d higher be some really extensive evidence to again up the declare, and this week I’ve been hands-on with the proof. So, what’s it? Magic, or only a flashy phantasm? Does Honor’s flagship-level handset have what it takes to take on the most productive smartphones in the marketplace these days? Let’s to find out.
Honor Magic6 Professional: Value and availability
Oh, boo and hiss, it’s every other a type of majestic flagship telephones that businesses like Honor refuse to print cash with by way of liberating them in america. Within reason, Honor isn’t a large sufficient title stateside to rival the likes of Samsung or Apple, even though its gadgets are greater than as much as the duty (now and then).
You’ll nonetheless import one if you select, during which case you’ll be anticipated to pay 1,299 Euro or £1,099 (€999/£899 for the ones preordering) for the handset ahead of any of the additional charges concerned with getting the telephone bodily to you.
On the other hand, that call comes with drawbacks as service and community fortify isn’t assured for the instrument, so achieve this at your individual peril. That’s some huge cash to plonk down on a smartphone, finally — calmly matched with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely, Google Pixel 8 Professional, and Apple iPhone 15 Professional. Particularly when you need to be left with get right of entry to to simply the ‘good’ a part of the instrument and no longer the real ‘telephone.’
Honor Magic6 Professional: Design
Whilst I’ve by no means been keen on curved presentations, I will’t lend a hand however respect the artistry that went into the design of the Magic6 Professional. Whilst inheriting a lot from the Magic5 Professional that got here ahead of it, the Magic6 Professional does sufficient to carry the glance.
The huge round megastar wheel rear digital camera array is now framed by way of a “squircle” of steel gently emerging from glass backing, softly textured to luxuriously emulate silk or satin. The perimeters gently curl across the telephone to a chromed body, slim on the facets to deal with the arch of the entrance and rear panels ahead of transitioning into the NanoCrystal Protect-protected 6.8-inch, quad-curved, floating OLED panel — now housing a focused pill-shaped cutout eerily paying homage to the iPhone’s Dynamic Island, regardless that advertised as a “Magic Pill.”
It’s a densely packed waft of aesthetic pleasantries that measures simply 8.9mm intensive, with the telephone’s different dimensions mustering a extra sizable 6.4 x 3 inches tall and extensive. The comfortable curvature of the perimeters of the Magic6 Professional is relaxed and simple to palm, making it virtually easy to include its top-heavy 8 oz of weight.
IP68 rated and authorized 5 stars for SGS Glass Drop Resistance Skill, the Magic6 Professional is safe from mud in conjunction with water resistance in as much as 1.5 meters of clean water for half-hour, and drops and shocks to each entrance and rear glass panels.
Honor Magic6 Professional: Show
The Magic6 Professional’s shocking 6.8-inch OLED show with its slim bezels and curved edges is an all-together pleasure to behold, particularly when paired with a 1280 x 2800-pixel answer, a pixel density of 453ppi, and a dynamic refresh price of as much as 120Hz for ultra-smooth, and ultra-crisp visuals always.
No longer best that, this telephone is brighter than Einstein, touting a claimed most brightness of 5000 nits of height HDR brightness. However ahead of you sprint on your Ray-Bans in sheer concern of your corneas being melted proper off of your jellied eyeballs, know that your imaginative and prescient is as secure as ever because of dynamic dimming with an outstanding 4320Hz PWM dimming price and entire care and circadian-friendly certifications from TÜV Rheinland.
The Magic6 Professional’s claimed usual height brightness of 1600 nits is not any slouch both, serving to to pop colours left, proper, and heart in sunlight or indoors, keeping up a vibrant and crowd pleasing functionality usually use, surfing, and thru media or video games.
It put my deficient Google Pixel 7a to disgrace with each telephones’ brightness became up complete, with its fast display subsidized by way of HDR10+ and a billion-plus colour gamut going hell for leather-based because it sang for its supper during the trailer for “Deadpool & Wolverine” — drawing out the purple of Deadpool’s gown in opposition to a snowy backdrop completely.
Honor Magic6 Professional: Audio
Whilst many people depend on earbuds to soak within the sounds of our Spotify libraries, there are nonetheless occasions in lifestyles when a couple of {powerful} audio system is precisely what we want for a fuller soundscape, and 2 {powerful} audio system is precisely what the Honor Magic6 Professional has.
The twin speaker setup delivers some of the more potent partitions of sound you’re more likely to come upon from a smartphone, with its height quantity attaining eardrum-shattering ranges of quantity, however that sound stays most commonly distortion-free.
The Magic6 Professional delivers a placing steadiness between mids, trebles, and bass, with the latter particularly slightly spectacular for the way it drove thru a lot of the album “Songs for the Deaf” by way of Queens of the Stone Age with out muddying bassist Nick Olivieri’s bass traces into oblivion.
On the subject of gaming, the Magic6 Professional’s soundscapes are worthy of fantastic reward, providing immersive canvases of sound with directionally correct audio readily picked up by way of ear.
Honor Magic6 Professional: Efficiency
Keep in mind all that fuss concerning the energy of Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor? It’s a disgrace we don’t make equivalent ado when different corporations opt for the high-spec smartphone, too.
Whilst Samsung has reputedly diverted all of the reward to themselves for the identify of the arena’s maximum {powerful} Android smartphone (and to be truthful, rightly so), telephones of a an identical ilk just like the Honor Magic6 Professional are vulnerable to passing by way of fairly not noted, even though they’re decked out with the similar uber-powerful processor, and that’s a crying disgrace.
No longer that I’ve any tears to shed, thoughts you. Retaining the Magic6 Professional is corresponding to barehanded grabbing a reside twine transmitting 50,000 volts of natural happiness thru your central fearful machine.
As functionality is going, I couldn’t be happier. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3’s doable is not any modern day fantasy, and the Honor Magic6 Professional places it to paintings splendidly with impeccable effects aided superbly by way of 12GB of RAM and 512GB of garage.
We’re speaking super-smooth scrolling, lag-free enter detection, and fast app get right of entry to with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it responsiveness. Juggle all of the tabs you wish to have in Google Chrome, multitask throughout a deluge of apps and flick between all of them at your whimsy, and immerse your self in probably the most hard Android video games, no activity is just too massive and no program too performance-heavy to parry the Snapdragon’s onslaught of energy.
From “Alien: Isolation” to “Black Desolate tract Cellular” and “Name of Accountability: Cellular” the Honor Magic6 Professional faculties lesser-equipped telephones within the ABCs of buttery comfortable functionality proper around the board.
And I imply proper around the board, past the choice of polygons the Magic6 Professional’s processor can provide to its panel, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 functionality extends to profiting from the to be had 120Hz refresh price, with impeccably comfortable on-screen effects on the subject of navigating menus and switching between apps.
Honor Magic6 Professional: Battery lifestyles and charging
Unfortunately, we couldn’t put the Magic6 Professional thru our in-house Computer Magazine battery take a look at because of time constraints. That’s a tragic factor as a result of Honor has reputedly evolved some type of zero-point power battery, as churning thru a complete rate took significantly longer than I’d have anticipated for a tool of its type.
With the brute energy of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC, a dazzlingly vivid display, impressively loud audio system, and a fast 120Hz refresh price, I’d have anticipated the Magic6 Professional to cry out beautiful persistently for a repair from the closest energy outlet. On the other hand, the true magic of Honor’s flagship instrument is with the ability to achieve right into a hat and pull out the Energizer bunny, as this factor helps to keep going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and… You get the theory.
The Magic6 Professional can draw from a significantly deep effectively of energy because of its 5,600mAh second-generation, silicon-carbon battery. Mentioned battery is managed by way of the HONOR E1 Energy Enhanced Chip, which controls energy control and function to make sure most effectiveness always, even in low or high-temperature stipulations.
After a regular day’s use, involving taking footage, basic surfing, catching up on my Android sport shovelware habit, and helplessly falling down the YouTube Shorts rabbit hollow, I’d in most cases be sat someplace beneath the 30% threshold of my day-to-day driving force. On the other hand, it used to be a unprecedented prevalence that I noticed the Magic6 Professional ever drop beneath 50% rate naturally.
I’m no longer the arena’s heaviest smartphone consumer, however I’m ceaselessly stuck quick and wanting a top-up as a result of I in most cases disregard to rate my telephone in a single day. Over the past 3 days of sunshine utilization, the Honor Magic6 Professional hasn’t been charged a unmarried time, and it’s nonetheless sitting at 57% rate.
Talking of charging, the Magic6 Professional is in a position to 80W of tremendous speedy stressed out charging and 66W wi-fi with Honor SuperCharge. Frustratingly, Honor doesn’t provide a charger within the field. This implies you’re extremely not going to have anything else handy to profit from the ones speeds from the get-go.
On the other hand, after leaving the Honor Magic6 Professional to get acquainted with the YouTube video “Crumb Cat dancing to Wii store track for 10 hours” I gave the instrument a shot of juice from a Baseus GaN charger. The effects? No longer the use of the proprietary charger did restrict issues to only 20W of top-up energy, taking simply wanting 3 hours to achieve 100% rate.
Honor Magic6 Professional: Cameras
The Magic6 Professional’s cameras can be a pleasure for shutterbugs and an all-around improbable trio of lenses that offer cast pictures at a variety of zoom ranges and lights stipulations. Simply taking a look on the spec sheet on my own suggests a problem towards Samsung’s zoom-prowess, and there’s unquestionably one thing to that.
The Magic6 Professional’s periscope telephoto lens has been given a nifty improve from 50MP to 180MP (1/1.14”, f/2.6). That growth does have its drawback, on the other hand. The to be had optical zoom is now restricted to only 2.5x. Nonetheless, I used to be ready to take some reasonably spectacular snaps effectively into virtual zoom territory of 10x as observed beneath.
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Even though, whilst Honor makes moderately of a pomp and display about labeling the digital camera array with the telephoto lens’ 100x virtual zoom functions, it’s completely abysmal. So possibly play that down a bit bit as a unusual additional, as an alternative.
The 50MP Ultrawide digital camera (1/2.88”, f/2.0) produces some attention-grabbing pictures with a good 122-degree discipline of view. The standard is not anything to scoff at, both. On the other hand, it’s best possible to not overly depend at the auto zoom right here because it may end up in an occasional muddy symbol even in vivid and transparent stipulations.
In spite of everything, the 50MP primary sensor (1/1.3”, f/1.4-f/2.0) provides an adjustable aperture, that’s best for depth-of-field pictures or macro pictures. Pictures taken are wealthy intimately and the broader aperture permits for higher low-light snaps within the procedure.
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The Honor digital camera app provides a variety of presets to choose between, together with your usual fare of night time, portrait, and landscape modes, with extra particular additions comparable to aperture mode, that allows you to employ the primary sensor to fine-tune your intensity of discipline for some spectacular focusing pictures; mild portray mode, for lengthy exposure-like captures; tremendous macro mode, for spectacular close-up pictures; and professional mode, which will give you DSLR ranges of keep an eye on over the picture you wish to have to seize.
All-in-all, as smartphone digital camera reviews move, this is among the extra well-rounded efforts with effects which can be certain to thrill many.
Honor Magic6 Professional: Instrument
There’s a size that exists inside your very palm. It’s a size the place productiveness collides with leisure in an eerily reminiscent means you simply can’t slightly finger. From the body of the smartphone performing as a portal into this unusual size of parallel but unaligned likeness, you’re pulled into this traumatic void forevermore. You’ve simply crossed over into… The iLite Zone.
When folks speak about ‘the iPhone of Android telephones’, they normally imply one thing top rate with a focal point on robust supporting instrument and a strikingly trendy design. What it doesn’t imply is that the telephone diminishes itself by way of actively and unashamedly making an attempt to copycat Apple’s gadgets or instrument. Any person take a memo of that and ship it to Honor HQ.
MagicOS 8 is constructed upon Android 14, however you wouldn’t know that to take a look at it, regardless of its distinctive parts comparable to eye-tracking functions, air gestures, and Magic Portal—an AI function that lets you drag textual content and symbol parts to at least one aspect of the display and think about ideas for the best way to employ them—the entire aesthetic borrows closely from Apple’s iOS, regardless that does so in some way that leaves MagicOS living someplace deep within the canyons of the Uncanny Valley.
It doesn’t glance dangerous. It simply feels bizarre. A minimum of in the beginning, because it’s some distance from a deal breaker on the subject of your entire revel in. Whilst the Honor Magic6 Professional includes a beautiful distinctive and placing general design, wealthy in top rate aesthetics and classiness, this blatant iOS pilfering cheapens issues moderately. Even though the entire functionality, smoothness, and navigation of the running machine are differently superb.
Base line
There’s greater than a bit little bit of Magic housed inside Honor’s flagship smartphone, however its availability and compatibility throughout the borders of North The usa are what’s going to cling it again excess of any of my trifles with the instrument.
For the fee you’d pay, you’re obtaining a among the best instrument touting the type of parts you’d be expecting from best the most important names in america marketplace. That’s paired with a sensationally swish design that oozes elegance, and an Android wrapper in MagicOS that, whilst leaning a bit too closely on its influences, has lots to supply when it comes to distinctive options and long term fortify.
I believe Honor has produced an incredible smartphone right here, and I virtually really feel dangerous we will be able to’t give it a celeb score because of being not able to get it to our lab in time for checking out. So, as an alternative of a celeb score, listen me loud and transparent once I say this, for I’ll best say it as soon as. As an Englishman, the truth I will gain tech like this virtually makes it bearable that I survive the similar continent because the French.
Prime reward certainly.
Allow 48h for review and removal.