When Honor teamed up with supermodels Burberry and British Vogue to unveil its handbag-shaped Honor V Purse at IFA 2023, it became clear that this fast-growing Chinese electronics brand has bold designs in the luxury electronics market.
We recently called its latest foldable effort, the Honor Magic V2, a “benchmark-setting beauty,” and Honor's eye-catching successor to the excellent Honor Magic 5 Pro looks set to further revolutionize an increasingly homogenous mobile industry (read: similar).
From a design perspective, the Honor Magic 6 Pro, which was just announced for the global market at MWC 2024, could well be the most attractive phone of the year so far. At the very least, it is the most distinctive. There's no titanium in sight, but Honor's latest flagship refines its predecessor's 'Star Wheel' camera notch by taking inspiration from gemstones and luxury wristwatches.
Honor says this new and improved module design is a nod to “cushion-shaped, jade conga and baroque diamond watches,” and since the former were popularized by luxury watchmaker Panerai in the 1940s, it's Easy to see why Honor has adopted this unique 'squirrel' shape on the Magic 6 Pro.
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But aside from its aesthetic details, the Honor Magic 6 Pro boasts hardware specifications that rival the best phones of 2024. On the front of the device is a 6.8-inch LTPO OLED display that not only has an adaptive refresh of 1-120 Hz. speed, but also a maximum HDR brightness of 5000 nits and Honor's patented Circadian Night Display technology. In layman's terms, the latter filters out blue light to improve your sleep quality and is aided by an impressive 4320Hz PWM dimming cycle rate that works to minimize eye strain.
This 6.8-inch display is protected by Honor's NanoCrystal Shield, which is supposedly 10 times stronger than regular glass. Naturally, we'll have to test that claim, but it's good to know that Honor is confident in the durability of its new phone. The Magic 6 Pro also has an IP68 water and dust resistance rating, which is the same rating held by the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Under the hood, Honor's latest flagship is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset (again, it's the same chipset you'll find in the Galaxy S24 Ultra) and a 5,600 mAh silicon-carbon battery, which should keep everything working fine for more than a day.
periscope power
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Honor Magic 6 Pro, however, is the camera technology hidden beneath the aforementioned 'Star Wheel' module. The new phone has a 50MP wide-angle lens, a 50MP ultra-wide-angle lens, and an almighty 180MP periscopic telephoto lens which, at the time of writing, is the largest telephoto lens we've ever seen on a smartphone.
It's annoying that that telephoto lens is only capable of 2.5x optical zoom (you'll be able to digital zoom up to 100x), but we're still excited to put the Honor Magic 6 Pro to the test on our full Honor Magic 6. Professional review.
As for what else is new in the Magic 6 Pro, Honor has made a big song and dance about the phone's myriad AI-powered features, ranging from a Dynamic Island-style 'Magic Capsule' to a 'Magic Portal' based in intentions. navigation system. Again, we'll be testing these AI features for ourselves over the next few weeks, but the early signs are promising: Honor clearly has Samsung's Galaxy AI software in its sights with the Magic 6 Pro.
Honor's latest flagship will cost £1,099.99 and will start shipping from March 8, 2024. You'll be able to pre-order the Magic 6 Pro from March 1, 2024, and it will be available in two colors: Black and Epi Green. The former features “velvet matte glass,” while the latter features “classic rippled leather.” We have driven the Epi Green variant and it is a beauty.
For reference, the Honor Magic 5 Pro launched for £949.99, so Honor has raised the price of its successor by a not inconsiderable £150. As with most other Honor products, the Magic 6 Pro is unlikely to go on sale in the US and Australia.
