Sareena Dayaram/CNETHonor might not be a world family model like Apple or Samsung, however the Chinese firm is clearly decided to make a reputation for itself. And the brand new Magic 6 Pro seems to be designed squarely with that in thoughts.Honor’s Magic 6 Pro, which made its debut at Mobile World Congress, is the world’s first cellphone bought outdoors China that carries a silicon-carbon battery, which researchers say has a decrease environmental influence and danger from overheating than lithium ion batteries utilized in a majority of telephones.Read extra: Best Phone To Buy For 2024What’s extra, the Magic 6 Pro presents a novel method to work together with it, utilizing an AI eye-tracking characteristic that permits you to open and work together with apps utilizing your eyes. While worldwide variations of the Honor Magic 6 Pro haven’t got eye-tracking, the characteristic is predicted to roll out sooner or later. Here’s a demo video the place Honor reveals off the probabilities of its eye-tracking expertise.Apart from these progressive options, the Magic 6 Pro has lots of the specs and options you’d count on from a 2024 flagship cellphone. I spent practically every week testing the Magic 6 Pro, which delivers a strong Android expertise packed in an opulent {hardware} design. Thanks to its sharp show, slow-draining batteries, glorious cameras, zippy processor and people progressive AI-based instruments, the Magic 6 Pro will seemingly be one of the compelling Android telephones of 2024. But it is value noting that the Magic 6 Pro is just not scheduled to obtain a launch within the United States. It’ll first be launched in Europe, costing £1,100 within the UK (roughly $1,390 and AU$2,120).Despite all its benefits, the Magic 6 Pro is just not good. Perhaps its greatest disadvantage is Honor’s software program improve coverage, which lags behind rivals reminiscent of Google’s Pixel 8 line and Samsung’s Galaxy S24 collection, which presents seven years of main OS upgrades and safety updates. Instead, Honor guarantees 4 years of Android updates and safety patches, which continues to be respectable, though it is shorter than its rivals. I additionally discovered its show collected mud, particles and even tiny scratches — keep in mind I’ve solely used it for six days. Honor has clinched a string of firsts with its telephones after it was bought off by Huawei a couple of years in the past. The Chinese firm debuted the world’s thinnest and lightest book-style foldable cellphone in 2023, the Honor Magic V2. Before that, it launched the world’s first cellphone with a silicon carbon battery, the Magic 5 Pro, which is the Magic 6 Pro’s predecessor. But these batteries have been solely utilized in telephones for Honor’s native China market.Read More: Life After Huawei: Honor Bids To Become ‘Iconic’ Global Phone Brand Sareena Dayaram/CNETLuxury-inspired designAs quickly as I took it out of the field, I may inform that Honor needs its latest cellphone to face out. The mannequin I obtained is available in a chilled sage inexperienced shade, which I feel pairs nicely with the gold-colored end across the digicam bump and physique. It has a textured rear end in addition to a cushion-shaped digicam bump. Honor says it drew inspiration from jewellery and classical timepieces. The digicam bump is cumbersome, nonetheless, so the cellphone would not lie fully flat on surfaces. On the entrance, the Magic 6 Pro’s display screen has delicate, curved edges. Vibrant however delicate showThe 6.78-inch show on the Magic 6 Pro is well seen outside, even when sunny. Thanks to its zippy refresh fee of 120Hz, making it a clean and seamless expertise to modify between apps and scroll on social media. But I used to be stunned to seek out that the display screen suffered some seen put on and tear throughout my restricted time with it. I popped the cellphone right into a tote bag over the course of some days with out a case and located that it simply collected mud and particles on the display screen. After a couple of days, I additionally discovered a number of small scratches on the cellphone. Honor says its Magic 6 Pro’s display screen makes use of a nanocrystal glass. The Magic 6 Pro’s cushion-shaped digicam bump. Sareena Dayaram/CNETWonderful camerasThe Magic 6 Pro’s so-called falcon digicam system has a complete of 4 cameras. The rear digicam module is headlined by a 2.5x telephoto lens with an f/2.6 aperture to let in additional gentle. It has a 108-megapixel sensor and may zoom digitally as much as 100x. Apertures underneath f/2.8 are thought-about quick, which principally means the lens permits a bunch of sunshine. You can choose for a quick shutter velocity, which leads to vibrant, crisp pictures with little to no picture noise. f/1.7 and f/1.6 are a few of the widest apertures discovered on a cellphone digicam lens. For context, full-frame standalone cameras just like the Leica M collection or Sony Alpha collection have lenses with apertures underneath 1. The telephoto digicam is accompanied by a 50-megapixel broad digicam and a 50-megapixel, ultrawide digicam. On the entrance, there is a 50-megapixel digicam. Take a glance beneath to see the cameras in motion. Hong Kong skyscrapers by day. Taken with the Magic 6 Pro’s fundamental digicam. Sareena Dayaram/CNETI love how the picture above turned out. You may even see the reflection of the alternative constructing within the glass, but it surely seems artificially sharpened within the picture.The picture beneath was taken on default settings on a vibrant and sunny day in Hong Kong. The Magic 6 Pro amps up the blueness of the skies and seas. I personally prefer it. A photograph of Hong Kong’s harbor from the principle digicam. Sareena Dayaram/CNETBelow are a collection of photographs I took to point out off the Magic 6 Pro’s zoom vary. The first picture was taken with the 0.5x ultrawide digicam and the second with the telephoto digicam at 5x digital zoom. This was taken with the ultrawide digicam. I’ll be zooming into the ship to point out you the Magic 6 Pro’s zoom capabilities. Sareena Dayaram/CNET Standing in the identical spot, I took this photograph with 5x digital zoom. Sareena Dayaram/CNETBut let’s take issues to the intense. Below is a photograph I shot at 100x digital zoom. I’m amazed you may truly see a semblance of the ship’s entrance. I could not see a lot with my bare eye aside from a tiny silhouette of the ship. As you may count on, the picture is blurry, but it surely provides you a tough thought of the topic. And this is a photograph taken at 100x zoom, the Magic 6 Pro’s max magnification. Sareena Dayaram/CNETNow let’s zoom on one thing that is truly bodily close by (and extra cute). The photograph beneath of Rocky, my canine reveals off the Magic 6 Pro’s telephoto capabilities. This is a pointy picture taken in a well-lit room. Notice the strands of fur and element captured. I took this picture of Rocky with the Magic 6 Pro 2.5x telephoto digicam. Sareena Dayaram/CNETPortrait mode was one in every of my favourite options to make use of on the Magic 6 Pro. It’s simple to take lovely portrait telephones. I like the natural-looking bokeh within the background and the sharp foreground. Here’s one other photograph of Rocky taken with portrait mode. Sareena Dayaram/CNETIn my time thus far with the Magic 6 Pro, it typically struggled with edge detection. Take a take a look at the photographs beneath of the heart-shaped balloon to see what I imply. The first was taken with portrait mode. Notice the way it separates the balloon from the background. You can inform that the Magic 6 Pro struggles with “cutting out” the balloon and its string. Here’s one other portrait mode snap, however discover the way in which it “cuts out” the balloon from the background. Sareena Dayaram/CNETBelow is one other photograph of the identical balloon taken with portrait mode disabled. You can clearly see the balloon’s string in addition to the background on this picture, which was taken on default settings. The digicam took a true-to-life shot of the balloon regardless of gentle pouring into the window. The similar balloon taken with out portrait mode. Sareena Dayaram/CNET This photograph was taken with the ultrawide digicam in night time mode. Sareena Dayaram/CNET Here’s the identical scene captured with the ultrawide digicam however with out night time mode. Sareena Dayaram/CNET And this is the identical night scene captured at 5x digital zoom. Sareena Dayaram/CNETThe Magic 6 Pro photographs have been strong. Images in most lighting conditions have been shade correct, crisp and visually interesting. Since the portrait lens has 108 megapixels to play with, zoom was additionally one other stellar characteristic on this cellphone. I may take all types of pictures and digitally zoom into them, and every photograph appears to be like sharp. I can not wait to take this cellphone to a tennis match and take some motion pictures. If I needed to nitpick, the digicam tends to make skies bluer than they have been and typically the ocean too. But I used to be proud of the ultimate picture, so this tendency to oversaturate photographs did not trouble me.Sometimes portrait mode struggled with edge detection too, however once more it was a non problem for me because it was often a simple repair of simply transferring the digicam barely. Besides, it was a breeze to take lovely portrait pictures. I completely cherished how I may simply take photographs with a pure bokeh impact within the background but retain a crisp foreground. The Magic 6 Pro in all probability has one in every of my favourite portrait cameras regardless of the minor edge detection points.Silicon carbon batteryThis 12 months’s Magic 6 Pro has a 5,600-mAh silicon-carbon battery. In my expertise, the battery lasted all through the day after reasonable use. That contains fast cellphone calls, social media scrolling, studying emails, watching YouTube movies and listening to music. I additionally ran a 45-minute battery drain check, through which I hopped on a Zoom name, scrolled by means of social media and performed a graphic-intensive cellular sport. In that point, the battery dropped by 8%. This outcome retains up with gaming telephones such because the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro, which additionally dropped 8% in the identical check, though that cellphone makes use of a lithium-ion battery. Most lineups, together with the just lately launched Samsung Galaxy S24, run on lithium ion batteries. The use of silicon-carbon batteries in cellphones is an rising pattern that is drawn consideration as a consequence of its potential benefits over lithium-ion batteries. Those advantages embody a decrease environmental influence and lowered danger of overheating. But the long-term reliability of silicon carbon batteries are nonetheless being researched, and adoption within the smartphone trade continues to be in its early phases. A welcome display screen greets you the primary time you open the digicam app. Sareena Dayaram/CNETImpressive efficiencyThe Magic 6 Pro runs on Qualcomm’s top-of-the line Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which guarantees a 30% enchancment in CPU efficiency and a 25% improve in GPU efficiency. In my expertise, the cellphone may deal with just about the whole lot I threw at it, together with graphic-intensive video games reminiscent of Genshin Impact, operating Zoom video calls and switching screens between a Zoom name and my e mail, as an example.Apart from providing improved efficiency, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip will permit Magic 6 house owners to faucet into generative AI options wherever they’re, even offline. On-device AIThe Magic 6 Pro runs MagicOS 8.0, which is predicated on Android 14. Honor is billing its newest working system as one “that really knows you” in a nod to the provision of AI-based options. But essentially the most notable AI characteristic, which entails eye-tracking, is just not but out there globally. Like the Magic V2, the Magic 6 Pro has an AI-based characteristic often called Magic Text, which might acknowledge textual content content material on a picture and convert it into editable textual content. Like iPhone’s Live Text characteristic, I’d count on this characteristic to come in useful when you have handwritten recipes or notes that you just wish to digitize simply, so long as the handwriting is legible and clear. In my expertise, it was intuitive to make use of. All I needed to do was faucet and choose textual content in a picture within the Gallery app, hit copy after which paste it into an e mail or wherever I wanted the textual content. Watch this: What to Expect from Mobile World Congress 2024
04:02 Overall ideasThe Magic 6 Pro is among the many most compelling Android flagships out there this 12 months. It has glorious cameras, a pointy show, and slow-draining batteries coupled with quick charging. It’s additionally the primary industrial cellphone bought internationally that has a silicon-carbon battery. However it is held again by the software program improve coverage and I’m involved about put on and tear on the show. That mentioned, the Magic 6 Pro has helped reinvigorate my pleasure round telephones by means of its futuristic options reminiscent of eye-tracking, however I’ll should see how advantageous it’s in actual life once I ultimately get to try it out.
Honor’s Magic V2 Foldable Is Lighter Than Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra
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