Historically, Huawei spinoff brand Honor has been focused on building midrange hardware. The company seems to be heading in a slightly different direction now with the launch of the Magic3 series. The trio of phones that Honor just revealed are legitimate flagships.
There are three different models in the Magic3 line-up: the base Magic3, the Magic3 Pro and Magic3 Pro+. All three feature an expansive 6.67 inch 120Hz flexible OLED display with a native resolution of 2,272 x 1,344 pixels. Power is supplied by a 4600mAh battery that can be recharged to 50% in just 15 minutes thanks to Honor’s 66W SuperCharge. Opt for the Pro or Pro+ and you can take advantage of 50W wireless SuperCharge capabilities, too.
The Magic3 sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, while the Pro and Pro+ feature a Snapdragon 888+ which supports slightly higher clock speeds. Both the Magic3 and Magic3 Pro bring 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The Pro+ gets a nice bump, up to 12GB and 512GB of storage.
During the reveal, Honor drew attention to a feature they call “Smart RAM.” They claim that the Magic3 phones can all make up to 2GB of memory available when needed by temporarily shuffling memory contents to flash storage. It sounds a lot like a swap file and could be a handy feature if it works as promised. It could also be all about marketing, so we won’t know until testers get their hands on these phones and put them through their paces.
Less gimmicky is the Magic3 camera hardware. Honor refers to the massive camera array on the back as “The Eye of Muse,” and it starts with a 50 megapixel Sony IMX766 sensor and f/1.9 lens, a 64 megapixel, f/2.2 monochrome camera and a 13 megapixel, 120-degree f/2.2 ultra-wide camera on the Magic3.
The Magic3 Pro adds a 64 megapixel, f/3.5 telephoto camera with 3.5x optical zoom and OIS. Digital zoom will take you 100x closer to your subjects while hybrid zoom tops out at 10x. The primary camera Magic3 Pro+ gets upgraded to Sony’s IMX700 sensor and an f/1.9 1/1.28-inch lens with OIS. For wide shots, the Pro+ packs a 64-megapixel 126-degree, f/2.4 camera.
These “IMAX enhanced” cameras are built for shooting log-format video, Honor says. To make sure the results look good no matter how skilled the shooter, Honor enlisted visual effects pro Bryan McMahan to create 8 different presets that deliver a cinematic punch.
The Magic3 launches first in China and will then head to other markets. While U.S. pricing and availability hasn’t been announced yet, the Magic3 will sell for €899 ($1,054) in Europe. The Magic3 Pro will ring up at €1,099 ($1,289) and the Pro+ at €1,499 ($1,758).
The swap memory feature is something I’ve been wanting on Android for years, but I’m not keen on using a feature like that as an unofficial addition from an OEM (as opposed to an official baked-in feature from Google), much less from a company like Huawei.
Honor is no longer owned by Huawei.