There’s something special about the Honor Magic 6 Pro and I suspect all these additions to this offering were all part of Honor’s attempt at rekindling their appeal in the South African market.
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The latest Honor Magic 6 Pro was launched alongside a compelling and thin Honor Magic V2. These were Honors flagship releases that promised AI know-how and devices with some street cred not to mention looks and aesthetic appeal.
So what’s behind the Honor Magic 6 Pro and what’s appealing about this latest entry into the market?
On our first toggle, we appreciated the AI features on board in the form of hand gesture functionality, a versatile camera, decently long battery life, and 3D face unlock.
Magic Text feature
The phone makes sense considering its price point, with the addition of the Magic Text feature which allows users to extract text from an image. This was a decent addition to the Honor Magic 6 Pro’s list of features.
The feature allows users to select copy from an image and be able to send or make calls from that image.
This is coupled with Honor’s Magic 6 Pro’s Magic portal feature.
Think of dragging a message received and dropping it in maps to find out the exact location or looking for the nearest restaurant option all from a recommendation a friend made in a chat group.
With Magic Portal, you can touch and drag content, such as a passage of text, an image, or a screenshot, over to the right and drop it into another app, like Gmail or Honor Notes.
The smartphone shift in 2024
Honor understood the assignment when it comes to the Honor Magic 6 Pro’s design and applications. We noticed how devices are moving towards adding AI features in 2024 and it seems Honor is part of that migration.
Today’s smartphone will not only be selling attractive displays, high megapixel cameras and thin screen-to-body ratios, it will also be selling AI know-how including convincing features such as hand gesture scrolling and better face detection for security.
Display
Our Honor Magic 6 Pro came in the epi green colour pallet from two color options, the other being black. A 3D face unlock feature was a noble addition and was an intelligent addition to the Android addition to the market.
The Magic 6 Pro comes with an IP68 dust and water resistance rating, a 6.8-inch screen with 5000 nits of brightness. There’s a 120Hz refresh rate which is noticeable when navigating past deliberately stacked and open apps.
Camera
We spot a 50MP ultra HD image sensor, which is the camera on the bottom right, a 180 MP periscope sensor with ultra HD image prowess and 2.5x optical zoom alongside a 50MP ultra HD camera with a 1.3 ultra sensor with self-adjusting aperture.
The selfie camera on the front comes with 50MP of camera muscle with an f/2.0 aperture, 4K ability, and my personal favorite, the addition of the 3D depth-sensing camera which compliments the 3D face unlocking feature for security.
Battery
The Honor Magic 6 Pro comes with a tweaked 5600mAh silicon carbon battery alongside what Honor calls an E1 power-enhanced chip which manages power to improve battery efficiency. We picked up the added juice from the battery throughout the day. It looked more like we only needed to charge solely because we had a full day’s work the next day and not out of necessity. At some point, we did see a day and a half of battery pull, and that’s when we wanted to see how far we could stretch it.
On paper, the Magic 6 Pro could arguably reach two days but we do understand that certain battery-saving additions would be switched on. That’s the market game on smartphones battery and we understand it. The addition of the silicon carbon battery however is something to take note of and appreciate.
The battery supports 80W supercharging and a 66W Honor wireless supercharge.
Under the hood
The Honor Magic 6 Pro features a snapdragon 8 Gen 3, a USB charging port alongside a power, and volume dials on the sides. There’s 12 GB of RAM coupled with a generous 512 GB storage neatly packed inside the curved matte glass with a pronounced ring around the rear cameras.
Price: R 24 999
Overall judgement
Honor’s Magic 6 Pro is attractive to look at but does have inconsistent camera action. Some camera shots aren’t really consistent and one does pick that up. The addition of Google services makes the Honor Magic 6 Pro a decent candidate compared to its competitors and one would opt for this addition to the market when going down Honor’s list of releases to date.
We appreciated the camera symmetry, the pronounced curve on the rear, and the AI additions to a device that stands to compete with a few competitors in its range this year. The Magic 6 Pro carries its own weight in terms of design, and could improve on-camera processing speed but is a device that users can be comfortable with as a primary device for personal use. Honor could have added more colours, but too many options do tend to shift the focus from function.
This is a decent addition from Honor and we cannot wait to see how it can improve going forward.
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