Honor’s new Magic 6 Professional has simply launched at MWC 2024, and there’s one large factor the corporate needs to attract your consideration to… the cameras.
There are 5 lenses in whole, cut up between the back and front, plus a number of different built-in sensors. The specs are mighty spectacular, with a 50Mp dynamic-aperture (f/1.4-f/2.0) major digital camera, 180Mp telephoto (2.5x optical zoom, 100x digital) and 50Mp ultrawide with 122° area of view.
On the entrance, a 50Mp ultrawide lens is supported by a 3D Time of Flight (ToF) sensor, serving to to enhance its total depth notion and facial recognition.
And based mostly on first impressions, I can confidently say that these cameras are each bit pretty much as good as they sound.
The primary digital camera constantly takes beautiful pictures, rivaling the Google Pixel 8 Professional for point-and-shoot efficiency. Element, dynamic vary and publicity are all prime notch, with a contrasty look making photographs look additional atmospheric.
A few of the canine portraits I took had been gorgeous, with the perfect edge detection I’ve ever seen on a cellphone.
Anyron Copeman / Foundry
In contrast to so many cellphone cameras, there’s no apparent drop-off in high quality when switching to the ultrawide lens. The additional area of view makes an actual distinction in panorama pictures, particularly the seashore ones I took.
Nonetheless, the 180Mp telephoto is essentially the most versatile of all of them. Its variable aperture permits it to soak up extra gentle when wanted, dramatically bettering the standard of low-light pictures.
However its major profit on the Magic 6 Professional is depth of area adjustment, that means it’s able to some gorgeous portrait-style pictures. A few of the canine portraits I took had been gorgeous, with the perfect edge detection I’ve ever seen on a cellphone.
The telephoto lens has one different profit, a 2.5x optical zoom. The power to crop in and keep near-identical picture high quality definitely shouldn’t be neglected, although the 100x digital zoom (as indicated on the again of the cellphone) has no sensible utility.
Selfies from the front-facing digital camera are additionally glorious, whether or not you need the background blur or not. Faces are well-lit and background publicity dealt with properly, with edge detection additionally superb right here.
Nonetheless, one function I’m not solely impressed with is AI Movement Sensing. It’s designed to maintain topics in focus even once they’re shifting round lots, however the canine pictures I took had been usually nonetheless blurry.
See a spread of my digital camera samples within the gallery under:
Video isn’t a precedence in the identical approach, although the Magic 6 Professional can seize footage at as much as 4K/60fps. However even the default 1080p/30fps mode appeared good, with optical picture stabilisation (OIS) serving to it to stay impressively clean.
It may possibly’t fairly rival the iPhone 15 Professional and 15 Professional Max, the present gold commonplace for smartphone video, however the Magic 6 Professional is greater than serviceable.
In the case of stills, although, this cellphone is up there with the perfect. There’s no scarcity of competitors amongst digital camera telephones, with the iPhone 15 Professional, Pixel 8 Professional, Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely, Vivo X100 Professional, Oppo Discover X7 Extremely and Xiaomi 14 Extremely all within the operating, however the Magic 6 Professional is definitely up there.
It’s not all concerning the cameras, both. The Magic 6 Professional options Qualcomm’s newest and best Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, which mixes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of inner storage.
The 6.8-inch curved OLED show seems beautiful, particularly with a excessive 2.8K (2800×1280) decision and dynamic 1-120Hz refresh price. Sturdiness is robust too, with an IP68 water and dirt resistance ranking and drop certification.
Elsewhere, you get a big 5600mAh battery with help for 80W wired and 66W wi-fi charging, plus twin stereo audio system and under-display fingerprint sensor. It’s 229g however in all probability price it.
Nonetheless, there are two issues that can make or break the Magic 6 Professional. The primary is software program – Honor’s MagicOS 8.0 relies on Android 14, however gained’t be to everybody’s tastes. The opposite is value, which hasn’t been revealed but however is probably going much like the £949/€1,199 Magic 5 Professional.
These two components may imply one other cellphone is a greater all-round match for you. However there’s no doubting the Honor Magic 6 Professional’s stellar digital camera credentials.
Study extra in our separate article on the Honor Magic 6 sequence.