The brand new Honor Magic 7 Professional is right here and needs to outshine the digital camera cellphone competitors, combining the most recent cellular {hardware} with a wealth of recent AI-enhanced performance.
One space the place Honor’s paid specific consideration is the cellphone’s upgraded ‘Falcon Digicam System’, which contains a revised telephoto sensor, paired with a brand new AI Tremendous Zoom function; permitting you to seize photographs from additional away than ever earlier than. Portrait images and motion photographs have additionally been injected with a dose of AI, together with the cellphone’s ever-improving picture modifying instruments.
After testing the cellphone for the previous month – utilizing it on the seashores of England’s south coast and documenting my current journey to the Slovenian Alps – I’ve come to grasp the strengths and weaknesses of the Magic 7 Professional’s digital camera, and whether or not its new AI toolset helps Honor surpass the Xiaomi 14 Extremely as the most effective digital camera cellphone, or whether or not cellular photographers ought to contemplate options.
Should you’re already set on selecting the Honor Magic 7 Professional, the cellphone is available for purchase now, direct from Honor. Otherwise you may need to learn our full overview first.
Digicam {hardware}
The very first thing I observed when scrutinising the 7 Professional’s digital camera {hardware} was that it depends on a near-identical set of sensors to the earlier Honor Magic 6 Professional.
That’s no unhealthy factor, thoughts. With a big 1/1.3-inch lead 50Mp Omnivision sensor, supported by OIS (optical picture stabilisation) and a twin ƒ/1.4 to ƒ/2.0 aperture, it might probably open wider than many of the different flagship telephones available on the market within the pursuit of much less noise whereas capturing extra gentle, particularly in darker situations.
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
That comes supported by a 50Mp 1/2.88-inch ƒ/2.0 ultrawide, with a 122° area of view, and a model new OIS-supported 200Mp 1/1.4-inch ƒ/2.6 telephoto sensor. Honor’s upped the ante in comparison with the 180Mp tele on the Magic 6 Professional, with its new flagship capable of natively shoot at 3x magnification (up from 2.5x), with a lossless 6x sensor crop possibility too.
One other 50Mp sensor (1/2.93-inch f/2.0 90°) sits throughout the 7 Professional’s Dynamic Island-esq ‘Magic Capsule’, alongside a 3D ToF (time-of-flight) sensor, which implies it serves double obligation, as a part of a number of the most strong biometric 3D face unlocking on any Android cellphone right now.
Digicam options
Whereas 6x optical zoom is nice, Honor needed to push the capabilities of its newest flagship, which is the place the brand new AI Tremendous Zoom function is available in. Whereas its predecessor might attain the identical lofty ranges of magnification, at as much as 100x, resultant picture high quality was wholly depending on the power of the sensor, paired with the system’s ISP (picture sign processor) and Honor’s on-device picture processing.
AI Tremendous Zoom steps in when capturing photographs previous 30x magnification and makes use of AI to successfully fill again in absent element, using the corporate’s personal ‘telephoto enhancement giant mannequin’ to take action (mainly Honor’s personal AI knowledge set, particularly tailor-made to telephoto images).
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One essential word is that the function requires an web connection to operate, as photographs should be processed off-device. It’s additionally solely out there at seize, with no possibility to use AI Tremendous Zoom processing on telephoto photographs from inside Honor’s native Gallery app after the very fact, which looks as if a missed alternative.
The Studio Harcourt partnership the corporate struck up for the launch of the Honor 200 Professional comes as a part of the Magic 7 Professional’s capturing expertise too; granting entry to color tuning modelled after the studio’s famed portraits. It’s paired with a tasteful bokeh impact when switching to the cellphone’s portrait mode, which is now supported throughout 1x, 2x, 3x and 6x zoom.
It’s a pleasure capturing telephoto photographs on the Magic 7 Professional
That is then joined by the brand new AI Enhanced Portrait function, which itself makes use of a devoted on-device AI mannequin (consisting of over a million gentle and shadow samples and 1.3 billion mannequin parameters) to assist sculpt photographs of topics, to provide better-looking outcomes past the capabilities of the cellphone’s {hardware} and your capturing state of affairs.
The motion-sensing Motion mode makes a return for fast-moving topics (you may even have the cellphone snap a pic when it thinks is greatest, however I left this off), however the 7 Professional ups the ante with a brand new HD Tremendous Burst function that higher freezes quick movement whereas operating photographs via the cellphone’s full ‘AI Honor picture engine’, for larger high quality outcomes.
Telephoto samples
It’s a pleasure capturing telephoto photographs on the Magic 7 Professional, with nice, marginally punched-up colors, respectable element seize and stable HDR processing that doesn’t really feel too heavy-handed.
The flexibility to shoot between 0.5x and 6x, realizing there’s no loss in optical high quality provides you confidence within the cellphone’s skill to seize worthwhile photographs, though zoom previous that time and it’s a must to begin being extra thoughtful of lighting situations and focal size.
Between 6x and 30x you’re reliant on the cellphone’s customary imaging pipeline, which in good lighting situations tends to ship. As out there gentle drops although, regardless of the massive sensor dimension, the 7 Professional begins to wrestle. In high-contrast settings (e.g. darkish skies and vibrant streetlamps) gentle sources are likely to blow out, whereas extra muted low-light capturing leads to a lack of color depth and flatter, desaturated imagery.
AI Tremendous Zoom can do a convincing job of reviving photographs, however the additional you zoom, the extra the function has to fill within the gaps, and the larger the probability of synthetic or synthetic-looking outcomes.
The extra random geometry of pure topics – tree branches, rock faces and so on. – lead to extra convincing ultimate photographs, because it’s more durable to identify the place Tremendous Zoom is stepping in, whereas artifical constructions with uniform shapes and adornments, and plenty of parallel or perpendicular traces, higher expose the function’s improvisations.
On the highest zoom ranges, some photographs seem nearly painterly, indifferent from the fact they’re meant to depict, as in the event that they’ve been run via a Photoshop filter. In the identical vein, nearly as good as 100x zoom photographs of the moon seem on the 7 Professional, they’re fabrications, distinctly uncharacteristically excessive constancy, in comparison with anything captured on the cellphone’s most focal size.
Nearly as good as 100x zoom photographs of the moon seem on the 7 Professional, they’re fabrications
Portrait mode samples
The added flexibility of portrait mode throughout 4 devoted focal lengths serves as a pleasant improve over the Magic 6 Professional, with the added Harcourt tuning providing extra dynamic outcomes than a easy black-and-white or vivid filter.
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The cellphone defaults to the Harcourt Vibrant profile, which ups the distinction ever so barely whereas additionally accentuating hotter tones. Harcourt Color maintains that enhanced distinction, however ranges out color tones slightly, leading to an outlined however softer composition total. Harcourt Traditional, in the meantime, takes issues monochrome, with a comparatively flat distinction curve, as if the topic is lit on their darker aspect, by a refined fill gentle.
Throughout all the Magic 7 Professional’s portrait capturing, bokeh high quality is sweet so far as smartphones go, with the power to dial the impact up or down at seize. As soon as once more, it will have been good to have the ability to alter the digital f-stop in put up, from the Gallery app, and the falloff does look slightly abrupt, however it in any other case outpaces the likes of its most recently-released rival, OnePlus 13, on this regard.
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
As for the 7 Professional’s new AI Enhanced Portrait mode, the outcomes are unquestionably higher, it’s simply, at first, difficult to ascertain what the cellphone’s built-in Portrait Massive Mannequin has accomplished to a picture. This makes it perfect for social platforms, because it’s extra refined than the AR make-up filters on the likes of Snapchat and TikTok, whereas additionally nonetheless leaving extra unique options intact.
Cropping in on the instance shot above, the mode seems to scale back noise and clean pores and skin, however then add a sharpness layer to maintain issues trying crisp. There’s proof of object removing (such because the lint on my eyebrow within the unique picture) and even refined picture era (like the sunshine reflecting in my pupil, which solely seems within the AI-enhanced picture).
Macro samples
The Honor Magic 7 Professional has an computerized macro mode that switches on when the cellphone detects you’re near a topic, as close to as 2.5cm. It makes use of the ultrawide lens, demanding an abundance of accessible gentle for the most effective outcomes.
You’ll be able to up the ante additional, with a separate devoted Tremendous Macro mode which seems to scale back lens distortion. Nonetheless, whichever methodology you utilize, count on a high-contrast outcome with extra apparent post-capture sharpening than imagery taken from the cellphone’s major sensor. It’s, once more, nicely suited to social media, however doesn’t translate to the genuine end of photographs captured utilizing a digital camera with a devoted macro lens connected, all that nicely.
Burst mode samples
Honor’s Motion mode is slightly overzealous, kicking on on the trace of movement in-frame, even when all that often was, was me elevating the cellphone to take an image. That minor annoyance apart, nonetheless, it’s a worthwhile a part of the 7 Professional’s capturing expertise that cordons off zoom previous 10x to extend the probabilities of you nabbing a usable shot.
HD Tremendous Burst then steps in (above, proper) to offer the sharpest imagery potential, whereas attempting to take care of consistency with the cellphone’s native photographic have a look at a charge of as much as 10fps. Like Motion mode, Honor ought to present a toggle, so you’ve the choice for HD Tremendous Burst mode to interact routinely while you hit the shutter, however that’ll possible are available in a future launch of MagicOS, as soon as it’s seen as a extra core a part of the digital camera expertise.
There’s a transparent distinction in movement and sharpness between regular burst seize and HD Tremendous Burst photographs, with the color seize proving fairly constant, whereas by comparability, white steadiness appeared to wobble; relying on the fast-moving topic I used to be capturing.
Common and low-light samples
Past the bombastic telephoto and the headline-grabbing AI-led options, the Honor Magic 7 Professional is a typically stable digital camera cellphone.
With sufficient gentle, HDR processing doesn’t get rid of darkish areas of the body, and but there’s nonetheless shadow element. Colors are pleasing too, with a slight increase in saturation and constant white steadiness, all primarily based on the cellphone’s out-of-box ‘vibrant’ capturing profile.
When a scene is especially vibrant, the cellphone does run the danger of over-exposing only a tad, though you may rescue such photographs by tapping and dragging down on the pop-up publicity slider throughout the viewfinder, quite than having to should resort to full handbook management.
There’s clearly slightly trickery at play, with the cellphone’s five-bladed aperture miraculously producing 18-point star bursts, when aimed toward level gentle sources, like ceiling lights or the solar, however that’s not out of character, contemplating the opposite picture manipulation the 7 Professional is extra upfront about.
Past the bombastic telephoto and the headline-grabbing AI-led options, the Honor Magic 7 Professional is a typically stable digital camera cellphone
The place the digital camera system most clearly suffers is low gentle. Colors lose saturation and even when viewing photographs within the cellphone’s native Gallery app, there’s distinct color banding, suggesting Honor’s picture processing pipeline is working extra time, and crushing swathes of gradiated color – as within the shot with a night coastal sky – as a way to work with the sunshine out there to it.
It’s additionally the one high-end cellphone in current reminiscence that I’ve examined that calls for using the devoted Evening mode. Generally, in the event you’re capturing in a state of affairs that’s too dim for the cellphone’s customary picture mode, the cellphone will merely prolong the shutter time to seize extra gentle and let you know it’s doing so.
With the Honor Magic 7 Professional, whereas shutter continues to be prolonged in a lot the identical manner, the outcomes from Evening mode are head and shoulders above what might be captured from the digital camera app’s native Picture mode. An odd quirk that forces extra consumer interplay as a way to get the most effective shot; a trait at odds with the remainder of the digital camera’s function set.
AI Eraser
For a cellphone digital camera that locations such an emphasis on AI at seize, it’s fairly gentle on post-capture AI performance. Whereas the likes of Google, Samsung and OnePlus all function a rising variety of AI-powered picture modifying instruments; to upres, unblur, take away reflections or generate new pixels from drawing or text-based prompts, at launch the Magic 7 Professional has only one such function: AI Eraser.
As its title suggests, it’s designed to make object or individual removing simple, whereas leaving a convincing lead to its wake. The most effective outcomes you may see under, with the random texture of the encompassing stone-covered sand serving to to disguise the place the 7 Professional’s AI Eraser has painted out each the folks and their shadows.
Whereas typically flawless, different occasions the “eraser” as a substitute merely changed the article I used to be attempting to get rid of with one thing else; often one thing non-descript however nonetheless very a lot presenting as an object in-frame, the place I didn’t need one. Equally, the instruments to pick out parts you need to erase – you may draw a hoop or scribble over issues as you like – would someday attain far past the boundry I’d set on the picture, and erase different parts, seemingly on a whim.
Honor’s AI Eraser works, however it undoubtedly feels prefer it’s behind the curve, a model one launch to extra refined options discovered on the likes of the Google Pixel 9 collection, in addition to the most recent Oppo Discover X8 Professional and OnePlus 13.
Are the Honor Magic 7 Professional’s cameras any good?
Mockingly, the Honor Magic 7 Professional’s Falcon digital camera system isn’t notably trustworthy. It leverages on and off-device AI-supported processing to assist seize the photographs the corporate assume’s you’re possible trying to seize. That’s not inherently a nasty factor, and develop into more and more frequent, particularly on current telephones from the likes of Google and Xiaomi.
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
The moon photographs are spectacular, and ship in your intention, however aren’t consultant of what’s truly hitting the digital camera sensor. Equally AI Enhanced Portrait and AI Tremendous Zoom, take liberties with the pixels captured, as a way to try to generate a extra compelling and fascinating finish outcome then the cellphone’s {hardware} is definitely capapble of.
Supplied you’re comfy with this high quality of the Honor Magic 7 Professional’s digital camera system, then it’s in any other case a flexible and well-featured possibility, albeit slightly hamstrung by low-light efficiency that feels slightly behind the curve.
Take a look at our shortlist of the most effective digital camera telephones to see what the Magic 7 Professional’s snappers are up towards.