It is undeniable that the Honor Magic6 Pro is a promising smartphone in this era. Aside from its enticing specifications, it is also armed with some AI capabilities. But is it really flawless?
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Honor allowed fans to try Magic6 Pro. The smartphone features a generous 6.8-inch OLED display with a resolution of 2800 x 1280 pixels. Its impressive 120Hz refresh rate ensures smooth interactions, and the peak brightness of 5,000 nits provides vivid visuals even in bright sunlight. Under the hood, it houses a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, making it well-equipped to handle demanding tasks. While the chip’s performance may draw more power from the 5,600mAh battery, it significantly outperforms the previous generation’s CPU. Thankfully, charging won’t be a hassle. The smartphone supports both 80W wired fast charging and 66W wireless charging, ensuring quick and convenient recharging.
On the back of the device, you’ll find a camera island housing a trio of impressive lenses. These include a 50MP wide main camera (with an aperture range of f/1.4 to f/2.0 and optical image stabilization), a 50MP ultra-wide camera (f/2.0), and a staggering 180MP periscope telephoto camera (f/2.6) with 2.5x optical zoom and an incredible 100x digital zoom, also equipped with optical image stabilization.
During the event, attendees were also able to try Magic6 Pro’s AI eye-tracking capability, which can analyze the user’s eye movements. Through this, the system will be able to determine the section of the screen where the users are looking, including notifications and apps that they can open without using taps.
This is where the issue starts with the said model.
While the AI eye-tracking feature is really enticing (with the company even sharing a demo of an experimental concept to control a car hands-free in the event), do not expect that you’ll be able to use it right away when you buy the unit. Instead of shipping with the device, the said feature will be available later this year. The same thing goes for the other exciting features attendees tried in the event, with many of them marked as “coming soon.” One includes the Labelled MagicLM, Honor’s Google Assistant-like on-device assistant, which will be released in March. The eye-tracking feature was already tested by MWC participants, but of course, the one that will be released in the coming months might perform differently. That being said, how good or bad these AI features will only be determined once the actual users get them.
Aside from that, the update policy of Honor is something to consider. While Samsung and Google are now observing seven years of security patches and software updates for their devices, Honor remains stuck in its four-year update policy, which is quite disappointing.
As for its MagicOS, it still reflects a lot of elements of Huawei’s EMUI. After being sold by Huawei in 2020, one would expect that the company would try to move away from its old path completely, including changing its system entirely. While it did try to do so, some specific elements still whisper the name of Huawei. Moreover, there are still some flaws in the system, especially when it comes to consistency in applications.
So, would you try the Honor Magic6 Pro despite these caveats? Let us know in the comment section!
