Honor presents Magic V2 Porsche and Magic6 with artificial intelligence in China

Chinese company Honor recently launched the Porsche Design Magic V2 RSR on the domestic market, a revamped version of its foldable smartphone, developed in collaboration with the renowned luxury automotive brand. This announcement was accompanied by the presentation of the Magic6 range in the country during an event with an audience of four thousand people at the Shanghai Expo Center. The absolute protagonist of the stage is George Zhao, charismatic CEO of the most emerging company on the Chinese scene, undisputed leader of the foldable market in the Asian country but also one of those most ready to experiment.

• George Zhao, CEO of Honor

Magic6 Pro, which beats the presentation of the next Samsung Galaxy S on time, is a fact the first flagship phone of 2024 which opens the dance for the massive introduction of artificial intelligence in our smartphones. Magic6 Pro features the industry's first 180MP telephoto camera with an advanced 1/1.49-inch sensor and F2.6 aperture, allowing users to capture professional-level portrait images with flawless detail even from a distance. The Honor Falcon camera system, now upgraded to DSLR level, also features a custom 1/1.3-inch HDR sensor, offering a professional photography experience comparable to that of SLRs. So much so that Zhao, on stage, compares the smartphone not only with the iPhone 15 Pro, which is mentioned over and over again, but also with Canon's EOS.

Magic6 Pro, released on January 12 in China but still without a launch date in Europe, features a 6.8-inch LTPO curved edge display with a maximum HDR brightness of 5,000 nits, ensuring excellent visibility under direct light Of sun. The series, which also includes the non-Pro model, is also enriched by the improved 4320Hz PWM Dimming technology, which allows users to enjoy prolonged use without discomfort, minimizing eye strain. Powered by the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile platform, the Magic6 Series also includes a second-generation Silicon-Carbon battery further upgraded, which increases the battery cell to 5600mAh. There is also support for 80W SuperCharge wired charging and 66W wireless charging.

• “On the road” demonstration of the Magic6's ability to take extremely sharp moving photos.

But the real strength of Magic6 is the MagicOS 8.0 operating system, which opens up to on-device artificial intelligence and allows new functions that Zhao does not hesitate to define as “revolutionary”. Magic6, in Honor's promises, is intended to understand the user's intentions, thanks to a system that cross-references emails, messages, internet searches, localization and even eye movement on the screen. In this way, Magic6 will be able to provide more precise contextual information with fewer steps. Honor has put together a machine learning model that exceeds 7 billion parameters, and has essentially rewritten a good part of the Android code to allow a different use of the smartphone, less focused on apps and more on “predicting” the user's needs . Prices for Honor Magic6 start from 4,399 CNY (approximately 615 euros), while the Pro edition starts from 5,699 CNY (approximately 797 euros).

After launching his vision for AI on smartphones, Zhao moved on to Honor's collaboration with Porsche, first revealed in mid-December 2023 and leading to the foldable's unveiling at the event Porsche Design Magic V2 RSR, which maintains the same thickness of 9.9 mm (excluding the camera bump) as the foldable Magic V2 model launched in China in 2023 and arriving in Europe in February (it will be presented at the MCW in Barcelona), but with a weight of 234 grams, slightly higher than the 231 grams of the original model. Among the device's distinctive features, Honor has highlighted durability, including an anti-scratch coating for the screens, which would increase resistance tenfold. The device offers the same triple camera setup as the Magic V2, with a 50MP main and ultra-wide lens and a 20MP telephoto unit. The product was put on sale in China with prices starting from 15,999 CNY (around 2,237 euros) for the configuration with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of ROM.