The Honor Magic 6 Pro is the first new flagship smartphone to debut at MWC 2024. We knew the device was going to be announced because it leaked, but also because Honor has been teasing some of its marquee features. Examples include the second-generation silicon-carbon battery that works well even at freezing temperatures, the new “sportography” feature, and the Magic 6 Pro’s ability to track your eyes and generate responses.
That was just scratching the surface. The Magic 6 Pro has plenty of interesting features that Honor didn’t tease, with AI powering several of them.
Perhaps one of the most interesting things Honor wants to do with the Magic 6 Pro is to help you get things done faster. It’s all thanks to something the Chinese smartphone vendor calls an intent-based UI. It’s an industry-first, and as I’m sure you can guess, it uses AI to predict which apps and functions you’ll need next.
Magic 6 Pro intent-based UI: The Magic Portal
The intent-based UI is what impressed me most about the Honor Magic 6 Pro. Honor calls its feature the Magic Portal, and it’ll be initially available only on the Magic 6 Pro.
Magic Portal sounds similar to what the Rabbit r1 wants to do with the help of AI: get things done faster. Unlike the Rabbit r1, you won’t tell the Magic 6 Pro what to do for you. Instead, the smartphone will understand what you’re doing in an app and determine what you might want to do next.
In a briefing ahead of MWC, Honor offered an example many people will be familiar with. You make a hotel reservation and get a confirmation via text message. You then copy and paste the address into a navigation app, which is a process that takes several steps. Honor’s machine learning algorithms — the AI — will know what your intention might be, so it might suggest a navigation app.
Other examples include sharing content on social media like TikTok and Facebook, or online shopping experiences that start with an image.
The new intent-based UI isn’t likely to work with all apps, and it will have limitations. But it sounds like the future of mobile computing, something all smartphone makers will be working towards.
On-device AI features
The Magic 6 Pro will also feature other AI experiences, including on-device artificial intelligence. Honor has partnered with Qualcomm to run the LLaMA 2 model directly on the handset. On-device generative AI will let the Magic 6 Pro answer questions, generate text, and create images.
It’s unclear, however, whether Honor will use other LLMs to power generative AI features on the Magic 6 Pro.
On that note, the built-in AI features seem to be available to buyers free of charge, as Honor did not mention whether users will need to pay a subscription fee for access to the AI.
Eye-tracking capabilities
Ahead of MWC, Honor showed off the Magic 6 Pro’s eye-tracking feature with the help of a great marking stunt. The company created an app that allowed a user to move a car forward and back with their eyes. The phone knows what you’re looking at and triggers actions accordingly.
This new eye-tracking feature is called Magic Capsule.
In practice, the phone’s front-facing camera, which sits in a notch resembling the iPhone’s Dynamic Island, will track your eyes and let you interact with elements on the screen, like notifications.
No other phone has a similar feature, but Apple has an advanced eye-tracking system for the Vision Pro.
AI sportography
If you watched Honor’s Magic 6 Pro launch event, you’ve heard the term “sportography” mentioned at least once. It’s a term Honor uses to imply the Magic 6 Pro is very good at taking photos of fast-moving subjects. The obvious use case is sporting events, where getting a great shot might be more difficult.
Unsurprisingly, AI is involved in sportography. The Magic 6 Pro features a triple-lens Falcon Camera System that includes a 180-megapixel telephoto lens (f/2.6, OIS, 2.5x optical zoom, 100x digital zoom) and a 50-megapixel main camera (f/1.4 and f.2/0, OIS). The AI Motion Sensing Capture algorithm can identify fast movements in various types of sports and capture photos and videos with great detail.
Honor says the phone is comparable with a mirrorless camera, and it’s able to capture portrait shots with bokeh effects even when the subjects are moving fast.
The second-gen silicon-carbon battery
I was a fan of the silicon-carbon battery that the Magic 5 Pro introduced last year. But that battery was exclusive to the Chinese version of the handset. Honor’s Magic 6 Pro will pack a second-gen silicon carbon battery, which is inspired by the electric vehicle sector. From the looks of it, this battery will come to international markets instead of being confined to China.
The Magic 6 Pro features an Honor E1 chip to manage the battery and improve efficiency. The actual battery has a 5,600 mAh capacity, significantly larger than what you’d find inside a smartphone with a 6.8-inch display.
Honor says that the battery can perform well in all sorts of conditions, giving an extreme example. The battery can last for 81 minutes playing YouTube videos with just 10% of battery life left at -20ºC (-4ºF). That’s the last thing you want to do at that temperature. But the point here is that the handset should manage the battery better than competitors in extreme situations.
As for battery charging, you get support for 80W Wired SuperCharge and 66W Wireless SuperCharge speeds.
The industry’s “most drop-resistant screen”
That 6.8-inch display is of the LTPO type, which means it supports refresh rates between 1Hz and 120Hz. It also features eye-related healthcare features like the Magic 5 Pro including the “industry’s highest 4320Hz PWN dimming,” dynamic dimming, and a customizable Circadian Night Display feature.
Protecting that OLED panel is what a NanoCrystal Shield, which is the industry’s “most drop-resistant screen glass to date,” per Honor. The NanoCrystal Shield has a silicon nitride coating on top of the nanocrystal glass, which should improve its durability. Honor says the Magic 6 Pro screen is up to 10 times more resistant than regular nanocrystal glass.
Magic 6 Pro price and release date
The Honor Magic 6 Pro will be available in Black and Epi Green. It’ll be available for £1,099 ($1,392) in the UK. Preorders start on March 1st, ahead of the Honor Magic 6 Pro’s release date. Buyers who preorder the phone will also get a bundle worth £359 ($455) that includes the Honor Earbuds X6, Honor 100W SuperCharger and Honor Pad 8.
The phone will also be available in European markets starting at €1,299. But it won’t launch in the US.
Honor also announced other devices at the show, including a Porsche Design edition of the Magic 6 Pro, the Honor MagicBook Pro 16, and the Honor Pad 9.
