Honor Magic 4 Pro: Hands-on with the specs beast

In late 2020, Huawei bought off its Honor subsidiary model (for apparent causes). It will be over half a yr earlier than Honor would launch its first cellphone as an unbiased firm, the Honor V40. Then it launched the Honor Magic 3 collection, however not globally. Nonetheless, at Cell World Congress 2022, the corporate is lastly launching its very first world premium flagship: the Honor Magic 4 Professional.

With this cellphone, Honor is popping out the gate weapons blazing. A variety of manufacturers may elect to slowly construct up momentum within the premium flagship house to check the waters, however not Honor. The Magic 4 Professional is a beast of a tool that exists as a press release of intent — and it’s a daring assertion.

However past the advertising and marketing jargon and posturing, what’s the cellphone actually like? On this early Honor Magic 4 Professional preview from MWC, we’ll let you know how we really feel concerning the cellphone so far.

Honor Magic 4 Professional: All of the specs, please

The show is a first-of-its-kind third-generation LTPO OLED. This makes it extra battery-efficient and sooner when switching refresh charges. It additionally introduces PWM dimming, which ought to trigger much less eye pressure when utilizing the cellphone in low-light environments. The show has a decision of two,848 x 1,312 throughout a 6.81-inch display screen. Its 120Hz refresh fee ensures easy scrolling and it has a wholesome pixel density of 460ppi.

The cellphone comes with as much as 12GB of RAM, as much as 512GB of inner storage, and has the mighty Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 6, and NFC help are all available. It has a second-gen ultrasonic fingerprint sensor similar to the Galaxy S22 Extremely, too.

The Magic 4 Professional prices its 4,600mAh battery at an astonishing 100W both wired or wirelessly. It additionally has a beast of a digital camera on the again, however we’ll get to that later.

The underside line right here is that the Honor Magic 4 Professional packs a mighty punch with regards to uncooked specs. As we are saying on a regular basis right here at Android Authority, specs alone don’t make an incredible smartphone. Nonetheless, one can’t ignore the pedigree of this specific gadget.

Design and really feel

Upon first selecting up the Magic 4 Professional, the very first thing I observed is its heft. It’s not as heavy as a Galaxy S22 Extremely or iPhone 13 Professional Max, but it surely’s actually thicker. The large digital camera module on the rear makes the load distribution uneven, however solely probably the most scrutinizing customers would seemingly discover.

The Honor Magic 4 Professional can also be very curvy. Consumers who detest waterfall-style shows gained’t very like this cellphone, because it curves on all 4 sides. Admittedly, this does make it extra comfy to carry and makes the show fairly immersive, however people who love flat screens will nonetheless want it have been much less rounded on the edges.

See additionally: The perfect Android telephones to spend your cash on

Regardless, the cellphone appears like a premium flagship. This isn’t a mid-ranger or pseudo-flagship product with some corners minimize to maintain the value down. That is the actual deal.

Honor can also be giving customers loads of selections with regards to colorways. The Magic 4 Professional is available in black, white, gold, and cyan, the latter of which we have now pictured right here. There’s additionally a vegan leather-based model that is available in just one coloration: orange. Sadly, we don’t know which launch areas will see which colorways.

Honor Magic 4 Professional software program impressions

The Honor Magic 4 Professional comes with Android 12 out-of-the-box. It’s skinned over with Honor’s personal Magic UI 6. That is very a lot a China-focused pores and skin with the standard tropes: app drawer off by default, splashes of coloration all all through, and gimmicky options like magnificence filters and collage creators.

Nonetheless, the Magic 6 Professional additionally has the complete suite of Google apps. It has the Play Retailer, Messages, and Chrome set as defaults, in addition to Google Assistant help.

If you consider it, it is a large deal. Honor’s former guardian firm Huawei nonetheless doesn’t have Google help, and the Magic 4 Professional has a whole lot of Huawei DNA — regardless of any of Honor’s claims on the contrary. In lots of respects, the cellphone is a dead-ringer for the Huawei Mate 40 Professional. In different phrases, this cellphone is as near a Google-powered Huawei cellphone as Huawei followers can get in 2022.

We’ll want to check Magic UI 6 a bit extra earlier than we will actually give a transparent verdict, however primarily based on our early impressions it has a ton of customization options, loads of digital camera tweaks, and feels easy and quick.

Digicam: ‘Eye of Muse’ appears promising

It’s unattainable to disregard the big digital camera module on the again of the Honor Magic 4 Professional. The corporate legitimately refers to it because the “Eye of Muse,” which is fairly pretentious. Regardless, the penta-sensor system contains the next:

• 50MP large
• 50MP ultrawide
• 64MP periscope telephoto
• Laser autofocus
• Flicker sensor

All in all, the system on the again of the Galaxy S22 Extremely is best than what we see right here. Nonetheless, the Magic 4 Professional setup is actually premium flagship materials and may permit folks to get wonderful outcomes for pictures and video.

Try some pattern photographs right here:

We discovered the digital camera to be quick, correct, and straightforward to make use of. There are some complicated settings all through, although. For instance, it has each “Video” and “Film” modes, which might appear to be the identical however aren’t. The Film mode has a max seize of 4K/30fps whereas the Video mode can rise up to 4K/60fps. We’ll must totally take a look at the variations between these two modes.

See additionally: The perfect digital camera telephones you may get

The telephoto lens has a 3.5x optical zoom and the flexibility to go all the way in which as much as 100x digital zoom. We discovered zoom as much as 10X was terrific, 30x was good, and something past was mush. To be truthful, we noticed the identical factor on the Galaxy S22 Extremely, so the Honor Magic 6 Professional remains to be aggressive.

Honor Magic 4 Professional preview: Carry it on

When folks consider premium flagships, they seemingly don’t consider Honor. For years, the model has been all about delivering respectable specs at affordable costs whereas leaving the premium territory to Huawei.

With Honor now not beholden to Huawei, although, the corporate can lastly unfold its wings. The Honor Magic 4 Professional won’t be excellent, but it surely looks like a terrific addition to this sector. In fact, this solely issues if Honor truly delivers the product to a world viewers. With the Magic 3 and Magic V gadgets by no means making it exterior of China, we’re barely skeptical.

If Honor doesn’t preserve its dedication to delivering this to world prospects, it will likely be a disgrace. Even with all of the specs pedigree on board right here, Honor remains to be retaining issues comparatively affordable so far as pricing goes. The bottom Honor Magic 4 Professional begins at €1,099 (~$1,229), which is considerably cheaper than the entry-level Galaxy S22 Extremely, which is €1,259 (~$1,408). Time will inform if the digital camera and software program expertise of the Magic 4 Professional measures as much as the Galaxy S22 Extremely.

Hopefully, Honor will announce availability particulars for the Magic 4 collection quickly. Within the meantime, keep tuned for our full assessment of this upcoming smartphone.