Honor Magic5 Pro and Ultimate come with the new silicon-carbon batteries in China

Honor unveiled a new type of battery – a silicon-carbon battery – during its global Magic5 series event last week. And this isn’t just a paper launch like so many new battery technologies, we have confirmed that the Honor Magic5 Pro and the Magic5 Ultimate units sold in China use the new type power cells.

Long story short, the silicon carbon battery has 5,450mAh capacity whereas the more traditional battery inside the global Magic5 Pro has 5,100mAh. The Ultimate, which was announced today, is unlikely to be available globally, so we’ll focus on the Pro.

The global Pro measures 8.77mm thick and weighs 219g. The Chinese version has the same measurements, despite having a higher battery capacity. That 350mAh extra represents a 7% increase in capacity. Both phones support 66W fast charging, by the way.

When Honor announced the silicon-carbon tech, it claimed 12.8% higher energy density. We’re not sure where the discrepancy comes from – perhaps different packaging is needed, Honor was terse with the details.

Still, a 7% increase is nothing to sneeze at. If the company could achieve the same improvement on smaller batteries, a phone that would have had 4,000mAh with the standard design might have 4,280mAh with a silicon-carbon battery, all without any increase in weight and size.

If and when the company brings this new tech to the global market, this will be a true competitive advantage. By the way, we have the Honor Magic5 Pro in for review, but it is the global version with a standard 5,100mAh battery, so we won’t (yet) be able to test the silicon-carbon tech for ourselves.