Honor Magic7 Pro unveiled with a 200MP tele camera, vanilla Magic7 powered by the SD 8 Elite
Two flagship launches in one year â why not, given the pace of technological improvement. Honor unveiled the Magic6 series this January and today it brings the sequel with a new chipset, even bigger batteries, faster charging, tougher bodies and more.
Both the Honor Magic7 and Magic7 Pro are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite and they leverage its NPU compute power for a variety of AI tasks that range from a digital assistant to improvements to camera processing.
The big upgrade on the Honor Magic7 Pro is the 200MP telephoto camera, replacing the already impressive 180MP shooter on the Magic6 Pro. The new sensor is quite large â 1/1.4â is âmain cameraâ material for certain other flagships â and sits behind a 60mm lens. This gives a comfy 2.5x zoom on the short end, which you can extend all the way to 100x with digital zoom.
The main camera remains the same with a 50MP 1/1.3â sensor and a variable aperture (f/1.4-f/2.0), plus OIS. The ultra wide camera is essentially the same too, with a 50MP sensor and a 12mm f/2.0 lens (122°), which can focus at a just a couple of centimeters away to take macro photos.
The front-facing camera has yet another 50MP sensor and a wide 90° lens (f/2.0). The pill-shaped cutout holds it and the 3D face scanner for secure biometric unlocking. Unlike camera-based approaches, this one works in the dark since it has its own IR illuminator. To be fair, the ultrasonic fingerprint reader works in the dark too.
The reader is built into the 6.8â LTPO OLED display (1-120Hz) with 1,280 x 2,800px resolution and 10-bit colors (Dolby Vision). The global peak brightness is 1,600 nits, but HDR content can go up to 5,000 nits. All that light is reigned in with high-frequency PWM dimming (4,320Hz). Note that the display isnât flat, but is âmicro quad curvedâ.
The battery inside the Pro has grown to 5,850mAh (250mAh more than the Magic6 Pro), the bigger improvement here is the faster charging â 100W wired and 80W wireless, compared to 80W/66W for the older phone.
The Honor Magic7 also has an LTPO OLED display (1-120Hz), a flat 6.78â panel this time (1,264 x 2,800px). This model also switches to an ultrasonic fingerprint reader (the Magic6 and Pro from January used optical readers). Thereâs no 3D face scanner here, so you have just the fingerprint reader (and a smaller hole in your screen).
Predictably, the vanilla phone loses the awesome telephoto module, but the rest is basically the same. The tele here is a 50MP 68mm module with OIS (3x optical, up to 50x digital zoom). It is joined by a 50MP main (1/1.3â sensor, fixed f/1.9 aperture) and 50MP ultra wide (122° with macro mode). The selfie camera has a 50MP sensor and a 90° lens.
The Magic7 has a third generation Honor Qinghai Lake battery â the same branding as on the Pro, but weâre not seeing a mention of Silicon-Carbon. It doesnât matter, though, the capacity is what counts and the new vanilla phone has a 5,650mAh battery (200mAh more than its predecessor) and supports the same fast charging as the Pro at 100W wired and 80W wireless (up from 66W/55W).
Itâs also worth noting that the Magic6 had no dust or water resistance rating, the Magic6 Pro had IP68. But the Magic7 and Magic7 Pro are tougher than both with not only IP68, but also IP69 (resistance against hot water jets).
Itâs great to see the âvanillaâ model be on par with the Pro on so many things â chipset, most of the cameras, battery tech, waterproofing. This includes satellite connectivity, but since it is based on the Beidou system, it will most likely be available only in China.
The two Magic7 models go on pre-order today and Honor will start selling them on November 8 (Friday next week). The vanilla Honor Magic7 starts at CNY 4,500 for the base 12/256GB model (this converts to $630/â¬585/â¹53,000. There are several upgrade options: 12/512GB for CNY 4,800, 16/512GB for CNY 5,000 and 16GB/1TB for CNY 5,500.
The Honor Magic7 Pro starts at CNY 5,700 for a 12/256GB model ($800/â¬740/â¹67,250). A couple of higher tiers are available too: 16/512GB for CNY 6,200 and 16GB/1TB for CNY 6,700.