This the season of slider phones - the Honor Magic 2
arrived a week after the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 and a day ahead of the Lenovo Z5 Pro. The new flagship by the Huawei
subsidiary has six cameras (three front-facing, three on the back), Kirin 980
chipset and impressively fast 40W charging. There are also no notches
at the front, thanks to the sliding mechanism.
The screen is a 6.4” OLED panel with Full HD+
resolution in 19:9 ratio with a curved 2.5D glass on top. On the inside, we see
the latest chipset by HiSilicon, coupled with either 6 GB RAM or 8 GB RAM. The
storage is either 128 GB or 256 GB, but Honor skipped on the microSD slot.
The camera department is intriguing. There is a main
16 MP snapper, 24 MP Black & White monochrome sensor, and a 16 MP ultra
wide-angle camera. With the lack of a telephoto lens, the Magic 2 goes in a
completely different category from the other two camera beasts by Huawei - the
P20 Pro with the telephoto camera, but no wide-angle lens, and the Mate 20 Pro
that ditched the monochrome sensor.
The front setup is also unorthodox - the 16 MP
selfie shooter is accompanied by two 2 MP depth sensors. There is also an IR
face scanner for 3D Face Unlock through a depth-sensing bionic lens. If you
don’t want to swipe the phone and reveal this whole setup, there is an
under-display fingerprint scanner for all the security you might need.
Huawei was always about fast-charging, and the Magic
2 comes with 40W capabilities (10V/4A). It is called Magic Charge, and Honor
claims it can charge 50% of the 3,400 mAh power cell in 15 minutes and reach
85% in the next quarter hour. It uses the USB-C port that doubles as an audio
port since there is no 3.5 mm jack.
Connectivity includes Bluetooth 5 and dual-band GPS.
One entirely new feature is Yoyo - a virtual assistant that provides
“all-in-one smart-living enabler possessed with mind-reading and machine
learning capabilities.”
The Honor Magic 2 comes in Gradient Black, Gradient
Red and Gradient Blue colors, is priced at 3799 yuan (US$ 544) for the 6GB RAM with 128GB storage version, 4299 yuan (US$ 616) for the 8GB RAM with
128GB storage version and the 8GB RAM with 256GB storage version costs 4799
yuan (US$ 688). It will be available for order from
November 1st and goes on sale from November 6th.
It will also introduce new ‘3D Photosensitive
Edition’ with 3D Biosensing Technology for better security, same graphene heat
dissipation as Mate 20 Pro, 8GB RAM and 512GB storage for 5799 yuan (US$ 830) in December 2018.
