while a sub branded company honor have just released their third major flagship of 2018 the honor magic – it has been two years since the first magic phone and its first flagship to include the next generation 7 nanometer Kira 980 chipset which was debuted in their parent companies made series phones just weeks before the magic twos release the magic – ditches the knotch and embraces on his first truly bezel dis display with a whopping 95% screen to body ratio second to only the lenovo z5 pro which has just point oh six percent higher than that they achieve this by reducing the chin size to one of the slimmest ones I have seen and placing the front facing cameras on a manual sliding mechanism much like the recently released sharmini mix 3 though this is a very similar approach to the mix 3 it has been implemented better the top of the mechanism picks up less dust compared to the mix 3 the bottom flows into the phone with curves on both sides and a complete slab of phone at the bottom giving the illusion that the phone does not slide at all when there is a cover clipped on even the
slider feels more solid and makes a much softer sound you can see that honor didn’t make the slider their main selling point here from the subtle look and feel of the slider I feel they opted for the slider to gain the full screen display that’s what they wants you to focus on the experience of the phone as a whole not just the slider this is the only phone other than the made series to adopt the new cure 980 chip and it does it for half the price of was May 20 pro with many of the same features this phone starts with a base six gigs ram 128 gig rom model which will set you back around 550 dollars if directly converted from its Chinese yuan price tag of 3799 RMB the 8 gig variant ups the price to six hundred and twenty dollars and the top of the range 256 gig model comes in at 690 dollars I did mention in my unboxing video that you can expand the storage by the use of the SD card slot based on research that I did prior to the video but after examining the phone that doesn’t seem to be one present so be aware of that before importing one I stand to be corrected but the magic too may be able to use the same nano SD card that why we recently announced for them made
series phones which simply occupies some slot – let’s set the drawbacks of the device aside first there is no 3.5 millimeter headphone jack no IP certification thanks to the slider design no dual stereo speakers no wireless charging and it is currently only available in China so if you want one right now you’re gonna have to import it but that’s about it for five hundred and fifty bucks you can get your hands on what is essentially a May 20 pro with a full bezel this display that packs in an AMOLED Full HD plus 6.39 inch screen with a much-loved always on display feature this is all jammed into a small bodied elegant glass build sandwiching an aluminium frame that is split into two parts in order to provide a manual sliding feature that houses the front facing cameras the slider feels smooth solid and discreet it is a well implemented design thanks to its curved edges and solid bottom bezel unibody look unlocking the phone can be done using the embedded in display fingerprint sensor found on the lower center part of the screen this is the exact same scanner that is found on the huawei mate 20 pro and once going through the tedious setup procedure works remarkably well it seems faster and more accurate than other under display fingerprint sensors after and even trades blows with physical ones – it works fantastically well when you place your finger in the correct spot but be aware that if you place your finger slightly off the sensor it will not be recognized the fingerprints icon is
hidden when your device is locked but as soon as you tap on the screen or move the phone it will light up to indicate where you should place your finger you can also unlock the device using face recognition just like many other smart phones have adopted this year once you set it up you can simply slide the phone screen down and your firm will be unlocked in under a second I find myself using this a lot less then I would honor phones such as the oneplus 60 since it is noticeably slower you have to slide the phone down in order to use it where this device really excels is when it comes to performance you get a seven nanometer cure in 980 chipsets which is currently the fastest android chipset on the market until the new snapdragon releases early next year the phone comes paired with a dedicated performance mode which utilizes the CPU and GPU for the fastest possible experience on the phone much like Huawei and honor have done with their previous phones which use GPU turbo mode the great thing about this feature is that it can be enabled to permanently and even win on the phone does not reach high temperatures though there is no liquid cooling of any kind here this is one of the coolest phones I have tested with the performance mode enabled a lot the downside of enabling the
performance mode is that if chomps awared battery life and if the mode is not enabled the benchmark scores I get were closer to the Snapdragon 845 chip which is slightly disappointing considering this is Huawei’s next generation chip that will only be replaced at the end of 2019 like I mentioned before there is no dual speaker setup here even though there is quite a sizable speaker fan under the sliding screen you’re provided with only one down firing speaker which lacks in loudness and depth it cannot hold its own when compared to other phones with the same setup but still does a decent enough job if you need it fortunately there is Bluetooth 5 technology built-in with high res audio support for your wireless Bluetooth headphones and you get NFC as well so that you can connect to your headset on the fly without having to worry about pairing NFC can of course double up as a way to make a cordless payment – when it comes to software the magic – is skinned with the same emu our software that is used on huawei phones but goes by the name magic 2.0 due to its second iteration of the software found on their first magic phone it is skimmed over the latest Android 9pi and though it is not stock Android it is the cleanest version of emui I have seen today it includes plenty useful features but there are still some pointless features you can
find within the settings menu which still don’t quite make sense I mean I never use them there is an option for an actual and plenty ways to customize your phone without the need for a third-party launcher however if you do want to switch to a third-party launcher you may be out of luck there is an option in settings to change the default launcher but other launchers have been grayed out and when trying to use one it works fine until you go back home you can make your way around the software using full screen navigation gestures which are very similar to those found in charmese MIUI software you swipe in from the left or right of the screen to go back swipe up from the bottom of the screen to go home and swipe and hold from the bottom of the screen to view apps running in the background another thing you can do is swipe up from the bottom right of the screen to enable high vision which allows you to scan a QR code translate text recognize an item and get thrown into an online shop to buy it view an estimated calorie cards of your meal or simply identify anything in sight and let high vision automatically pick up what you are looking at and provide suggestions you can also swipe up from the bottom left of the screen to enable high voice but this is pointless unless you are a native Chinese
speaker I only have two complaints when it comes to this implemented gesture style on the specific device and that is that you cannot make the back animation style transparent and when you do want to which between apps you do have to hold on the screen for quite a long period of time which makes the phone feel slightly slower should full screen gestures not tickle your fancy you can always opt for the standard three key navigation which works pretty much the same as what you would expect from any phone another great gesture feature is called high touch when this is enabled you can place two fingers on your screen for a few seconds and it pops up with the feature allowing you to select text that is usually unselectable get information on what is on the screen or the only reason I actually use this feature is the option to translate the entire contents of the screen I live in China and I must say this has been an Incredible Hulk I couldn’t imagine living without this feature now the camera UI is neatly stacked up with tons of features that you would usually find on any phone running DM UI which includes pretty much any feature you could possibly think of its back lens setup looks breathtaking with its triple lens setup
much like the p20 pro the main camera is a 16 megapixel color lens with an aperture of f-18 the secondary camera is a 24 megapixel monochrome lens which enables the phone to capture more detail in a subject and has an aperture of f-18 as well and the third lens is an ultra wide-angle 16 megapixel camera with an aperture of f28 – which allows you to fit a hell of a lot more into the frame in my personal opinion the monochrome lens should have been switched up to a telephoto lens in order to use optical zoom there is no optical or electronic image stabilization which may be a deal-breaker for some but it’s AI image stabilization has come a long way as seen on flowers made series phones and works great some pics may come out a bit blurry at times but overall it has worked wonders the camera lens bump is one of the biggest I’ve seen so if you all want to use the phone without a curve you may have to look elsewhere the triple lens cameras work wonders during the day the pictures come out vibrantly colorful and the AI feature doesn’t overdo the saturation as we have seen on so many
phones before as you can see when cap when comparing pictures taken with AI mode on and off there is an improvement in the overall color and detail so that gets my thumbs up when using the ultra wide angled lens there is minimal loss of detail and pictures come out crisp and beautiful I feel this should be a feature on every phone as it allows you to capture more of the scene in front of you without having to take steps back like I mentioned there is no optical lossless zoom but the electronic zoom doesn’t do a terrible job and captures plenty detail when the AI mode is set to on when taking snaps at night the camera is terrible but thanks to night mode you can virtually take a picture in the dark and it will come out great with a fair amount of detail if you are prepared to hold your phone store for five seconds while it does its thing in a low light situation the cameras don’t do a bad job but I still find myself using night mode in what-ifs have brightened up the shot fortunately there is light painting mode which takes some incredible artistic shots when taken at night with moving lights overall I’m pretty impressed with the pictures the magic to producers it is no note 9 or may 20 Pro but for its price it outshines the competition video recording is no slouch either there is 1080p recording at 60fps but 4k is limited to just 30fps which is alright considering the other qua wave
flagship phones are also stuck at 30fps in 4k there is also slow-motion which allows you to record in 1080p at 120 fps or 720p at 480 fps these are pretty great slow-mo options but nothing to brag about since there are other phones on the market at the same price points that can record slow-mo at 960 fps the video recording does its job and looks alright it cannot compete with other flagship phones on the market ai stabilization is there when it comes to 1080p recording but the phone is a bit shaky when recording in 4k if you are buying this phone with video recording as main buying point there are better options out there however if you take the occasional video now and then you won’t be disappointed unless you directly compared to other flagship phones portrait mode makes an appearance as well and take some brilliant shots with background blur when taking portrait pics with the back lenses but strangely enough the three cameras on the front don’t do a good enough job when it comes to blurring the background there are three cameras on the front of the phone which are hidden under the sliding mechanism the main camera has 16
megapixels with an aperture of f28 oh and the other two lenses each have 2 megapixel depth sensors with apertures of f2 point for the camera flips the selfie mode when you slide the screen down once in the camera app but unfortunately does not auto selfie mode when sliding down from the home screen not only can the sliding feature not be set to auto open the selfie camera but it cannot be set to open any other app which is a little dumb if you ask me nevertheless the front-facing cameras but like I mentioned lacks decent background blur in portrait mode even with the hub of too damn depth sensors I really hope that on ur optimize the depth sensors for better depth effect or 3d face mapping in the near future with an over-the-air software update according with the front shooters you are limited to 1080p recording at 30fps the videos come out decent but not good enough for some on-the-go vlogging the battery weighs in at 3500 milli amperes
which is just above average in my book however with the efficiencies of the seven nanometer cure 980 chipsets it did surprisingly well in my battery drain test which you can check out if you click on the card above at the end of my video I managed to get just shy of 6 hours of screen on time while running many social apps media apps the camera games performance modes and plenty benchmark tests which put it on par with the 1 plus 60 screen on time and even outdoing the Galaxy Note nines 4000 milliampere battery which is impressive to say the least there are also plenty ways to view your battery’s performance in the settings menu and if you enable digital balance you can save the amount of time and you want to look at the screen each day which can essentially record how much screen on time you’re getting out of your treat digital balance can also be used to set specific app usage hours app limits restrict apps and switch the phone to grayscale when it is time for bid when it comes to general usage I find myself with around 50% of juice left in the tank by the end of a 15 hour day but should you need to refuel you will be happy to know that honor have
included the same charging block that while we did within may 20 pro and that is a 40 watt block which will fill up your phone in around an hour from zero to a hundred with the display off and will boost your phone from 0 to 70 in just 35 minutes finally phones are now giving one classes – charge a run for its money unfortunately there is no wireless charging here but that’s alright with me due to its crazy wide charge speed like I said before there is no headphone jack but they do include an adapter should you still be stuck in the stone Age’s and the sound quality that comes through the adapter is on par with a straight connection it is just as loud and immersive as you would expect the honor magic tooth is not for everyone it is not for videographers drinks pillars or solid design enthusiasts but if you are willing to overlook a couple of small drawbacks then there is barely any other phones out there that can compete for this price points with so much performance it is far from ma20 pro substitute due to its lack of premium features but for this price there are very few that can touch it and that is why I am happy to give it a score of 90 out of 100 though 10 of those points are purely based on its raw performance
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