Former Huawei sub-brand Honor has announced the global launch of its latest flagship smartphone at Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona. The star of the Magic5 Pro show is the rear triple camera array, which has taken the top spot in DxOMark's global rankings.
The "Star Wheel Triple Camera system" features a F1.6 wide main, a F2.0 ultra-wide and a F3.0 periscope telephoto with 3.5x optical zoom, 100x digital zoom and optical image stabilization. The array boasts a brand new imaging engine, algorithm-based quality enhancement, support for 4K (3,840 x 2,160) movie making and IMAX Enhanced Movie Master for on-phone editing, super-macro photography and AI motion-sensing.
DxOMark has benchmarked the camera system with an overall score of 152, "making it the highest camera scoring smartphone tested to date." But Honor didn't stop at the camera array, scoring 151 for the 6.81-inch (2,848 x 1,312) OLED display to take the top DxOMark spot for displays as well.
"We are delighted our latest flagship has achieved the #1 position for smartphone camera and display rankings by independent researchers at DxOMark, attesting to the strength and capabilities of our R&D team," said Honor's CEO, George Zhao. "This achievement is only just the beginning for us as we look forward to making even more fantastic breakthroughs in smartphone camera and display technology."
Elsewhere, HDR10+ and IMAX Enhanced certification should make for top notch video quality, screen use in bright sunlight is a breeze thanks to a peak brightness of 1,800 nits, and Honor's Discrete Display Chipset is designed to deliver high frame rates and smooth moving images for mobile gaming. Dynamic dimming and TÜV Rheinland low-blue-light chops also promise to go easy on the eyes.
Processing power is provided by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, supported by 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. The phone is said to sport the industry's first standalone antenna architecture for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, which is claimed to boost Wi-Fi performance by 200% while reducing latency by 30% compared to traditional setups. And a full day of per-charge usage is on the cards thanks to a 5,100-mAh lithium-polymer battery, with support for 66-W wired fast-charging and 50-W wireless.
The handset runs Honor's MagicOS 7.1 operating platform, which is based on Android 13, and will launch in Europe from Q2 for €1,199 (about US$1,272) – there's currently no information on wider global availability. A less-capable Magic5 variant is also set to join the Pro, with pricing starting at €899.
Product page: Magic5 Pro