The Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam is the primary smartphone digicam that has blown me away in years. I evaluation numerous telephones and put all of them by means of rigorous digicam exams, and Honor’s newest appears like an enormous breakthrough in so some ways.
On the forefront of the enhancements is the upgraded Falcon Digital camera System, a flowery title for a triple digicam array powered by the neatest software program Honor has ever developed. It simply sits among the many greatest Android telephones and frequently produces wonderful high quality pictures.
Whilst you might imagine the brand new 180MP telephoto digicam is the centerpiece of the expertise, it is the upgraded AI capabilities of the digicam that shine by means of past wonderful imaging capabilities. Honor’s upgraded AI Movement Sensing Seize is so sensible it’s going to take photographs for you, and it is downright spectacular how nice these look, too.
Contemplating that flagships just like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely nonetheless battle to seize movement, it is refreshing to see an organization exit of its technique to ship a smartphone digicam expertise that goes so above and past to unravel this downside.
Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam: Movement seize
The Honor Magic 6 Professional’s potential to seize movement is unmatched amongst telephones I’ve examined over time. Sure, it even beats a Pixel.
Not solely does the cellphone excel in capturing crisp photographs of transferring pets and youngsters, however the software program is clever sufficient to robotically seize photographs when sure motion is detected.
Honor says it skilled its AI algorithm with over eight million pictures containing transferring topics, enabling the digicam’s software program to know issues like facial expressions, human physique motion, leaping, and extra.
To particularly check out the automated motion seize capabilities, I took the cellphone to the native Celtic Fest and let it seize photographs of the Irish dancers on stage. All I did was open the digicam app and level it on the stage, the AI algorithm did all the remainder of the work.
Automated picture seize might sound like a foolish gimmick, but it surely works extremely properly in my testing. As a guardian, generally it is arduous to have two free arms, a lot much less one. Having a cellphone that may seize the second by simply utilizing one hand is a stroke of genius.
However even in case you’d relatively seize your pictures by tapping the shutter, the Honor Magic 6 Professional will get it proper mainly each time. I ran my standard movement check involving my son leaping off our sofa onto a pile of stuffed animals. In opposition to 4 different telephones, the Magic 6 Professional captured an awesome picture each single time.
The Pixel 8 Professional was the one different cellphone that carried out this constantly, and even then, the photographs from the Honor Magic 6 Professional all appeared higher than what Google’s greatest may seize.
Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam: Principal digicam
I’ve only a few critiques of the Magic 6 Professional digicam expertise, however one is actually the way in which to fast launch the digicam. Most trendy Android telephones will let you double-tap the ability button at any time — irrespective of if the display is on or off — to rapidly launch the digicam.
The Honor Magic 6 Professional nonetheless makes use of the bizarre outdated technique of double-tapping the quantity down key, which solely works when the display is off. If the display is on in any respect — even when it is not unlocked — you may both have to search out the digicam shortcut or flip the display off in an effort to activate the short launch characteristic. It is foolish.
Aside from that minor annoyance, the point-and-shoot capabilities of the Honor Magic 6 Professional are seldom matched by any trendy smartphone. From launching the digicam to taking an image takes roughly 2 seconds. Autofocus works stupendously properly, and movie high quality is outstanding.
It is tough to select a winner between the Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely, Google Pixel 8 Professional, and Honor Magic 6 Professional’s essential cameras. All three telephones ship wonderful dynamic vary and high-quality element.
The three examples above present how every cellphone can commerce off with having one of the best picture, relying on the state of affairs. Within the first instance, the Honor Magic 6 Professional has higher colour accuracy, distinction, and high-quality element. The second two examples favor the Galaxy S24 Extremely for high-quality element and the Pixel 8 Professional for colour accuracy.
Total, although, I discovered the Honor Magic 6 Professional’s photographs to look extremely pleasing. Most complaints have been situational, and I did not discover any specific sample of weak point within the lots of of photographs I’ve captured over the previous few weeks.
Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam: Telephoto digicam
After I started this evaluation, I had a tough time imagining that the Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam may produce a high quality telephoto expertise past 5x, at greatest. That is as a result of the telephoto digicam is behind a measly 2.5x optical zoom lens, half of what is on a Pixel 8 Professional or Galaxy S24 Extremely and 1 / 4 of what the Galaxy S23 Extremely supplies.
However the cellphone tries to make up for this deficit by utilizing an enormous 180-megapixel sensor behind the lens, full with AI processing. That 180MP sensor can be bodily the most important telephoto sensor on any cellphone so far. Meaning it takes in additional gentle and extra element than different telephoto sensors.
Nonetheless, the outcomes are usually a blended bag at 5x and past. At instances, the digicam will blow you away when the topic is correct. These two examples at 10x and 20x assist illustrate that completely:
For observe, zooming in with every cellphone produces a barely completely different crop degree as a result of lens variations. All digicam viewfinders have been set to the identical zoom quantity for these examples.
The distinction intimately alone is astounding. The Honor Magic 6 Professional decimates the Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely and Google Pixel 8 Professional in telephoto high quality within the first instance. Even the colour science is best on the Magic 6 Professional, providing up a considerably higher 10x picture in each means.
The second instance of a Home Finch at 20x is not almost as minimize and dry, and I feel the consequence might be down to non-public choice. The Honor Magic 6 Professional’s picture is considerably sharper, with crisp edges across the feathers and even some spectacular high-quality element with out noise.
However the Magic 6 Professional achieves this with AI-based approximation, as is most evident across the hen’s eyes and beak. In the meantime, the Galaxy S24 Extremely’s picture appears to be like extra like a photograph taken from a digicam relatively than a mixture of pictures and AI.
The examples above characterize the telephoto picture high quality produced most frequently, proving that telephoto efficiency at 5x and past is worse on the Honor Magic 6 Professional than on the Google Pixel 8 Professional or Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely.
The whole lot appears to be like like an apparent digital crop because the digicam is bodily restricted to a 2.5x optical zoom lens. Something past that may be a mixture of digital crops from the primary sensor and a big telephoto sensor.
Total, telephoto efficiency was pretty disappointing until you stick near the two.5x zoom preset on the viewfinder.
Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam: Low gentle
Because the Magic 6 Professional makes use of AI so closely for its processing, low-light pictures on the cellphone tends to be good. Captures from all three rear sensors are extremely clear, typically utilizing heavy denoise algorithms paired with AI element reconstruction. This produces photos that look “watercolored” when zooming in, but, most frequently the high-quality particulars are preserved because of the AI on the cellphone.
Honor additionally appears to crank up the saturation in decrease gentle, making this neon-lit arcade an instantaneous wow issue. This implies colours aren’t precisely represented however actually “look good” to the human eye.
Total, I desire the look of photographs from the Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely in a lot of the photographs. The colours are each extra pure, and the high-quality particulars look extra lifelike, despite the fact that extra noise is obvious within the photographs.
The one shot the place I feel the Honor Magic 6 Professional wins is the primary digicam picture, the place it pulled out extra high-quality element all through the picture. Bricks within the background have clear delineation and the textual content on the boards within the arcade are extra readable.
The Google Pixel 8 Professional continues to fall behind the opposite two, typically producing softer, much less engaging photographs from every lens.
Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam: Entrance-facing digicam
The Honor Magic 6 Professional’s 50MP front-facing sensor sounds nice on paper, however I discovered it tends to take semi-blurry photographs in all lighting circumstances. That is weird given the cellphone’s penchant for taking crisp photographs of objects in movement, but it surely appears the cellphone makes use of completely different processing strategies on the front-facing digicam.
Not solely that, however portrait mode did not appear to work in any respect till I noticed that “bokeh” is disabled by default. I do not know who at Honor thought it made sense to disable bokeh — a kind of catch-all time period for a extremely blurred background and crisp foreground within the smartphone world — by default, but it surely was a horrible resolution that is going to confuse numerous clients.
In comparison with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely, the Honor Magic 6’s front-facing photographs are a bit underwhelming. They are not unhealthy however the odd movement blur once I was holding the digicam nonetheless may be very unusual.
It is also a disgrace that bokeh is not enabled by default on the Magic 6 Professional. The cellphone takes relatively exemplary portrait mode photographs with this characteristic correctly enabled, and I merely can’t perceive why Honor would default to it being off when the expectation of portrait mode is to have it enabled.
Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam: Conclusion
The Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam expertise is one which’ll frequently impress, from wonderful low gentle pictures to crisp seize of transferring topics. The digicam UI is not something revolutionary but it surely would not actually should be. I nonetheless desire the Google Pixel digicam UI over different telephones however there’s nothing offensive right here.
The cellphone actually shines is in its AI processing skills, which turns out to be useful if you take an image otherwise you wish to let the cellphone take an image for you. It feels like a gimmick at first, however dad and mom who typically discover one hand is occupied whereas the opposite is attempting to take photos will rapidly perceive how useful such a characteristic may be.
Whereas the Pixel 8 Professional and Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely typically took higher photographs from their respective telephoto cameras, the Magic 6 Professional nonetheless did an excellent job and infrequently delivered wonderful photographs as much as 10x zoom. Past that, most photographs have been clearly digital crops and never notably good wanting.
Total, Honor has delivered a unbelievable digicam and one I really feel assured utilizing it doesn’t matter what state of affairs I discover myself in.