Honor unveiled its latest leading smartphones, Magic 8 and Magic 8 Pro, during an event in China, announcing advanced technical specifications and exceptional battery capabilities, with extensive integration of artificial intelligence technologies.
At the conclusion of the event, the company unveiled a futuristic conceptual phone called the Robot Phone, which features a unique design that includes a robotic arm carrying a camera that can move and position itself.
In its new series, the Chinese company focused on providing long-term performance through huge batteries that exceed most of what is currently available on the market, as it provided the Magic 8 Pro phone with a battery with a capacity of 7200 mAh, while the basic model Magic 8 contains a battery with a capacity of 7000 mAh, which makes them among the largest batteries in the leading smartphone category.
Honor confirmed that the improvements it has made to the operating system and power management technologies will allow users to benefit from longer battery life.
This jump in battery capacity is due to the company’s reliance on the latest generation of battery technology based on silicon and carbon, which allows large battery capacities to be compressed into a space smaller than the internal design of the phone.
According to the company, these batteries are expected to provide two days of use under normal conditions.
As for the global versions, the Magic 8 Pro version will come with a slightly smaller battery of 7100 mAh, while users in European markets will receive a battery with a capacity of 6270 mAh, and this disparity is likely the result of international regulations for shipping and transporting batteries.
Charging capabilities will also differ, as the Chinese version supports wired charging with a capacity of 120 watts, while in the rest of the markets the speed is limited to 100 watts using PPS technology, with support for wireless charging up to 80 watts using Honor’s own chargers.
Artificial intelligence is at the heart of the user experience
In the Magic 8 series, Honor focuses on enabling an artificial intelligence-based experience, as the phones are equipped with a dedicated button to activate the YOYO voice assistant, which also acts as a shortcut key for photography.
The new button allows customization to perform multiple tasks, such as accessing the YOYO Memories feature, which is a smart storage space for photos and documents that relies on artificial intelligence, and is somewhat similar to the Essential Space feature in Nothing phones.
The two phones operate on the MagicOS 10 operating system, based on Android 16, and feature a new graphical interface that is described as translucent, as it relies on design elements that resemble liquid glass, with blurry effects and design touches that enhance the aesthetics of the visual experience, and it is very similar to what Apple presented in the design language of its new operating systems, Liquid Glass.
The cameras in the Magic 8 Pro did not witness radical changes compared to the previous generation, but the slight modifications in the specifications were supported by improvements in smart algorithms. The phone comes with a 50-megapixel main camera with a fixed lens with an f/1.6 aperture, and is accompanied by a 200-megapixel telephoto camera and a 50-megapixel ultra-wide lens, which is a similar photography platform. What was available on the Magic 7 Pro phone in terms of capabilities.
As for the Magic 8 phone, it maintains the same wide camera, but uses a smaller sensor for the 50-megapixel main camera, along with a 64-megapixel telephoto camera, with a zoom capacity of only 3 times, compared to 3.7 times in the “Pro” version.
The two phones are also equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor from Qualcomm, supported by 12 GB of RAM and a storage capacity of up to 512 GB in the global version.
The company confirmed that the two phones have a high degree of durability, as each of them received ratings of IP68 and IP69K for resistance to water and dust, which indicates the device’s ability to withstand flowing water from a close distance, in tests that exceed the usual standards.
The Magic 8 and Magic 8 Pro phones are expected to be launched in the Chinese market during the month of October, with prices starting at 4,499 yuan (about 630 dollars) for the Magic 8 phone, and 5,699 yuan (about 800 dollars) for the Pro version, and they will be launched globally before the end of this year.
Robot Phone
At the end of its conference activities, Honor surprised the audience by unveiling a new concept for a smartphone called the Robot Phone, which represents a future vision for a smartphone that goes beyond the concept of a traditional tool, to become an interactive entity with robot-like characteristics.
The phone, which was only shown through a teaser video based on computer-generated images, appears with a design similar to traditional smartphones but is thicker, and does not bear the Honor logo but rather the “Alpha” symbol, in reference to the company’s strategic plan known as the Alpha Plan.
The most prominent feature of this concept phone is a camera mounted on a foldable robotic arm that emerges from the back of the phone, and moves itself to shoot video or take photos from different angles. The video shows the camera making a laughing sound when it pops up, in an attempt to add a human touch to the device.
This camera can take selfies without the need to move the phone manually, and it is also able to take pictures while placing the phone on the table, and it even looks as if it is able to explore its surroundings on its own.
The design is very similar to the DJI Osmo Pocket camera, which provides complete stability for the camera in photography no matter how the user’s body moves, but Honor indicates that the camera is integrated with an artificial intelligence system capable of automatically framing images so that all the elements intended to be photographed are within the photographic space, and even soothe infants or interact with natural scenes with a kind of emotional awareness.
Honor is expected to reveal additional details about this phone at the Barcelona Mobile Show MWC 2026, which is scheduled to be held between March 2 and 5 of next year.
