- Honor has revealed its next flagship phone, the Magic 8 Pro, in China
- It's full of AI features and boasts the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip
- It will be available in Europe later this year
Honor has unleashed its new Magic 8 series of flagship phones in China, and they're jam-packed with artificial intelligence (AI) features.
The Chinese brand dubs the new Honor Magic 8 Pro its "first self-evolving AI smartphone" – but what, exactly, does that mean in real terms?
Well, its major new feature is the YOYO Agent, an agentic AI tool that, according to Honor, will be able to assist in more than 3,000 scenarios. Examples provided by the brand include the ability for the YOYO Agent to delete blurry photos from your camera roll upon request, as well as compose and send business emails using information from your inbox.
The YOYO Agent will be instantly accessible via the phone's all-new AI Button, which, when held down, will also activate a Google Lens-like YOYO Video Call feature for gathering information about subjects within the viewfinder. If you'd rather use the button for something else, you'll also be able to set it to activate a range of one-tap functions.
The AI tools don't stop there, though, with new AI features coming to the phone's camera setup. These include 'AI anti-shake technology', which should make it easier to take clear, zoomed-in images. There's also Magic Color, 'the industry's first AI-powered color engine', which will apparently increase the quality of color processing for better pictures.
AI backed up by serious specs
Behind all of its AI bells and whistles, the Honor Magic 8 Pro boasts some seriously high-end specs, namely the newly released Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, which powers many of its AI features through its Hexagon NPU. This is paired with a hefty 12GB of RAM and a robust 512GB of storage.
On the display front, you're getting a 6.71-inch OLED panel (1256 x 2080) with a variable refresh rate up to 120Hz and a staggering brightness of up to 6,000 nits.
There are three rear cameras, too: a 200MP telephoto lens, a 60MP lens, and a 50MP ultra-wide that can also be used for macro shots.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 should be a very power-efficient chipset, with 16% overall power savings compared to the previous Snapdragon 8 Elite per Qualcomm, but Honor hasn't used that as an excuse to skimp out on the battery.
Buyers in China get a 7,100mAh silicon-carbon model, though those in Europe will have a smaller 6,270mAh version. All versions will support 100W wired charging, or 80W wireless charging for quick top-ups.
The phone weighs 213g and comes in four colors: Glacier White, Sky Cyan, Black, and, my personal favorite, Sunrise Gold.
It'll ship with the new Honor Magic OS 10 Android skin, which features a very Liquid Glass-like translucent visual design and plenty of customizability. My current daily driver, the Porsche Design Honor Magic 7 RSR, is running Magic OS 9 right now, and I'm a big fan, so I'm keen to see how this new iteration of the operating system holds up.
While the Honor Magic 8 Pro is available to pre-order in China today, it will come to other markets like Europe later this year. There's no official word on UK pricing yet, but I would expect the phone to start somewhere in the region of £1,099.99, like its predecessor, the Honor Magic 7 Pro.
As with other Honor models, expect plenty of discounts and bundled freebies to bring that price down in due time, though.
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