Honor Magic 6 Pro camera review

The Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam is the primary smartphone digicam that has blown me away in years. I evaluation a whole lot of telephones and put all of them via rigorous digicam exams, and Honor’s newest seems like an enormous breakthrough in so some ways.

On the forefront of the enhancements is the upgraded Falcon Digicam System, a flowery identify for a triple digicam array powered by the neatest software program Honor has ever developed. It simply sits among the many finest Android telephones and commonly produces wonderful high quality photos.

When 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 via past wonderful imaging capabilities. Honor’s upgraded AI Movement Sensing Seize is so good it’s going to take pictures 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 approach to ship a smartphone digicam expertise that goes so above and past to resolve this downside.

Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam: Movement seize

The Honor Magic 6 Professional’s capacity to seize movement is unmatched amongst telephones I’ve examined through the years. Sure, it even beats a Pixel.

Not solely does the cellphone excel in capturing crisp pictures of transferring pets and youngsters, however the software program is clever sufficient to mechanically seize pictures when sure motion is detected.

Honor says it skilled its AI algorithm with over eight million photos containing transferring topics, enabling the digicam’s software program to grasp issues like facial expressions, human physique motion, leaping, and extra.

To particularly take a look at out the automated motion seize capabilities, I took the cellphone to the native Celtic Fest and let it seize pictures 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 may sound like a gimmick till you end up in a state of affairs the place it is wanted.

Automated picture seize might sound like a foolish gimmick, however it works extremely effectively in my testing. As a father or mother, generally it is laborious to have two free fingers, 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 the event you’d relatively seize your photos by tapping the shutter, the Honor Magic 6 Professional will get it proper principally each time. I ran my ordinary movement take a look at 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 ideal picture each single time.

The Pixel 8 Professional was the one different cellphone that carried out this persistently, and even then, the pictures from the Honor Magic 6 Professional all regarded higher than what Google’s finest may seize.

Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam: Predominant digicam

I’ve only a few critiques of the Magic 6 Professional digicam expertise, however one is definitely the best way to fast launch the digicam. Most fashionable Android telephones let you double-tap the ability button at any time — irrespective of if the display screen is on or off — to rapidly launch the digicam.

The Honor Magic 6 Professional nonetheless makes use of the bizarre previous methodology of double-tapping the amount down key, which solely works when the display screen is off. If the display screen 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 screen off in an effort to activate the short launch function. It is foolish.

Apart from that minor annoyance, the point-and-shoot capabilities of the Honor Magic 6 Professional are seldom matched by any fashionable smartphone. From launching the digicam to taking an image takes roughly 2 seconds. Autofocus works stupendously effectively, and film high quality is phenomenal.

It is troublesome to choose a winner between the Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely, Google Pixel 8 Professional, and Honor Magic 6 Professional’s predominant cameras. All three telephones ship wonderful dynamic vary and positive element.

The three examples above present how every cellphone can commerce off with having the perfect picture, relying on the state of affairs. Within the first instance, the Honor Magic 6 Professional has higher colour accuracy, distinction, and positive element. The second two examples favor the Galaxy S24 Extremely for positive element and the Pixel 8 Professional for colour accuracy.

General, although, I discovered the Honor Magic 6 Professional’s pictures to look extremely pleasing. Most complaints had been situational, and I did not discover any specific sample of weak spot within the tons of of pictures I’ve captured over the previous few weeks.

Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam: Telephoto digicam

Once 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 finest. 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 gives.

However the cellphone tries to make up for this deficit by utilizing a large 180-megapixel sensor behind the lens, full with AI processing. That 180MP sensor can also be bodily the most important telephoto sensor on any cellphone thus far. Which means it takes in additional gentle and extra element than different telephoto sensors.

Nonetheless, the outcomes are typically a blended bag at 5x and past. At instances, the digicam will blow you away when the topic is true. These two examples at 10x and 20x assist illustrate that completely:

For word, zooming in with every cellphone produces a barely totally different crop stage attributable to lens variations. All digicam viewfinders had 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 practically as reduce and dry, and I believe the consequence will likely be down to private choice. The Honor Magic 6 Professional’s picture is considerably sharper, with crisp edges across the feathers and even some spectacular positive element with out noise.

However the Magic 6 Professional achieves this with AI-based approximation, as is most evident across the fowl’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 images and AI.

The examples above signify 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 for the reason that digicam is bodily restricted to a 2.5x optical zoom lens. Something past that may be a mixture of digital crops from the principle sensor and a big telephoto sensor.

General, telephoto efficiency was pretty disappointing except you stick near the two.5x zoom preset on the viewfinder.

Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam: Low gentle

For the reason that Magic 6 Professional makes use of AI so closely for its processing, low-light images on the cellphone tends to be good. Captures from all three rear sensors are extremely clear, usually utilizing heavy denoise algorithms paired with AI element reconstruction. This produces photos that look “watercolored” when zooming in, but, most frequently the positive 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 a direct wow issue. This implies colours aren’t precisely represented however definitely “look good” to the human eye.

General, I choose the look of pictures from the Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely in a lot of the pictures. The colours are each extra pure, and the positive particulars look extra life like, though extra noise is clear within the pictures.

The one shot the place I believe the Honor Magic 6 Professional wins is the principle digicam picture, the place it pulled out extra positive 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, usually producing softer, much less enticing pictures 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 pictures in all lighting circumstances. That is weird given the cellphone’s penchant for taking crisp pictures of objects in movement, however it appears the cellphone makes use of totally different processing strategies on the front-facing digicam.

Not solely that, however portrait mode did not appear to work in any respect till I spotted 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, however it was a horrible choice that is going to confuse a whole lot of prospects.

In comparison with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely, the Honor Magic 6’s front-facing pictures are a bit underwhelming. They don’t seem to be dangerous 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 pictures with this function correctly enabled, and I merely can not 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

A photo taken with the Honor Magic 6 Pro on its display

(Picture credit score: Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central)

The Honor Magic 6 Professional digicam expertise is one which’ll commonly impress, from wonderful low gentle images to crisp seize of transferring topics. The digicam UI is not something revolutionary however it would not actually should be. I nonetheless choose the Google Pixel digicam UI over different telephones however there’s nothing offensive right here.

The cellphone really shines is in its AI processing skills, which is useful while you take an image otherwise you wish to let the cellphone take an image for you. It feels like a gimmick at first, however mother and father who usually discover one hand is occupied whereas the opposite is making an attempt to take photos will rapidly perceive how helpful such a function may be.

Whereas the Pixel 8 Professional and Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely usually took higher pictures from their respective telephoto cameras, the Magic 6 Professional nonetheless did an outstanding job and infrequently delivered wonderful pictures as much as 10x zoom. Past that, most pictures had been clearly digital crops and never notably good trying.

General, Honor has delivered a improbable digicam and one I really feel assured utilizing it doesn’t matter what state of affairs I discover myself in.

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