Honor has announced a slew of new gadgets at the Mobile World Congress tradeshow in Barcelona powered by a brainy new Artificial Intelligence (AI) that analyses everything on-screen to try to determine what you're going to want to do next. The Chinese company says this will reduce the number of steps for any given task from roughly eight down to just one.
All of those smarts come at a cost. The Honor Magic6 Pro will set you back a hefty £1,099.99 and has all the trimmings you’d expect at that price point ―an expansive high-resolution 6.8-inch screen, a mammoth 5,600mAh battery, support for fast-charging, a triple-camera system, and so forth.
It was announced alongside a £2,350 new Porsche-themed folding phone.
But what sets the Honor Magic6 Pro apart from its closest competition is that it has the LLaMA 2 large language model developed by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, formerly Facebook, baked directly into the handset.
This is possible because of a collaboration with US manufacturer Qualcomm and means Magic6 Pro won't need to connect to the internet for its AI to conjure up emails based on a short prompt, summarise long documents into bullet points, rewrite Cover Letters and CVs to adjust the tone, and can dream up new recipes and itineraries ...everything you've come to expect from tools like ChatGPT.
Everything is powered by the latest chipset from US giant, Qualcomm, which is packed with 16 billion transistor
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Large Language Models, or LLMs, have become a battleground for the technology industry following the runaway success of ChatGPT from OpenAI, a start-up funded in part by Microsoft and Elon Musk. Meta helped to develop an open-source model, known as LLaMA 2, but this is the first time it’s been squeezed into a computer chip with no need to communicate with the outside world.
Samsung focused heavily on Artificial Intelligence with its latest Galaxy S24 range of smartphones, highlighting features that could organise and summarise your digital notes and launch a Google search for anything simply by circling it on-screen. Meanwhile, Apple is tipped to be working on the "biggest ever" update for iPhone owners that will bring some of these AI features to millions of users.
In a direct dig at Apple, Honor CEO George Zhao compared the 8 steps needed to go from an address sent by a friend on WhatsApp to the single-tap solution on his company's own Magic6 Pro
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Everything should feel much faster since you’re not relying on a 5G or Wi-Fi connection to beam data from your phone to a server farm (and back again) to get the answer you’re looking for.
With that new supercharged brain under the bonnet, Honor wants to remove some of the steps you've become accustomed to when using your phone.
To do this, the Shenzhen-based company wants its new handset to learn your habits and begin to anticipate your next action before you’ve even started it. As well as getting to know your routine, Artificial Intelligence will analyse what's happening on-screen, searching for context clues to work out your intentions.
For example, if someone sends you an address on WhatsApp, the Magic6 Pro will begin to load up Google Maps in the background because it knows you’re likely to want turn-by-turn directions at any moment. Press and hold on that address and Honor will summon a Google Maps icon to the foreground ― ready to go.
Artificial Intelligence will scour everything that appears on-screen to find context clues to help it work out what you're trying to achieve and what your next step in the process is likely to be
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Even after you've launched Google Maps, Honor will do its best to determine whether you're looking for driving, public transport, or walking directions based on the other clues from your messages.
Sure, that'll only save a few taps here and there. But given that the average person picks up their phone 58 times a day, those small savings could soon add up.
Using AI, Magic6 Pro owners will begin searching the internet for items of clothing they’ve spotted in photos on social media, or quickly find more information on a topic briefly mentioned in an article.
And that’s just the start. Honor used its keynote at the world-famous Barcelona tradeshow to show how the Qualcomm AI Engine inside the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset of its Magic6 Pro phone could track the movement of your eyes for hands-free control when behind the wheel. Honor said the brief demo showed how AI could take smartphones beyond simple screen or voice controls.
"As we race ahead into the AI era, Honor is committed to delivering human-centric innovations that bring open and seamless experiences that address our consumers’ desires and pain points,” said George Zhao, Honor CEO.
Aside from its AI innovations, the Magic6 Pro has a triple-camera system with a 50-megapixel main lens with a variable aperture (f/1.4 and f/2.0) and Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) to help remove any blurriness from the shake of your hand, especially in low-light conditions.
There’s also a 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera, but it's the 180-megapixel telephoto camera that enables 2.5x lossless optical zoom and 100x digital zoom that really steals the show.
Honor Magic 6 Pro is available in two colours: the Epi Green, pictured above, and a standard Black
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This mammoth sensor is a first for the smartphone industry. It means the zoom capabilities of the Honor Magic6 Pro are neck-and-neck with the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s Space Zoom ―a feature that has featured prominently in Samsung’s advertising campaigns.
Honor is also debuting a new battery technology in the UK with its new Magic6 Pro, known as a silicon-carbon battery. Moving away from the industry-standard lithium-ion battery unlocks a 12.8% higher energy density, Honor says. That means you’ll either enjoy the same battery life from a smaller cell, or much greater capacity in the same space.
Magic6 Pro is fitted with a 5,600mAh capacity, which is beefy by most standards. Honor says its new silicon-carbon technology offers better performance at extreme temperatures ― is this the end of phones immediately dying when you try to take a picture on the coldest day of the year?
The Chinese company claims the new second-generation battery was able to watch 81 minutes of YouTube videos at -20 C with just 10% battery level remaining. And when the battery finally conks out, the 80W SuperCharge can top-up the Magic6 Pro to 100% in just 40 minutes.
Honor Magic6 Pro will be available in Black and Epi Green at £1,099.99. Preorders start on Friday, March 1, 2024. If you place an order before the release date, you’ll receive a complimentary launch bundle with wireless Honor Earbuds X6, a 100W SuperCharger, and Honor Pad 8 tablet worth £359.
These goodies are only available when you order from Amazon, Very and Currys.
