[Honor Magic 2 Guides, News, & Discussion] XDARoni:
The long awaited Honor Magic 2 has been released last night in Beijing. Let's have a quick recap of what this new phone has to offer.

Exterior Design

The Magic 2 has a seamless design – its 6.39-inch AMOLED "Magic screen" takes up the entire front of the phone. With a 90,000:1 contrast ratio, colors pop vividly – blacks are darker, and whites are brighter.

The in-screen fingerprint sensor has been upgraded in size, making it so you can unlock your phone faster and more easily.

With 3D curves, even the edges have been engineered for your holding and handling comfort.

The back of the Magic 2 is equally impressive, using a similar optical vacuum coating process previously deployed on Huawei's P20 series, to produce the trademark iridescent effect. Slowly turning the phone in your hand will reveal a breathtaking display of colors.

Possibly the most anticipated feature of the Magic 2 is the dual-rail sliding screen design, finalized after millions of trials and tweaks for perfection and durability. Sliding the front camera out and in might bring back some nostalgia, but the innovative dust-resistant structure is specially designed to keep things safe and clean.

Released in three gradient color schemes: black, blue, and red.

Themes of cosmos, starry skies and galaxies have been chosen to expand your creativity beyond our world.

Artificial Intelligence

In December of 2016, the Honor Magic kick-started the research and development of AI on smart phones.

This year, the next-gen Magic 2 is unveiled with greater intelligence on its chip, OS, and apps.

The Magic 2 is powered by the world's current best smartphone chipset – the Kirin 980, first debuted with the Mate 20 series. Adding another NPU since the previous generation Kirin 970, the 980 offers 2.2 times the computing power.

The 7nm 980 is the first to use Arm's Cortex-A76 CPU, yielding a performance improvement of 75% and power efficiency enhancement of 58%. Paired with the Mail-G76 GPU, the latest Kirin chip brings another 46% improvement in performance and 178% in battery efficiency. It supports the super-fast LPDDR4X DRAM technology, offering a 20% higher bandwidth and 22% lower latency.

Introducing Magic UI 2.0: Magic 2's AI-enhanced OS

Magic UI 2.0 delivers comprehensive AI capabilities, including natural language understanding (NLU), computer vision, deep learning, as well as improved resolution, decision-making and recommendation services.

At the base of all the magical intelligence is the Magic 2's digital assistant YOYO, scoring 4,556 in AI, the smartest of its kind.

YOYO has the ability to grow with you. From the moment you turn your phone on, YOYO starts to learn and become familiar with you – your fingerprints, your voice, your face, and your phone usage habits – making your mobile experience unique to you.

Although facial recognition is a rather common feature in many phones today, the Magic 2's proprietary 3D bionic photosensitive technology can capture facial details more accurately and boasts much higher security. It even works in low light environments where traditional algorithms usually fail.

Bone voice recognition: YOYO responds to your voice and your voice only.

All-around assistance: YOYO offers great help whether you're driving, traveling, shopping, or in need of translation and interpreting services.

DeepThink option, an improvement on the 2016 Magic model, can be activated by sliding down the screen.

Just by pointing the camera at your meal, YOYO can instantly figure out the calorie count. It can also detect your skin's health status and offer advice accordingly.

YOYO can even let you control your drone with voice commands.

By linking your YOYO to your Honor account or using the self-developed Phone Clone app, it will be by your side through all the future generations of Magics.

AI Prowess

The Honor Magic 2 features AI-assisted dual-frequency GPS navigation. It’s equipped with the dual-frequency (L1+L5) Broadcom BCM4775X sensor hub, which offers location at an accuracy of 30 meters. The Magic 2 takes the precision even further, down to 15 meters, by incorporating a self-developed Hi1103 AI chip. If that doesn't sound impressive, keep in mind that current single-frequency smartphone solutions can only provide an accuracy of about 300 meters.

As shown in the track tests above, the Magic 2 can record the exact path of the runner’s route while the path the iPhone XS recorded deviated greatly from the actual one.

The HiGeo navigation engine that comes with the Magic 2 ensures normal service provision in complex and weak/no signal environments.

The Magic 2's innovative, fast, and safe 40W (10V/4A) charging brings the battery from zero to 50% in a mere 15 minutes. An additional 15-min charge takes the power up to 85%.

If you are interested in screen projection but can never be bothered to find and carry the right cable, the Magic 2 should be able to fit your needs with its wireless projection technology. With literally just a few touches, you can view and control your phone screen on a computer or TV screen.

The Magic 2 offers lightning fast download speeds of up to 1.7 Gbps when connected to a Wi-Fi network, with a 100% higher bandwidth. This means downloading a TV series of 10GB only takes 78 SECONDS.

Worried about your phone overheating while binge-watching? Graphene is used as the core material to keep the Magic 2 cool, which is 1.4 times more efficient than graphite and 2-3 times more than copper.

AI Camera

The Magic 2's sliding screen design means the build quality of its front camera won't be compromised at all by the truly bezel-less display design, nor the other way round.

The Magic 2 offers similar self-portrait functions as Huawei and Honor's flagship series: AI-assisted scene and object recognition, shooting mode selection, wide aperture (background bokeh), 3D contouring and beautification, and 3D portrait lighting effects.

The rear tri-lens camera adopts a vertical layout like the Huawei P20 series. While the P20 Pro boasts its whopping 40MP 1/1.7" lens, the Magic 2 prides itself on its 16MP ultra wide-angle sensor (17mm focal length). Together with a 24MP monochrome and 16MP color lenses, the Magic 2 offers utterly fantastic phonetography experiences.

Kirin 980's dual NPUs allows the Magic 2 to recognize over 60 kinds of scenes and objects, providing expert advice on more than 1,500 settings.

If you've noticed that reds are frequently messed up in portrait photography, cheer for the Magic 2 as this won't be an issue for its triple-camera.

Another thrilling camera feature the Magic 2 has taken from the P20 is AI-supported Image Stabilization (AIS) technology, which enables handheld night shooting with up to 6 seconds of exposure.

Here's another cool camera feature: When you take a long video with the Magic 2, it can intelligently sort through and produce a 10s clip spotlighting each subject.

Conclusion

All in all, the Honor Magic 2 is another important mark in the evolution of smartphone artificial intelligence. It's also packed with the brand's ground-breaking proprietary innovations. While the first Magic model released in 2016 was more of a "concept" phone, Honor has turned mature device-end AI into reality with the Magic 2. As benchmarking and testing start on the Magic 2, you'll soon be able to see for yourselves whether this lesser-known but equally extraordinary series has truly disrupted the competition.