The device turned out to be very interesting, although not without its shortcomings
At the end of the 2000s, one of the most popular smartphone formats were sliders, in which manufacturers tried to combine a large (by those standards) screen and keyboard. But when the iPhone appeared, the slider format seemed to have sunk into oblivion.
It's been many years, and lo and behold, sliders are making a comeback. Manufacturers are again faced with the task of making the screen as large as possible, from edge to edge, but now the problem is where to hide the front camera. And the slider is one of the very good solutions.
Honor Magic 2 turned out to be very interesting. Yes, it is not without its shortcomings, but at the same time it is a very interesting smartphone that will certainly find its buyer. The model is not yet officially sold in Russia, but there is still a certain chance that Honor Magic 2 will reach our latitudes.
What we liked about Honor Magic 2
Display – crisp AMOLED
Honor Magic 2 has a 6.4-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels. There are no complaints about its operation: the screen clearly displays information, all colors are adjusted correctly. Auto brightness is supported: the display is easy to read both in bright sun and in complete darkness.
Honor has quite rich screen settings - you can always customize the color scheme to suit you, make it warmer or cooler. At the same time, in the “normal” screen mode, the colors will be much cooler, and if you set the “bright” mode, the screen will become noticeably warmer. You can also adjust the display of information by switching the “default”, “warm” and “cold” modes.
There is a menu item “vision protection”: according to the manufacturer, the mode reduces harmful radiation, preventing eye fatigue. By default, in this mode, the screen has a warm tint, but you can customize it to suit you by adjusting the color temperature using a special slider. In addition, you can set a schedule and this mode will turn on and off automatically, for example from 22:00 to 7:00.
There is a setting for text size and information display size. In the first case, only the letters themselves will increase and decrease, and in the second case, you can increase or decrease any information displayed on the screen. And by going to the “other settings” menu, you can turn on or off the screen saver and auto-rotate screen. You can also hide the name of the cellular operator or enable the display of the speed at which the smartphone is currently connected to a Wi-FI point or via cellular data.
Honor Magic 2 main camera: with and without AI
As befits a self-respecting flagship of 2022, Honor Magic 2 has three cameras. There is a 16-megapixel lens with f/1.8 aperture, a second 16-megapixel lens with f/2.2 aperture, and a third 24-megapixel wide-angle lens with f/1.8 aperture.
The Honor Magic 2 camera is excellent at absolutely any type of photography: be it during the day, at dusk, or at night. The new EMUI firmware finally makes it possible to completely disable artificial intelligence so that it will not turn on automatically every time you turn on the camera. And this is a big plus for the Chinese manufacturer: not everyone likes the famous celestial richness. You can see examples of pictures taken with the main camera below.
Performance of Honor Magic 2: handles any games
Honor Magic 2 is equipped with the world's first 7-nanometer mobile processor - Kirin 980. The Chinese are very proud of the fact that they presented their new product before Apple (although in fact the first smartphone with the A12 Bionic chip went on sale a little earlier than the first smartphone with Kirin 980). But for the end user, the fact who was first is absolutely not important: it is the performance of the chip itself that is important.
We test each of the smartphones in three games: GTA San Andreas (a port from PC, but since it came out quite a long time ago, the vast majority of smartphones should be able to handle it), PUBG Mobile (this popular game is famous for being poorly optimized and requires a lot of smartphone resources) and Asphalt 9 (the coolest mobile race in terms of graphics to date). Honor Magic 2 managed to handle our gaming suite without any problems. In all three games, you can safely set the graphics settings to maximum and nothing will slow down.
As for benchmarks, the results are as follows: the smartphone scored 3267 points in single-core testing and 9842 points in multi-core testing in the Geekench 4 test. And in AnTuTu Honor Magic 2 showed a result of 271607 points. In general, these are very good numbers, but still it was not possible to reach the A12 Bionic Kirin 980: recall that the A12 in the iPhone Xr showed a result of 299670, slightly falling short of the 300000 mark.
Introduction
The new device Honor Magic 2 is exclusive to the Chinese market. Despite this, we have a very attractive device that could open the door to the smartphones of the future. The device is made in the form of a slider, it has six cameras and a fingerprint scanner in the screen, at the top of which there is no cutout.
Is it really as magical as it looks on paper? Let's find out.
What we didn't like about Honor Magic 2
Design and ease of use: non-ergonomic slider
Returning to the concept of sliders still cannot be called a good decision. If previously a slider was used to cover a keyboard that was not always needed, the Honor Magic 2 covers the front camera. And this decision is very controversial.
Firstly, in this case, you will not always be able to unlock your smartphone using your face at the speed you need.
Let's imagine a typical situation: you have a smartphone in your pocket and you want to open it with your face. How to do this on a regular smartphone? You just take out your phone and look at it. It will unlock.
How does this happen in the case of Honor Magic 2? You:
- Take out your phone;
- Swipe down to slide the screen down and open the camera;
- Look into the camera.
The result is a bunch of unnecessary actions performed for no apparent reason. And it would be fine if the Honor Magic 2 only had a simple facial recognition function by comparing you with a “photo” embedded inside, but no, the Honor Magic 2 has a full-fledged 3D scanning, which is also difficult to use for the reasons described above .
Secondly, the smartphone does not look monolithic. For example, when you pick up any of the modern flagships, you have the so-called “feeling of a smartphone in your hand.” It feels like a solid “brick” and is very comfortable to hold. But with Honor Magic 2 this is not the case. When you take your smartphone in your hand, it feels like you have a sandwich in it: the lower part of the Magic 2 and the upper part – the screen – are so incompatible with each other.
Thirdly, I have questions about the slider itself. I wonder exactly how many openings and closings the device will survive? Any new technology must be tested before appearing on the mass market: perhaps this is why Honor has not decided whether the Magic 2 will be sold outside the Chinese market.
As I already said, the distinctive feature of Honor Magic 2 is its large screen with fairly thin frames. But, unfortunately, they are thin only on the top, right and left, but on the bottom, for my taste, the screen is “thick”.
On the right side there is a power button, just above there is a volume rocker. They are so close to each other that sometimes they can be confused.
On the left side at the top there is a tray for two SIM cards in Nano-SIM format or one SIM card and MicroSD. It remains a big mystery to me why they decided to use the Nano SD format in the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro, but leave the old one here.
At the bottom center is a USB Type C connector, to the left of it is a speaker (there is only one in the Honor Magic 2), and to the right is a neat cutout for a microphone. There is another microphone on the top edge.
From the back, Honor Magic 2 looks like any other smartphone from Huawei and Honor. Slightly rounded edges, Honor inscription at the bottom left. At the top left is a “triple peephole”, which is in fact a double peephole: the top position is occupied by the flash, and after it come the camera modules. The 24-megapixel wide-angle camera is separated from the other two.
In-screen fingerprint scanner: not everything is smooth
The Honor Magic 2 somehow didn’t work out with the unlocking methods. I already wrote above why face unlock is not suitable for this smartphone, now let’s talk about the fingerprint scanner. And here I also have a couple of questions.
The fingerprint scanner does not always work correctly. For example, a smartphone may write that “the fingerprint is not recognized,” even if you place your finger in the same way as you started it. After this, you will have four more attempts, but most often the second time the unlocking happens as it should.
Also, the fingerprint in Honor Magic 2 does not work in the cold. The smartphone came to us for testing when 15-degree frosts hit Moscow and Honor Magic 2 refused to unlock in the cold.
Selfie camera: too soapy
This time we separated the regular and selfie cameras separately, and while the photos taken with the regular camera were good, I didn’t like the photos taken with the selfie camera. The smartphone blurred the photo too much, in an attempt to make the face even more beautiful. However, there is “soap” even on the flagship Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro and it can be considered more of a feature of smartphones from Huawei and Honor than a drawback of a particular smartphone.
And finally, we will answer popular questions about Honor Magic 2.
Pairing
The watch is synchronized with your smartphone using the Huawei Health application. On Huawei or HONOR it is pre-installed; on others it needs to be downloaded from Google Play or the App Store. Otherwise, the model and operating system do not matter - the accessory works with any smartphone without restrictions. Select the desired watch model, and on the accessory, open the “Search for a smartphone” section, then pairing will be performed.
Showing notifications is standard for all smartwatches except the Apple Watch. In the “Messages” section you will see everything that has arrived on your smartphone. The text is displayed in full - click on the desired notification and it will expand.
Notifications are implemented conveniently, but they are incomplete. You won't be able to respond to notifications without a smartphone - the watch does not support either templates, like the Samsung Galaxy Fit bracelet, or the ability to dictate text. Photos are not displayed, however, only Apple Watch can do this.
Added a function to remotely control music on a smartphone. One of the desktop pages is a player. It allows you to: turn on/off a track, select next/previous, adjust the volume. A good replacement for the remote control on your headphones if you don’t have one.
The highlight of Honor Watch Magic 2 is the ability to answer calls. The watch has a built-in speaker and microphone, so you can answer an incoming call even if your smartphone is not nearby.
Technical characteristics of Honor Magic 2:
- screen: AMOLED, 6.4 inches, 2340 x 1080 pixels;
- body: glass and aluminum;
- chipset: Kirin 980 (7nm);
- 6/8 GB of RAM;
- 128/256 GB of internal memory;
- MicroSD cards: yes, up to 256 GB
- battery: 3500 mAh;
- connectors and ports: USB Type C, microphone, speaker, Nano sim slot;
- front camera: 16 MP with f/2.0 aperture
- main camera: single 12 MP f/1.8 wide-angle
- interfaces: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0, A-GPS, GLONASS, GALLIEO, QZSS, NFC
- operating system: Android 9.0;
- dimensions: 157.3 x 75.1 x 8.3 mm;
- weight: 206 g
