Honor’s Magic 6 Pro launches internationally with AI-powered eye tracking on the way

A month and a half after debuting the Magic 6 Pro in China, Honor is announcing global availability of its latest flagship at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Alongside it, the company has also announced pricing for the new Porsche Design Honor Magic V2 RSR, a special edition of the Magic V2 foldable with higher specs and a design themed around the German car brand. 

The Magic 6 Pro is set to retail for €1,299 (£1,099.99, around $1,407) with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage and be available from March 1st, while the Porsche Design Magic V2 RSR will cost €2,699 (£2,349.99, around $2,625) with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage and will ship on March 18th. Expect both to be available in European markets, but they’re unlikely to be officially available in the US.

Since it’s 2024, naturally, a big part of Honor’s pitch for the Magic 6 Pro is its AI-powered features. For starters, Honor says it will eventually support the AI-powered eye-tracking feature it teased at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit last year. Honor claims the feature will be able to spot when you’re looking at notifications on the Dynamic Island-style interface at the top of the screen (Honor calls this its “Magic Capsule”) and open the relevant app without you needing to physically tap on it. I, for one, will be very interested in seeing how Honor draws the line between a quick glance and an intentional look.

Other AI-powered features include “Magic Portal,” which attempts to spot when details like events or addresses are mentioned in your messages and automatically link to the appropriate maps or calendar app. Honor also says it’s developing an AI-powered tool that’ll auto-generate a video based on your photos using a text prompt, which Honor claims is processed on-device using its MagicLM technology. (Yes, the company remains a big fan of its “Magic” branding.)

Aside from its AI-powered features, this is a more typical flagship smartphone. It’s powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and has a large 5,600mAh battery that can be fast-charged at up to 80W over a cable or 66W wirelessly. Its screen is a 6.8-inch 120Hz OLED display with a resolution of 2800 x 1280 and a claimed peak brightness of up to 5,000 nits (though, in regular usage, the maximum brightness of the screen will be closer to 1,800 nits). 

On the back, you get a trio of cameras built into the phone’s massive circular camera bump. Its 50-megapixel main camera has a variable aperture that can switch between f/1.4 and f/2.0 depending on how much depth of field you want in your shots. That’s joined by a 50-megapixel ultrawide and a 180-megapixel periscope with a 2.5x optical zoom. The whole device is IP68 rated for dust and water resistance, which is the highest level of protection you typically get on mainstream phones.

Alongside the international launch of the Magic 6 Pro, Honor is also bringing a Porsche-themed version of the Magic V2 foldable I reviewed back in January to international markets. As well as getting the words “Porsche Design” printed on the back of the phone, and a camera bump design that’s supposed to evoke the look of the German sports car, the Porsche version of the phone has 1TB of onboard storage rather than 512GB, more durable glass on its external display, and comes with a stylus in the box. A similar Porsche-themed edition of the Magic 6 is coming in March, but Honor isn’t sharing any images of the design just yet.

Otherwise, the Porsche Design Honor Magic V2 RSR is the same as the Magic V2 that preceded it. It maintains the same thin and light design, measuring just 9.9mm thick when folded (not including the camera bump) and weighing in at 234 grams thanks in part to its titanium hinge construction. Camera setups are the same across the two devices, with a 50-megapixel main camera, 50-megapixel ultrawide, and a 20-megapixel telephoto. 

Unfortunately, despite this being a newly launched variant, the Porsche edition of the phone still uses last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor due to the Magic V2 having originally launched in China way back in July 2023.

Photography by Jon Porter / The Verge