Review of smart watches Huawei Watch Magic. Honor Watch Magic review - Smart watch from Huawei Huawei Honor Magic

Today we will tell you about the "magic" smartphone Huawei Honor Magic, which is interesting if only because it is not at all intended for some kind of commercialization, for huge sales and making money. The phone was announced on the anniversary of Huawei's well-known Honor sub-brand. It looks more like a gift or a symbol of the company's gratitude to its fans, as well as a demonstration of certain technical capabilities manufacturer.

The smartphone immediately after the announcement riveted the attention of hundreds of thousands of people around the world, including the Russian-speaking population, and this is not surprising, because it is unusual in literally everything. We will tell you in our Huawei Honor Magic review about the features of the new brainchild from Huawei. And it's worth starting with the design.

Honor Magic's design is more like a device from films about the future. He is truly futuristic and unlike anything by and large. The base of the case is glass. It is from it that both the front and back sides are made. Moreover, both the front and back of the device are curved, and noticeably.

On the back are located:

• dual camera lenses;
• flash;
• honor's laconic logo.

On the front panel:

• speaker;
• front-camera;
• several sensors above the screen;
• the only one home button under him.

The Home button not only combines a fingerprint scanner, but is also multifunctional. It easily replaces the usual Android buttons, and the scanner works super fast.

Around the perimeter of Honor Magik is a metal frame that looks like a thin outline on the sides and top. At the bottom, this thin frame expands and turns into the base of the smartphone, containing all the main connectors: headphone jack, SIM card slot, USB type-c and external speaker.

The SIM card slot, by the way, is rather unusual. 2 Nano SIM cards are inserted from both sides of the tray, thereby saving free space... Upstairs there was only a place for a microphone. The control buttons are located on the right side. Their order is slightly changed and it will take some getting used to.

Probably one of the most important things in design is practicality. At first glance, it may seem that the shape of the smartphone will be uncomfortable, but in fact it turned out that it lies in the hand like a glove, and the frame that runs along the perimeter is rounded and does not cut the palm. The only drawback of ergonomics is the location of the buttons, which we mentioned a little earlier.

The screen and the back are covered with fingerprints, however, the oleophobic coating from which they are made is excellent and all dirt is easily erased. Scratches can, of course, appear over time, so a neat silicone transparent case is included in the kit for this case.

In general, the Honor Magic design is not just unusual, stylish and comfortable, but in general, like a breath of fresh air in the abyss of absolutely identical designs, where it is difficult to distinguish one phone from another.

Display

The display of the device is inextricably linked with the design of Honor Magic, and it is also a delightful demonstration of the technical capabilities of Huawei. The characteristics are as follows:

• unusual diagonal 5.09 inches;
• Quad HD resolution 2560 by 1440 pixels;
• AMOLED matrix, which is also curved;
• protective glass is made using 3D technology.

This screen simply absorbed all the most advanced that currently exists on the market. mobile devices... Obviously, no pixels can be discerned with such an insane density. The colors are very saturated, but without the unnatural contrast inherent in AMOLED matrices. The margin of brightness is excellent. It is well calibrated. The automatic adjustment also works correctly. In the settings, you can play around with color correction and adjust the colors for yourself.

The screen is curved on each side, not just left and right. It should be noted that, despite the curvature, the side frames remained in place. The display is so cool that when you use the device, you just don't notice the bezels.

Filling and performance

If we talk briefly about the technical stuffing of the phone, then this is the same Honor 8 only in the older configuration. Inside we will find an eight-core Kirin 950 with four cores at 1.8 GHz, four at 2 and 3 GHz and a Mali-T880 as a graphics accelerator. The same 4 GB random access memory and 64 GB built-in. The only difference is that Magic does not support external memory cards.

We expected the performance to drop dramatically due to the increased resolution, however, everything works very quickly and smoothly. This applies to both the interface and the shell, as well as everyday applications and games. A dozen applications hang in memory, including a browser with several tabs, but nothing lags.

Shell

The only thing that can prevent you from enjoying the work of the device is its own Magic Live shell. She looks very cool:

• icons, menus look very solid;
• animations are smooth neat;
• split notification panels in the spirit of iPhone: one by swiping from top to bottom, the other from bottom to top.
• interesting features in addition to those that we are used to seeing from the company.

At first glance, everything is very cool. A separate feature of the smartphone is its advanced functions with artificial intelligence. He collects statistics, on the basis of which he can later issue advice and recommendations. But to a greater extent, this function is focused on the domestic market and full integration occurs precisely with Chinese services. Perhaps the situation will be improved in the future.

Everything would be very cool if the signs of raw software did not slip in the shell. For instance:

• some applications are not installed;
• some do not start;
• some work with bugs and so on.

Why could this happen? Most likely, this shell is intended primarily for the Chinese domestic market. Initially it doesn't even have Google services... They will have to be installed via Google Installer, and this is probably one of the reasons for the problems. Perhaps this problem will be solved in the future.

Sensors

What I liked separately is the integration of various sensors:

• you put the gadget on the table - it turns off the screen;
• you take it off the table - it turns it on;
• follows the look. That is, the owner turned away, for example, the screen went out a little. I looked at him again - he instantly turned on.

It sounds like a trifle, but you quickly get used to it, because it is done very conveniently and unobtrusively. You don't have to wait 10 seconds for the screen to turn on or until the sensor detects that the device has been lifted off the table. This function works very quickly and without errors.

Battery

Now the problem of smartphone autonomy is quite acute. Of course, this problem has already been smoothed over the past 10 years, but only because many newbies did not use cell phones, and many have forgotten how it was. They just have nothing to compare time with autonomous work your phone, and therefore 1-2 days are not perceived as something critical. Meanwhile, we used our cell phones for weeks on a single charge.

Many people see the use of graphene-polymer batteries as one of the solutions to this problem. Of course, they do not eliminate the problem of limited operating time, but they do solve the problem of fast battery charging. This is at least something. Honor Magic is primarily insanely interesting precisely because it uses a hybrid battery using graphene. After getting to know the phone closely, we can say that this is perhaps its coolest feature. In 10 minutes it charges up to 40% percent, in 20 minutes up to 66%, after another 10 minutes it will be 90%. That is, from zero to 90%, the device was charged in half an hour. In words it sounds just cool, in reality it is even cooler. This is a real revolution!

Honor Magic is discharged no less quickly. The battery is here at 2900 mAh. This is probably not enough for a 2K display and serious hardware. The smartphone was discharged from 100% to 20% in 5 hours 48 minutes. This is really small. We are waiting for the batteries to start not only charging quickly, but also sit down much more slowly.

Camera

Huawei Honor Magik's camera is also like Honor 8. These are not top-end cameras, however, they will cope with most of the tasks of their owner perfectly. The function of photography with an open aperture and depth of field - as with all, the implementation is not ideal, but good pictures can be obtained with a certain skill. You can watch the video of the camera below to estimate its approximate quality.

Outcome

The price for this device now starts at $ 700. This is a very cool smartphone in some aspects and some of the things that are implemented in it really inspire respect and awe: incredible design; stunning display; revolutionary battery and so on. Despite this, it is still generally perceived as an experiment, not a finished product.

This is ubiquitous in technology or the automotive industry. And we sincerely look forward to these opportunities and these features in new huawei phones, which will already be targeted at mass production.

Video

Full huawei review Honor Magic you can look at the link below

Last Friday, Huawei presented the Honor Magic smartphone, which claims to be one of the most unusual devices this year. It hasn't been long since the first rumors about the device appeared, nevertheless, many strange and amazing details have surfaced on the network. For example, one of the sources reported that the smartphone will lose both cameras and various sensors on the surface of the case, and all this will be connected to it in the form of modules. However, the presented device turned out to be even more surprising than expected.

Honor Magic specifications

• Processor: 16nm, 64-bit, 8-core Kirin 950 with an operating frequency of up to 2.53 GHz.
• Graphics chip: Mali-T880 MP4.
• RAM: 4 GB.
• Built-in memory: 64 GB.
• Display: 5.09 inches, AMOLED, 2560 × 1440 pixels, 3D glass.
• Main camera: 12 megapixels, two sensors (color + monochrome), f / 2.2, dual-tone LED flash.
• Front-camera: 8 Mp.
• Battery: built-in, 2900 mAh with support for Huawei Magic Power.
• Software platform: Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Magic Live shell.
• 3.5mm audio jack.
• Support for two SIM-cards.
• The fingerprint scanner.
• Interfaces: LTE 4G, Wi-Fi 802.11, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS.
• Dimensions: 146.1 x 69.9 x 7.8 mm.
• Weight: 145 grams.

Design

The exterior of the Honor Magic is truly impressive. The smartphone looks unique and distinctive. The manufacturer used glass curved on four sides on the front and back panels, so the gadget turned out to be very sleek and streamlined. Moreover, the main camera is flush with the surface of the body.

Between the panels is a thin metal frame that barely contains the power key and volume buttons. Only the bottom edge remained flat, where all the other components fit: a 3.5 mm jack, uSB port Type-C for recharging, dual SIM slot and speaker.

Below the screen is the Home button, which is combined with a fingerprint scanner, which is distinguished by its high recognition rate. To return to the main screen, just press the home key once, double-click to switch between tasks, and by swiping on the button, you will go back.

Equipment

The smartphone did not receive latest processor, from which we can conclude that Honor Magic does not belong to the flagship family. In the role of hardware, the Kirin 950 8-core chipset, clocked at 2.53 GHz, is used. The Mali-T880 MP4 accelerator is responsible for the picture quality. The amount of RAM and permanent memory is 4 GB and 64 GB, respectively.

Although we have not the most high-end specifications, the device will cope with such daily tasks as searching the Internet, chatting in in social networks, calls, listening to music, watching movies, etc. To run games, including resource-intensive gaming applications, this equipment will also be enough.

The device was equipped with a not very powerful battery with a capacity of only 2900 mAh, but the manufacturer took care of a "magic" fast charging, which will recharge the battery up to 90% in just half an hour.

In addition, the device received a 5.09-inch AMOLED display, which should be distinguished by economical power consumption, despite the resolution of 2560x1440 pixels. Supports all modern wireless interfacesincluding NFC for mobile payments.

Camera

On the back side of the case is a dual 12-megapixel camera, one sensor shoots in color, and the other in monochrome. This combination reduces noise and improves the quality of images taken in low light conditions. How well it works has already been shown by the Huawei P9 and Honor 8 smartphones, where the camera works on a similar principle.

The front camera has a resolution of 8 megapixels and is accompanied by an infrared sensor, which is also responsible for improving the quality of shooting in low light.

Software platform

The work is carried out under the control of the operating system Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Using a set of smart sensors, the smartphone tracks user activity, learns to anticipate his needs and offers useful functions... The system is based on artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.

The WiseScreen function unlocks the screen when the user picks up the device and brings it to his face. To make it work automatic blocking, just turn the smartphone over or put it in your pocket. In addition, being in the hands, the gadget will replace the signal with vibration if an incoming call arrives.

The device not only recognizes, but also recognizes the owner by sight using FaceCode. Thus, the details in on-screen notifications are only shown to the registered user. The smartphone can give hints based on the analysis of the correspondence. For example, if it comes to where you are, Magic Live prompts you to send your location information. During the discussion of a film, the user will receive a link to the film and recommendations for films.

However, this applies not only to friendly correspondence, the gadget can be useful in various life situations. For example, offer to turn on the flashlight if you are in the dark, as well as help with booking tickets, shopping, sorting incoming messages, and more. Perhaps the most important quality of the system is the possibility of its daily training, so that every day it becomes more convenient and useful for the user.

Output

The novelty is priced at only 3699 yuan (about 32,500 rubles), although it was expected that its price tag would be much higher. For this money, the user receives a smartphone with unique design and smart operating systemthat will make the device your little helper in everyday life... The gadget fits nicely in the hand, works quickly and smoothly. And given the small diagonal display with thin bezels, Honor Magic is also suitable for those who prefer compact devices.

Illustrative material Gizmochina.com | ItHome.com

Honor Magic 2 is a new smartphone from Huawei. Why do you need a slider in 2019? Why manufacturers mobile phones returned to this format? And what are the pros and cons? Read about it in the next review by Dmitry Bevza.

Specifications

Case: slider, materials - aluminum alloy, impact-resistant glass;

Color: black / metallic;

Dimensions: 157.3 x 75.1 x 8.3 mm;

Weight: 206 grams;

Operating system: Android 9.0, interface - Magic UI 2.0;

Display: AMOLED, diagonal - 6.39 inches (84.8 percent screen-to-body ratio), resolution - 1080 × 2340, aspect ratio - 19.5: 9. Pixel density - 403 ppi;

Main camera: three modules, 16 MP f / 1.8, 16 MP f / 2.2 24 MP B / W f / 1.8;

Front-camera: 16 MP f / 2.0, 2 MP depth sensor, f / 2.4, 2 MP f / 2.4 depth sensor;

Processor: HiSilicon Kirin 980, eight cores (2 × 2.6 GHz Cortex-A76, 2 × 1.92 GHz Cortex-A76, 4 × 1.8 GHz Cortex-A55);

Memory: 128/256 GB, 6/8 GB of RAM;

Splash, Water and Dust Resistant: no;

Battery: 3500mAh.

Huawei Honor Magic 2 almost became the world's first slider smartphone, but the "insidious" Xiaomi with the presentation of its slider Mi Mix 3 was ahead of Huawei by two days. And by the way, literally a day after the presentation of Honor Magic 2, Lenovo showed its slider Z5 Pro. What does this mean? First, about good competitive intelligence in Chinese companies. Secondly, that mobile vendors are struggling to find new ones and remember well-forgotten old solutions that can be used to increase the size of the display without increasing the size of the smartphone. Also, we must not forget about the more than overdue global design update of smartphones. Obvious problems have been observed with this in recent years, and at all manufacturers.

the main thing

Honor Magic 2 is a slider. If someone doesn't remember, the slider is a form factor of mobile phones with a sliding top panel. Very loved at one time by Nokia, and their 8110 slider became legendary thanks to the movie "The Matrix".

The general meaning of the slider is that when folded, some of its elements are hidden. It used to be a keyboard. In the new reincarnation, cameras are hidden in the slider body. Why is this needed? According to the latest mobile fashion, bezels around the screen should be kept to a minimum. But where to put the front cameras in this case? Apple made a cutout at the top of the screen - "monobrow", but this is clearly a compromise solution, since the front-facing camera unit still "gobbles" part of the display.

Huawei took a more radical approach and made a mechanical slider. When closed, the three front cameras are simply hidden behind the screen.

Design and ergonomics

For such a large (6.39-inch) screen, the ergonomics of the smartphone are not bad, largely due to the original form factor. There is, however, one but. If your fingers are dry, they slip across the screen and the mirrored back of your smartphone. That is, in this case, the smartphone has to be pushed apart with some effort.

The design of the Honor Magic 2 is in complete order. It looks impressive: firstly, thanks to the original design, and secondly, the mirrored black and silver surface of the rear panel made of shock-resistant glass looks very futuristic. Are there fingerprints on it? Alas, how. But beauty, as you know, requires sacrifice.

Display and hardware

Here, as motorists say, "full stuffing." Top-end seven-meter HiSilicon Kirin 980 processor, as in the flagship Huawei mate 20 Pro, 6/8 GB RAM, 128/256 GB storage. There is no slot for Micro SD, but with such a volume of its own memory, this is not very important.

In the AnTuTu benchmark, which shows the performance of a smartphone, Honor Magic 2 scores 275 thousand points. This is about the 15th result. It is even higher than Samsung Galaxy S9 +. There is only one speaker, but quite loud, there is support for all wireless standardsincluding NFC. Why we single out NFC separately, we will tell you a little later. No wireless charging only. Apparently, this is due to the design of the slider.

The Honor Magic 2 screen is made using AMOLED technology, there is support for the Always On Display function.
Full HD + resolution. Actually, only a lower resolution distinguishes the Honor Magic 2 screen from the displays of the most top-end devices. Otherwise, it is expensive and of high quality.

Note that the set with Hоnor Magic 2 comes with a proprietary turbo charger, which allows you to charge your smartphone in an hour from 0 to 100 percent.

The smartphone is unlocked using a fingerprint scanner located right on the screen.

And also by face recognition. To do this, you need to move back slider up, "freeing" the front cameras.

Recognition works almost perfectly, but the on-screen fingerprint scanner "slows down" a little. You have to press with great effort, and sometimes twice.

Camera

Honor Magic 2 has six cameras. Yes Yes. Namely six - three rear and three frontal. Why are there three front cameras? For adding depth to the frame and achieving bokeh effect. This makes the portrait more expressive.

Three main cameras - standard, wide angle and black and white.

The Honor Magic 2 shoots pretty well, but top-end devices such as the Mate 20 Pro, P20 Pro, iPhone XS, Galaxy Note 9, he is still inferior. First of all, in detail and noise. But all the special modes, especially with the included artificial intelligence module, are well implemented in Honor Magic 2. Night shooting, portrait mode, macro, variable aperture mode - the pictures are taken at a consistently good level. Perhaps this is where the work of the artificial intelligence (AI) module, which is equipped with the HiSilicon Kirin 980 processor, affects. In general, AI modules in Huawei / Honor smartphones are gradually beginning to more and more significantly affect the camera. What is called, "work off the money" spent on their development.

Examples of the operation of the Honor Magic 2. Daytime shooting:

Wide angle camera:

Night shooting:

Selfie Camera:

Honor Magic 2 works under android Pie 9.0 and Magic UI 2.0, a new development from Huawei. You can replace the three virtual bottom buttons with gesture controls, which we did. In general, replacing buttons with gesture controls is also one of the mobile trends of 2018, another way to increase the usable screen area. Magic UI 2.0 is quite different from stock Android 9.0, but leaves a good impression.

Officially, Honor Magic 2 is now sold only in China, so we were very surprised by the presence of an NFC module in the smartphone. As you know, this standard is not popular in China. Perhaps this is a sign that after some time the device will appear in global retail, although it is unlikely to reach Russian retail.

Total

We liked Honor Magic 2. With its conceptual novelty, powerful advanced hardware, appearance... But we will not recommend it for purchase. The thing is that it is not officially sold in Russia. Yes, you can easily buy Honor Magic 2 on AliExpress for about 42 thousand rubles, but ... Firstly, without a guarantee. We emphasize, 42 thousand and no guarantee. By the way, the probability that the Chinese version will come to you without the support of Google Mobile Services is also not zero. Our test sample was exactly that. Yes, you can use alternative app stores instead of Google play... Yes, you can reflash your smartphone, but still it's not quite what a "normal" buyer expects, laying out 42 thousand. But for early adopters and geeks, Honor Magic 2 is quite an option. Not only is this a very interesting smartphone, but you will also have the opportunity to impress your friends and acquaintances with a super original device.

In this article, we first of all wanted to tell our readers about a new class of smartphones, which, obviously, will reach Russia in 2019, already officially. As we already mentioned, in addition to Huawei, slider smartphones were made by Xiaomi and Lenovo, and Oppo in its Find X generally installed an automatically moving camera unit. So progress does not stand still, and we hope that 2019 will give us a lot of new and original devices.

The Huawei Honor Watch Magic is a novelty from a well-known Chinese company. The device received a high quality screen, improved navigation system, built-in nFC module and many more cool features. Let's talk about this. Read the review information for customer feedback on the new smartwatch.

Differences between the new model

Smart watches from Huawei - Honor Watch Magic are made in a favorite classic design. The round 9.8 mm case is equipped with a removable soft strap. The size is universal, because there is an adjustment.

A brief description of:

• AMOLED screen with vivid color contrast and 390 × 390 resolution
• Li-Ion 178 mAh battery with 1 week battery life
• LiteOS operating system with preloaded applications
• 16 MB RAM and 128 MB user memory
• Quad-core Cortex-M4 ARM processor

During testing, the performance of the flagship was checked. The processor provides work on high level without failures and braking in different conditions. The built-in NFC module allows you to pay for goods without a card and cash. Just link your bank account to your watch.

Honor Magic has a triple navigation module. Search function it is represented by three systems - GPS (world), Beidou (Chinese), GLONASS (Russian). So the flagship more accurately determines the geolocation of the user.

What Honor Watch Magic can do

The device has several modes of use. The main ones for sports are running, cycling and swimming. Thanks to its high-grade water resistance, the watch can be used for diving. A training and climbing mode is also built in. As a bonus - a walking profile. Activate it on the way to work or home so that the gadget can track the necessary indicators.

Contents of delivery

• Smartphone
• Silicone Case
• Charger at 40 W
• USB Type C cable
• Adapter from USB Type C to 3.5 mm
• Clip for SIM tray
• Instructions

Specifications
Dimensions and weight	157.3 x 75.1 x 8.3 mm, 206 grams
Body materials	Glass, aluminum
Display	6.39 inches, 1080x2340 pixels, 403 ppi, AMOLED, 19.5: 9, automatic adjustment brightness, Corning Gorilla Glass 3, DCI-P3 (100% coverage)
operating system	Google android 9, EMUI 9.0 (or Magic 2.0 for some markets)
Platform	HiSilicon Kirin 980 (7 nm, ARM 2xCortex-A76 2.6 GHz + 2xCortex-A76 1.92 GHz + 4xCortex-A55 1.58 GHz), Mali-G76 MP10
Memory	6 GB of RAM, 128 GB of ROM (there is an option of 8/512 GB, set-top box 3D)
Wireless interfaces	Wi-Fi a / b / g / n / ac, dual band, Bluetooth 5.0, aptX HD, LDAC NFC
Net	First SIM: 4G LTE FDD: B1 / B2 / B3 / B4 / B5 / B6 / B7 / B8 / B9 / B12 / B17 / B18 / B19 / B20 / B26 / B28 / B32 3G WCDMA: B1 / B2 / B4 / B5 / B6 (Japan) / B8 / B19 (Japan); 3G TD-SCDMA: B34 / B39 2G GSM: B2 / B3 / B5 / B8 (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) Second SIM card: 4G LTE TDD: B34 / B38 / B39 / B40 4G LTE FDD: B1 / B2 / B3 / B4 / B5 / B6 / B7 / B8 / B9 / B12 / B17 / B18 / B19 / B20 / B26 / B28 3G WCDMA: B1 / B2 / B4 / B5 / B6 / B8 / B19 2G GSM: B2 / B3 / B5 / B8 (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) Dual SIM, nanoSIM
Navigation	GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou
Sensors and connectors	USB Type C (USB 3.1), OTG Accelerometer, proximity sensor, light sensor, fingerprint sensor (under the screen), gyroscope, barometer, electronic compass
Main camera	16/24/16 megapixels, (1x + 2x + 5x + 0.6x); optical stabilization at the zoom camera
Front-camera	Front camera with depth of field effect, additional shooting modes - 16/20/2 megapixels
Battery	Li-Ion 3400 mAh, average battery life one to two days Wireless qi charging, 40 W charger, fast charging 50% in 20 minutes
Degree of protection	IP68
Colors	blue, silver, red
Sound	stereo speakers, Dolby Atmos

Positioning

It will not be superfluous to recall that Huawei considers Honor to be a separate company, and it is. In fact, both companies use the same R&D experience, but create different machines. Therefore, if Huawei's flagship for 2018-2019 is the Mate 20 Pro, then in Honor Magic 2 became such. We can safely assume that this device is somewhat simpler than the flagship from Huawei, since the positioning of the Honor brand itself is different, it is more available devices. But all the signs of a flagship are here, the company tried to realize the maximum possible for a reasonable price.

In Russia, Magic 2 is not officially available, and Honor has no plans to bring it to the market, the reason is that the company is moving gradually. The same Mate line from Huawei in Russia became officially available for the first time only in 2018, until that moment the strength of the brand did not allow such devices to be massively sold. But the perception changed, and so the Mate went on sale. With Magic, something similar could happen next year, so it makes sense to take a look at what the current model has to offer. It is possible to buy this device in China, but there is no particular sense in this, since there is no localization, there are many Chinese services in the software, and it will not be possible to get special pleasure from the model. On the other hand, this is something unusual, something that not everyone has. There is always an audience for such products, those who want something exclusive, different from everyone else.

Design, dimensions, controls

One of the problems of our time for smartphones is the increase in the diagonal of the screens, as well as the need to accommodate the front camera and various sensors. And if the sensors can be packed under the glass of the display, then it is impossible to hide the camera there without losing a piece of the image. The concept of many Chinese companies and the answer to this challenge is to create a slider design. The screen is made movable vertically, move the halves, and a cutout appears in which the front camera is located. Since the slider is active, you can avoid unnecessary waste of energy when scanning the surrounding world in anticipation of the user's face, as is done in the iPhone. Alternatively, some Chinese companies have made a pop-up camera module, but from a mechanical point of view, this is not a very optimal design. The slider is more reliable, easier to implement, but the obvious disadvantage is that you cannot make the case as thin as in a regular candy bar, you may have to partially sacrifice the battery capacity.

When closed, it is impossible to determine that a slider is in front of you, nothing gives such a design in the device.

Xiaomi has a model of a similar design - Mi MIX 3, it also uses a slider.

Externally, Magic 2 resembles P20 Pro: an iridescent body, the same format of the cameras on the rear panel. There are no complaints about how the device is assembled. It seems to me that in recent years the build quality has increased for all manufacturers, we have stopped remembering about it altogether, since the level is approximately the same everywhere, and this is a qualitatively good level.

Compared with Huawei Mate 20 Pro

Compared to Samsung Galaxy Note 9

There are several color options, take a look at the colors below.

For those who, like me, are annoyed by the notch in the screen, Magic 2 will be a salvation. The screen occupies almost the entire front surface, no cutouts, since this is the slider design. The sides are minimal and comfortable enough for one-handed operation as well.

Face unlocking differs in different versions of this model, so, in the basic one it is recognition by a picture, in the older one (the one with 8 GB of RAM) it is an analogue of technology from Apple, a face map is built with 30,000 points. I was not able to test the second option, since there are no such devices anywhere. Therefore, it is difficult to talk about recognition, this is exactly what we see in devices from Huawei / Honor today, a fast and reliable way of unlocking, I really like it. To activate face unlock, just slide the slider to open the cameras, and this is very convenient, you quickly get used to this feature.

The fingerprint sensor is built into the screen, just like the Mate 20 Pro. In cold weather, it does not always work correctly, the vessels on the hand narrow, the capillary pattern changes, and the recognition accuracy is not as high as with individual sensors on the body. On the other hand, it is convenient and works well in all other conditions.

At the bottom there is a USB Type C connector, right there is a speaker output, as well as a microphone. The second microphone is on the top, the noise reduction system works well.

At the top there is an IrDA window, it serves to control household appliances... For many, this will be a pleasant addition to the capabilities of the device, which disappeared from samsung flagshipsand in apple smartphones never was present.

The volume rocker is located on the right side, along with the on / off button. You shouldn't look for a fingerprint sensor on the case, it is built into the screen.

On the left side there is a slot for two nanoSIM cards, there is a sealing gum (the device is protected according to the IP68 standard).

There are no complaints about the build quality, as well as about ergonomics. The device is rather big, but quite convenient to use.

Display

The screen has the following characteristics: 6.39 inches, 1080x2340 pixels, 403 ppi, AMOLED, 19.5: 9, automatic brightness control, Corning Gorilla Glass 3, DCI-P3 (100% coverage).

Auto brightness adjustment, as usual for Huawei, is very aggressive, the screen is dark in most situations. But the situation is gradually improving, if you constantly adjust this parameter, it took me two weeks. Unlike the Mate, there is no RGB sensor, so there is no natural color adjustment on the screen, everything is somewhat simpler.

Separately, you can adjust the color mode and temperature, but already in manual mode... The settings are enough to get you the color that suits you best.

There is also an eye protection mode when the display takes on warm colors. It is poorly applicable in everyday life, and the horror story about harmful radiation should, apparently, convince us that the manufacturer has solved this issue. I am convinced that you should not frighten users, especially with “harmful radiation”.

In the sun, the screen remains readable, but in camera mode you see that the brightness in the sun is often not enough, the picture is no longer so lively, this is not what you get in the final result.

Unfortunately, AlwaysOn Display mode is very simple, you only see time, event icons for standard applications. You cannot customize the mode, change the shape and appearance of the clock.

Battery

The built-in Li-Ion 3400 mAh battery, let me remind you that in the Mate 20 Pro it is 4200 mAh. But the processor speed is limited here, there is no way to overclock it (there is no such setting in the menu), this, together with a lower screen resolution, gives a comparable operating time - a day with a heavy load (5.5 hours of screen operation, brightness 50-55%) or two days at 4 screen hours. Full battery charging time - a little less than an hour, there is a built-in wireless charger... I liked the device in terms of operating time, in this it strong point... Aggressive hacking is present background processes, but the more you use your smartphone, the faster it will normalize its work and will not turn off the necessary applications.

Memory, chipset, performance

The basic version of the device has 6 GB of RAM, 128 GB of built-in memory, which will be enough for most buyers. The HiSilicon Kirin 980 chipset is the world's first to offer an 8-core processor with two Cortex A76 cores up to 2.6 GHz, two cores up to 1.92 GHz and four Cortex A55 cores up to 1.8 GHz ... Good chipset, high performance, there will be no flaws as such, the performance will be enough for several years with interest. If you look at the performance in real life, the interface flies, there are no lags or other problems. The fastest machine.

Communication capabilities

Let's start with the main one, the device has NFC support, it works like Google Pay, but not reading / writing to a Troika card (for many, this is important, as the comments show). Dual-band Wi-Fi raises no questions, everything works like a clock. Bluetooth version 5.0, supported for both LDAC and aptX HD sound, music in wireless headphones well.

For LTE, the maximum set of frequencies, their aggregation and maximum speeds are supported.

The USB Type C (3.1) connector is supported by OTG, but here I ran into certain problems. My flash drives with USB Type C could not be read by the device, it offered to charge them, but rejected any other type of connection. We have not managed to overcome this problem, although in all other devices these flash drives are read with a bang.

The built-in IR transmitter allows you to control your home appliances.

Cameras

The front camera consists of three modules, but this is more marketing than a necessity, it shoots no better than in the Mate 20 Pro, comparable image quality.

But the pictures in comparison with the Mate 20 Pro, let me remind you that the optical zoom in Magic 2 is only x2, the optics itself is also different, it is simpler.

I don't know how you will rate the photos, but, in my opinion, this camera was deliberately made simpler, as a result, it is noticeably inferior to the Mate 20 Pro, but it also feels worse than the one in the P20 Pro. Moreover, I was able to drive the camera in different modes in less than a week, literally in each it is inferior to models from Huawei. This is logical, since Honor, as a brand, is positioned for Huawei, and as such, there is no point in making the device more powerful and cheaper. You get exactly what you pay for.

Apart from the Huawei / Honor line, I can say that the camera is above average, sometimes the pictures come out just for the sake of sight, but sometimes the camera misses and it turns out a marriage. The main gripe about the camera is exactly the same as for its big brothers, it is not always predictable. Sometimes they are very, very good pictures, sometimes they are not. It is extremely difficult to guess when and which one will turn out. On the same Samsung, predictability is an order of magnitude higher, you know exactly when you can get a decent shot, and when the camera fails and you need to switch to manual mode.

And this is what the camera interface looks like.

Multimedia capabilities

The stereo speakers are quite vociferous, it is a pleasure to watch videos on the device, there are no particular complaints. Support for aptX, aptX HD, LDAC, HWA (Hi-res wireless audio) and Dolby Atmos will be a pleasure for everyone who listens to music on wireless and wired headphones. The multimedia component seemed to me ordinary, without any failures and achievements.

Voice assistant YoYo is difficult for me to assess due to the fact that I do not know Chinese. And therefore I will only note that it is important to have such an assistant, but how good it is, how applicable, I cannot tell you. Alas. At the presentation, they talked a lot about how Yoyo outperforms Siri in recognition quality and speed.

At the moment, only ten languages \u200b\u200bare supported, the main one is Chinese, and there are also French, English, German, Spanish and some others. There is no Russian, and it will appear at best in a year, if Honor agrees with Yandex that Alice will turn into YoYo. Such conversations are going on, and there are chances that this will happen.

From what I liked and what I have not yet met, I will note the translation in real time during a conversation. That is, you call someone who does not speak your language, and you immediately have a transcript and translation. The interlinear appears on the screen. As for me, this is just a gorgeous thing, and if it works at the very least, it will become an indispensable travel assistant. Until recently, the same translator from Google made life much easier, but what can I say, in a tea house in Beijing, I communicated exclusively with its help, as well as successfully bargained, giving arguments, and not just showing numbers on a calculator. The fact that now it is becoming available for phone calls is very cool. This is something that in the future will be implemented by almost all companies, there is no doubt about it.

Yoyo also has an app to assess your skin age and blemishes. This application has received some approvals from specialized organizations, which serves as proof that it works. For women who look after themselves, this feature will be interesting.

Impression

The device turned out to be good in terms of the connection quality, there are no pitfalls, the network handles well in different conditions. There are no problems with data transmission, speeds in Moscow networks are high, frequency aggregation is used. The call is loud, the vibrating alert is felt in different conditions.

The prices for this device in China are as follows (multiply by 10 and get the cost in rubles).

Considering that the P20 Pro costs 35 thousand rubles in Russia (in MTS with cashback) or 39,990 rubles everywhere in large networks, Magic 2 looks at least at the same level. It wins by the presence of a fingerprint sensor built into the screen, a large display without bangs, and a slider mechanism. An interesting model, but these devices are quite comparable in what they give to the user. And this, of course, is not the Mate 20 Pro at all, which looks much more interesting.

Overall, I liked the Magic 2, it is a device with a twist, and it looks curious. There are not so many competitors for it on the market, if you do not take into account the mass models. Although why not take it? Samsung flagships are more expensive, so the price difference will make Magic 2 attractive to many (with the same S9 +, the difference is at least 15-20 thousand rubles). If we take the line from Apple, then the nearest iPhone Xr simply does not stand up to competition, it is worse in everything except for the brand, which is still perceived as a fashion brand, but this is already a thing of the past, now it is more likely the perception that a person, without thinking, overpaid per model. The direct competitor is Xiaomi Mi MIX3, but a number of parameters are worse there, for example, the fingerprint sensor on the rear panel.