It's nearly time for MWC 2022, and that means the best Android phone candidates are coming thick and fast. One of the most intriguing is the Magic4, the brand new premium flagship from Honor, which will launch on February 28. It doesn't fold like the recently announced Magic V, which is currently only available in China, but it promises to be "full of features that will unleash the Power of Magic".
Spoiler: it isn't really magic. But it could still be something special.
Will the Magic4 rule the world?
We won't get the official Magic4 specs until the end of the month, but there are plenty of leaks already – and the promo image, which shows a giant camera model, makes it pretty clear that the camera is going to be the star here.
According to GizmoChina we're looking at a 50MP wide and a 50MP ultrawide camera with macro functionality. The standard model will also have a 16MP telephoto, with Pro versions getting a 50MP telephoto with 100x digital zoom, a 50MP mono camera and a depth of field sensor too. That should mean some really impressive snaps, especially in portrait mode. Rumours also predict a 6.55-inch screen for the standard Magic4, a 6.67-inch one on the Pro and an even bigger 6.78 inches in the Pro Plus. Resolutions are reportedly 2400, x 1080, 2772 x 1344 and 3200 x 1440 respectively, with touch sampling rates of 300Hz on the standard model and 360Hz on the Pros.
Teasers have suggested the Magic4 will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the same processor you'll find in the non-Exynos versions of the Samsung Galaxy S22 range, and the current top-of-the-line chip for Android.
We were very impressed by the Honor Magic3, which was competitively priced and delivered a very impressive spec, so we're hoping that the Magic4 will be priced to sell: as it's no longer owned by Huawei it isn't affected by the bar on Google apps, so you can get the same Google Play apps as you would with any other Android. That means the Magic3 is shaping up to be a very impressive Android flagship.
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Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).