Honor's new flagship phone series could finally live up to "Magic" name, thanks to just one button

With Qualcomm announcing the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 this week, a number of phone manufacturers have stepped up to confirm they are launching phones using the new hardware. Honor is one of those.

Announced at Snapdragon Summit China – a parallel event to Qualcomm's in Hawaii this week – the Honor Magic 8 series has been introduced. Importantly, the new Android phones will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and be Honor's 2026 flagship devices, but this isn't the full launch – that's still to come.

While Honor is talking about its Magic 8 series, it doesn't explicitly talk about the models that'll be included, but The Verge has images of the Magic 8 Pro – the flagship, and a follow-up to the 2025 Magic 7 Pro.

The phone takes on a similar design, appearing to have a flat back rather than the curved edges we've seen before, so this handset will basically look like every other phone that's launched in the last year.

Except, of course, for the large camera housing on the rear. This still dominates the design and sees Honor packing in a comprehensive camera system. On the previous device it was the AI-boosted 100x zoom that took most of the headlines.

Could it be Magic?

But there is something new on the Honor Magic 8 Pro – a dedicated AI button. Honor previously had a camera control button on the Honor 400, but on its next flagship, this appears to be focused on AI.

That fits the zeitgeist, with every launch now dominated by talk of AI and looking to push the conversation beyond camera performance and battery life.

Honor hasn't said exactly what the AI button on the Magic 8 Pro might do, and exact confirmation is likely to come when it makes its full debut in China on 15 October. A global launch is expected in early 2026, at which point we'll likely be introduced to a suite of AI features.

AI buttons are enjoying something of a renaissance. The most notable device to start the trend was the Samsung Galaxy S8 in 2017 with a controversial Bixby button. By 2019, Samsung had removed its dedicated button, but more recently we've seen the reintroduction in various forms, like Nothing's Essential button.

The challenge now appears to be for phones to own the AI experience with a suite of features that customers find useful, which seems to be the biggest challenge that smartphone manufacturers are facing.

Or, it might be that Honor's button just launches Google Gemini, making for a smoother move into AI conversations when needed.

We'll no doubt find out in a few weeks.