This year is the most important year for Honor, which is no longer synonymous with smartphones for young people. The company, founded in 2013 as a spin-off of Huawei to expand the reach of the better-known Shenzhen brand, notably by offering good devices at lower prices than its competitors and favouring online sales, is expected to turn the corner after Huawei was knocked out of European markets by the ban imposed in May 2019 by the US Department of Commerce. Without Google’s apps, sales have inevitably plummeted for the Chinese giant, the only one capable in the recent past of ousting Samsung and Apple as the world’s leading manufacturers.
A growing and ambitious company
Over the next two years, several Chinese brands have tried to follow in the footsteps of Huawei, which continues to sell a lot in China, even with its high-end models, but now it is Honor’s turn to try to make its way into the European markets. With the transfer of patents and technologies from the former parent company, the aim is to accelerate growth to try and write a similar story to Huawei.
On the rise in the domestic market, where it recorded a market share of 18% in 2022, Honor has, over the past few years, begun the transformation to take on the semblance of Huawei: 13,000 employees, 7 research and development centres to which about 60% of the staff are dedicated, 300 patents registered per month on average, and a complete product line-up, with smartphones ranging from 150 to 1500 euros.
Honor’s sights go beyond China and are set on Europe, as confirmed by Pier Giorgio Furcas, Commercial Director of Honor Italy, with many years and excellent results behind him at Huawei Italy. “We want to sell 600,000 phones in a year. It is an ambitious target, but we can do it,’ said the manager during the presentation of the devices. And we are not talking about low-end models because the Magic Series includes the two most significant phones in the company’s history. The Honor Magic Vs, the foldable extra-large format, and the Honor Magic 5 Pro, the model that encapsulates the company’s evolution and its technologies. They may not be the biggest sellers in terms of volume, but they are the most significant for the company’s present and future.
The strengths of Magic 5 Pro
The Honor Magic 5 Pro is the smartphone the company focuses on because it represents an attempt to enter the top segment coveted by many but dominated by very few. Design, camera and battery are the three aspects characterising the Magic 5 Pro, recognisable above all by the circular module on the back enclosing the triple camera. Not the lightest (219 grams), it features a 6.81-inch LTPO display that resists water and dust, a Discrete Display chipset to balance fluidity and power consumption, and TÜV Rheinland certification to alleviate eye fatigue. The processor is Snapdragon 8 Gen 2; the battery is 5100 mAh with 66W fast charging and 50W wireless, and MagicOS 7.1 is based on Android 13.
The element Honor has worked on the most is the camera, with a 50MP main lens, an Ultra Wide and the Tele, also 50MP. Millisecond Falcon Capture and AI Motion Sensing Capture facilitate quality photographs, with the former technology useful for speeding up the shutter to prevent blurring and the latter for taking automatic shots when it detects a moving scene. As is the case everywhere, algorithms improve the result by sharpening the image.
In Turkey, for quality shots
To understand the real value of the Magic 5 Pro, I tried it out during a trip to Turkey, with the first stop in Istanbul and the second in Cappadocia, organised by Honor Italy. Immersed in the daily swarm that crowds the two banks of the Bosphorus in the capital, I could admire the double face of the faithful praying under the open sky in every corner of the city. The mosques stormed by tourists, the evocative Taksim Square by night, the scents of the Grand Bazaar in which to lose oneself and the faces of those who struggle or enjoy the mixture between the old city and the more fashionable districts that wink at the western world.
In Cappadocia, one soon learns to keep one’s head upward because one finds oneself in a unique environment, enhanced by a priceless silence compared to the hubbub of the city. Gorges, canyons, alleys, towers, underground cities and cave villages follow one another and leave you with the pleasant feeling of suspended time as you pass from The Fairy Chimneys to the Red and Rose Valley in the open-air museum of Göreme.
In addition to the beauty of the locations, shooting with the Pro mode, in which various parameters can be managed and set, makes the job easier, especially with the stabilised main camera. The results with the portrait mode were good, while more generally, the Honor Magic 5 Pro was convincing with its shooting speed and sharpness of scenes. The battery was surprising, as the phone reacted well in days of intensive use, reaching the end of the day with at least 30 per cent autonomy.
Available in Black and Meadow Green, the 12GB Ram and 512GB storage version smartphones are listed at €1,199, but Honor offers many promotions to save up to €200-300. Even so, it remains a hefty expense, but the quick updates provided in these first weeks on the market show that Honor wants to do things right.
