Honor Magic9 and Magic9 Super Edition announced

Honor is unveiling three new flagship models today – the Pro Max is covered in a separate article, here we will look at the Magic9 and the Magic9 Super Edition.

The Honor Magic9 is a relatively small (6.37” display) camera powerhouse with a large 8,000mAh battery. The Honor Magic9 Super Edition brings an even bigger 11,000mAh battery (and has a 6.81” screen), but its most interesting feature may be the 30,000 rpm active cooling fan.

Honor Magic9

The Honor Magic 9 is built around a 6.37” display. This is smaller than the 6.58” display of the previous vanilla model, the Magic8. However, Honor managed to pack an even bigger battery in here – the 8,000mAh power pack is 1,000mAh bigger than its predecessor and supports 80W fast wired charging (with 27W reverse) and 50W fast wireless charging.

Honor Magic9

Going back to the display, it’s a 6.37” OLED panel with 1,236 x 2,664px resolution and 120Hz refresh rate (it is not an LTPO display). It renders 10-bit colors with HDR and Dolby Vision support. The display has a peak global brightness of 2,000 nits. Its brightness is controlled via 3,840Hz high-frequency PWM and can go down to 1 nit.

The Honor Magic9 has a 6.37” display and an 8,000mAh battery

The Magic9 boasts a 200MP main camera with a large 1/1.4” sensor. The lens has an f/1.9 aperture and CIPA 7.5 stabilization. This is joined by a 200MP (1/1.56”) periscope with a dual-prism design and similarly impressive stabilization capabilities at CIPA 7.5. There’s also a 50MP ultra-wide camera (f/2.0 lens) and a 55MP selfie camera with a square 1:1 sensor (1/2.74”, f/2.0 lens).

You must have seen the Arri labels already – Honor worked with the German builder of cinema cameras to develop and improve the cameras on the Magic9 series. The company also included the Honor H1, a self-developed imaging chip that delivers 18.8 TOPS per watt of AI performance. This chip is tasked with noise reduction and other image processing duties.

The Magic9 has a 200MP main camera and supports the G200 teleconverter

Also, this time everyone gets to join in on the teleconverter fun – the Honor Magic9 is compatible with the G200 lens.

The Honor Magic9 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 – yes, this is last year’s chip and the same one that was featured on the Magic8. On this model it is paired with 12GB-16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB-1TB storage.

The Honor Magic9 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and the Honor H1 imaging chip

Honor advertises improved AI features (calendar, recorder, notes, file management) with its Yoyo AI. The phone is also fully integrated with the Apple ecosystem and you can wear an Apple Watch with it – and if you have an iPhone alongside the Magic9, the Honor phone will show a notification when the iPhone is ringing. If you are switching from another brand – Apple, Oppo, vivo or Xiaomi – there is an easy file transfer system to help you set up your new Magic9 with one tap.

The phone is rated IP68 (submersion), IP69 (high-pressure water jets), IP69K (same but with hot water). It is available in Black, Olive Green, Yellow and White.

The Honor Magic9 is currently on pre-order in China. The base 12GB/256GB model costs CNY 5,000. Honor hasn’t confirmed the details of the global launch yet, but the Chinese price converts to $745 / £560 / €655 / ₹71,500. There are also 12GB/512GB, 16GB/512GB and 16GB/1TB variants.

Honor Magic9 Super Edition

The Honor Magic9 Super Edition is a large phone with a 6.81” display. This isn’t the same panel as on the Magic9 Pro Max, though. It has 1,280 x 2,788px resolution, 120Hz refresh rate (LTPS) and 10-bit colors with HDR support (but no Dolby Vision). The display has a peak global brightness of 2,000 nits.

The Honor Magic9 Super Edition has a 6.81” screen and an 11,000mAh battery

The Super Edition is equipped with an 11,000mAh battery – this is bigger than even the Pro Max battery (8,800mAh). This is tied with two others for the biggest battery on an Honor phone. Anyway, it supports 80W wired charging, 27W reverse wired charging and 50W wireless charging (wireless power sharing is an option too).

Honor Magic9 Super Edition

Despite its massive power pack, the Super Edition measures only 8.1mm thick and weighs 227g. That’s not much more than the 6.37” Magic9, which weighs 209g (and is 8.5mm thick).

Aside from its impressive battery, the Super Edition is more of a “middle of the pack” flagship. It is powered by the same Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Honor configured the phone with 12GB-16GB of RAM (LPDDR5X) and 256GB-1TB of storage.

The Honor Magic9 Super Edition has an actively-cooled Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

For sustained performance, Honor put a large vapor chamber over the chipset and added an active cooling fan – together, they can dissipate 12W of heat. The fan spins at 30,000 rpm and has 30% better heat dissipation thanks to its ducted design.

The main camera has a 200MP sensor, but at 1/1.55”, it is smaller than the Magic9 sensor. It is paired with a 50MP 3x telephoto lens (f/2.4) and a 12MP ultra-wide (f/2.4 AF lens). The selfie camera has a 50MP rectangular sensor with an f/2.0 90° lens. The rear camera can record 4K video at 120fps, while the front one tops out at 4K at 60fps.

Like its smaller sibling, the Honor Magic9 Super Edition uses the Honor H1 image processing chip and supports the G200 teleconverter.

The Super Edition has a 200+50+12MP camera and supports the G200 teleconverter

The Super Edition model comes in the same color palette as the Magic9: Black, Olive Green, Yellow and White.

The Honor Magic9 Super Edition is on pre-order in China. The base 12GB/256GB model has a CNY 4,500 price tag – $670 / £505 / €590 / ₹64,000.

Also, here’s a look at the pricing of some of the accessories. Note that most are compatible only with the Pro Max – the G200 is the one to look at if you want the Magic9 or Magic9 Super Edition.