Honor Magic 3 series launched with Snapdragon 888+, 50MP cameras and GMS included

Honor had just only launched the Honor 50 series back in late June but are now already announcing a new lineup of flagship phones: the Honor Magic 3, Honor Magic 3 Pro, and Honor Magic 3 Pro Plus.

Honor Magic 3

The Honor Magic 3 may be the grunt of the litter, but it still has some very solid specs. Underneath you’ll find a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 system-on-chip that’s paired with 8GB of RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of storage. It comes with the Magic UI 5 skin over Android 11, and would have Google apps and services when it eventually launches globally.

As for the screen, it gets a 6.76-inch OLED display with 89-degree curves on the sides of the screen. You get a 1344 x 2772 pixels resolution with support for HDR10+ as well as a 120Hz refresh rate. It all gets housed in a body with either a vegan leather back or a glass back. The Honor Magic 3 also has an IP54 rating for dust and water resistance.

Furthermore, you get a triple-camera setup on the Honor Magic 3, with a 50MP main shooter using the Sony IMX766 sensor. It gets flanked by a 64MP monochrome camera as well as a 13MP ultra wide angle lens. The front of the device meanwhile gets a 13MP wide selfie camera that features an AI wide-angle selfie mode.

Other features of note include a 4,600 mAh battery with 66W fast charging. While there’s no 3.5mm audio jack, you do get stereo speakers as well as a triple-mic setup. Additionally, it has support for WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 and NFC. There will be four different colourways for the Honor Magic 3, with the vegan leather models coming in Golden Hour and Blue Hour while the glass back models come in black or white.

Honor Magic 3 Pro

The Honor Magic 3 Pro is mostly similar to the Honor Magic 3, but offers some choice improvements over the base model.

For starters, Honor has upgraded it to a quad-camera setup, with the same 50MP main sensor, 64MP monochrome camera and 13MP ultra wide angle lens along with an additional 64MP telephoto lens. This extra telephoto lens is capable of 3.5x optical zoom, 10x hybrid zoom and up to 100x digital zoom. The Honor Magic 3 Pro also gets optical image stabilisation, while the Honor Magic 3 only has electronic image stabilisation. There’s also an extra ‘super night mode’ feature for shooting video.

You also get the beefier Snapdragon 888+ system-on-chip in the Honor Magic 3 Pro. Furthermore, while the Honor Magic 3 is limited to just 8GB of RAM, you can get either that or 12GB of RAM on the Honor Magic 3 Pro, along with either 256GB or 512GB of storage. Then there’s also 50W wireless charging as well as reverse charging functionality on the Honor Magic 3 Pro, both missing from the base model. The water and dust resistance rating has also been bumped up to IP68.

Otherwise though, it’s pretty much the same elsewhere: 6.76-inch OLED Display with 120Hz refresh rate, 4,600mAh battery with 66W wired fast charging, stereo speakers as well as vegan leather and glass back options too. That being said, the Honor Magic 3 Pro is limited to just a Golden Hour colourway for the vegan leather back model, while the glass back model will still get both black and white variants.

Honor Magic 3 Pro Plus

The Honor Magic 3 Pro Plus on the other hand features quite a number of upgrades over the Honor Magic 3 Pro. While the display is the same 6.76-inch OLED display with the curved sides and 120Hz refresh rate, the body itself no longer has either the vegan leather or the glass back. Instead, Honor has tricked out the Honor Magic 3 Pro Plus with a nano ceramic frame that comes in either black or white.

Seeing as the Snapdragon 888+ is the best Android mobile system-on-chip out there right now, there’s not much to upgrade there. That being said, it comes in just one SKU this time, paired with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. But the really major upgrades though are in the camera department.

While the Honor Magic 3 Pro Plus still technically has a quad-camera setup, the main 50MP shooter has a bigger sensor thanks to the use of a Sony IMX700 image sensor instead of the Sony IMX766 in its other two siblings. This gets matched with another three 64MP cameras: one monochrome camera, one ultra wide camera and one telephoto camera.

You again get OIS here while the ‘super night mode’ feature now also gets AI image stabilisation too. As for the front camera, Honor has put the same 13MP selfie camera here.

Other than that, it’s again mostly the same as the Honor Magic 3 Pro. A 4,600mAh battery with 66W wired fast charging and 50W wireless charging, IP68 water and dust resistance, reverse charging and stereo speakers.

Pricing and availability

Honor has stated that for the time being, these devices will only be available in China. However, they will be making it available elsewhere globally at a later date. In the meantime, here’s the pricing for the Honor Magic 3 Pro.

Honor Magic 3, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage — RMB 4,599 (~RM3,007.21)

Honor Magic 3, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage — RMB 4,999 (~RM3,268.76)

Honor Magic 3 Pro, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage — RMB 5,999 (~RM3,922.64)

Honor Magic 3 Pro, 12GB RAM, 256GB storage — RMB 6,299 (~RM4,118.81)

Honor Magic 3 Pro, 12GB RAM, 512GB storage — RMB 6,799 (~RM4,445.75)

Honor Magic 3 Pro Plus, 12GB RAM, 512GB storage — RMB 7,999 (~RM5,230.41)

Overall, compared to the previous Honor 50 series, the Honor Magic 3 lineup offers some serious hardware, marking a return for Honor to the flagship smartphone sector. If they do launch it outside of China, it ought to be able to go up against the likes of the OnePlus 9 and Mi 11 at the top end of the market. That being said, the design of the Honor Magic 3, especially the Honor Magic 3 Pro Plus, will probably take a while to get accustomed to.

For more information on the Honor Magic 3 lineup, you can check out its product page on Honor’s website.