BARCELONA (Pocket-lint) – Since its return after separation from Huawei, Honor has been busy. So busy, in fact, that it’s launched two flagship devices in the space of six months: the Honor Magic 3 and Magic 4 series.
With such little time between their respective launches, however, can you expect much of a difference between these handsets? There are some, but it’s not a major overhaul. Here we’ll detail the key spec differences between the Magic 3 and Magic 4 series.
Design
- Magic 3 series: Magic 3, Magic 3 Pro, Magic 3 Pro+
- Magic 4 series: Magic 4, Magic 4 Pro
- Magic 3, 3 Pro weight: 202g
- Magic 4, 4 Pro weight: 199g / 215g
- Magic 3 & 4: IP54 / 3 Pro & 4 Pro: IP68
- Magic 3 & Pro: Golden Hour, White, Black
- Magic 4 series: Cyan, Gold, White, Black
- Magic 4 Pro only: Black (Glass Shield), Orange (PU)
While the Magic 3 came in three flavours – standard, Pro and Pro+ – the Magic 4 keeps things simpler, arriving as a duo in standard and Pro forms only. We’ll be excluding the Pro+ model from here on out, to keep things simpler.
Visually the Magic 3 and 4 series are otherwise much the same. It’s the finishes where there are some differences, however, with the 4 Pro offering a glass shield in black and an orange PU option.
Display
- Magic 3 series: 6.67-inch OLED, 2772 x 1344 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate
- ‘Flex OLED’ panel, 89-degree curved side edges
- Magic 4 series: 6.81-inch OLED, 2664 x 1224 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate
There’s no difference between the standard and Pro models in terms of front-on scale, respective to each series.
The Magic 3 series is a slightly different size to the Magic 4 series on account of its differing screen size, though, but again it’s only marginal.
All devices across the generations feature a curved-edge screen, it’s just ever so slightly less in the more recent Magic 4 series.
Hardware
- Magic 3: Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 / 3 Pro: Qualcomm Snapdragon 888+
- Magic 4 series: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1
- Magic 3: 4600mAh battery, 66W fast-charging
- Magic 3 Pro: adds 66W wireless charging
- Magic 4: 4800mAh, 66W fast-charging
- Magic 4 Pro: 4500mAh, 100W fast-charging, 100W wireless charging
With a new generation comes new hardware, the Magic 4 series squeezing in Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 compared to the outgoing Snapdragon 888 series of the Magic 3. It’s a fairly marginal difference, though.
Neither Magic 3 or Magic 4 offer wireless charging. The 3 Pro does, at 66W, which is very quick for wireless. However, the 4 Pro trumps that with super-fast 100W wireless charging – the fastest non-wired charging we’ve seen to date.
Cameras
- Magic 3 & Pro: 50MP main, 13MP wide / Magic 4 series: 50MP main, 50MP wide
- Magic 3 Pro: 64MP (4x zoom) / Magic 4: 8MP (5x zoom) / Magic 4 Pro: 64MP (3.5x zoom)
- Magic 3 Pro & 4 Pro: Dual front-facing cameras / Magic 3 & 4: Single front-facing
- Magic 3 series only: 64MP monochrome rear camera
The Magic 3 is a triple camera setup, lacking any kind of zoom lens. It actually features a monochrome camera instead, which we suspect is more-or-less useless.
It’s a goob job, then, that the Magic 4 series ditches that monochrome camera and brings in zoom: the standard model offers an 8MP sensor with 5x optical, while the 4 Pro upgrades that the a 64MP sensor with 3.5x zoom (yes, oddly it’s less – but similar to the 3 Pro’s 4x optical zoom).
The Pro models in both series offer dual front-facing cameras, whereas the standard models both stick with a single punch-hole instead. We would prefer all to go simpler with the single, really, as the pill-shaped cutout for a dual camera is too distracting in our view.
Conclusion
- Pricing & release date: TBC
Despite it being months since the Magic 3’s announcement it’s still not available to international markets. Honor says it is still coming, but as it’s on last-gen hardware now, unless the price is spectacularly different, the Magic 4 series is the more obvious option to buy. When that will arrive, however, is still to be confirmed, as is pricing.
Writing by Mike Lowe.
