Honor Magic4 Ultimate unveiled with huge 1/1.12" sensor, custom ISP

The Honor Magic4 series was announced for the global market in February, ahead of the announcement for the domestic market. That came today and it was worth waiting for since the company unveiled one more model – the top of the line Honor Magic 4 Ultimate Edition.

This builds on the Magic4 Pro by upgrading the camera hardware. The Ultimate model has a massive 1/1.12” sensor (up from 1/1.56”) in the main, but keeps the resolution at 50 MP. The larger 1.4 µm pixels (2.8 µm with binning) are combined with an improved lens – an 8P design with an f/1.6 aperture (vs. f/1.8). The lens is also sharper in the center (+37%) and in the edges (+30%).

The Ultimate edition camera is so good it can rival cameras with 1” sensors and f/1.8 lenses, says Honor. DXOMark tested the phone and awarded it 146 points, topping the previous leader, Huawei P50 Pro, by 2 points.

The ultra wide-angle camera also gets a boost with a new larger, sharper 1/2” 64 MP sensor (up from 1/2.5” 50 MP), the lens is slightly wider at 126° (up from 122°). This 7P lens has an f/2.2 aperture and also features special coatings. Also on board is a new 50 MP spectrum enhanced camera, which made its debut on the Honor Magic V.

The rest of the camera hardware is mostly unchanged, including the 64 MP telephoto camera (1/2” sensor) with a 90 mm lens with OIS (3.5x optical magnification). Then there’s the 8x8 dToF sensor and an 8-channel sensor that detects the color temperature of ambient light and any flicker from artificial lighting. The selfie camera uses the same 12 MP sensor and 100° wide lens, next to it is a 3D depth sensor for face recognition.

More details on the camera, you'll have to zoom in as there's a lot of info

The beefed up cameras are supported by a custom image processor, designed specifically for this phone. It offers 28.8 TOPS peak performance with a power efficiency of 13.4 TOPS per Watt. It processes imagery from the camera in 20-bits per channel and offers 4K night mode with live preview.

The new custom ISP chip enables Magic-Log2 video recording and 3D LUT support

The ISP introduces support for the so-called Magic-Log2 video format that offers 15% higher dynamic range. It also supports 3D LUTS and is fast enough to record 4K video at 60 fps in a 10-bit Log format.

Camera hardware aside, the Honor Magic4 Ultimate Edition follows the Magic4 Pro recipe. It is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, which is equipped with 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB storage. It runs Android 12 with Magic UI 6.0.

The display is the large 6.81” LTPO OLED panel from the Pro. It has 1,312 x 2,848 px resolution and boasts a high frequency PWM dimming at 1,920 Hz. Thanks to LTPO, the refresh rate can range from 120 Hz to just 1 Hz. The display was also tested by DXOMark and it was given 95 points, placing it in third place behind the iPhone 13 Pro Max and Pro (with 99 and 98 points, respectively).

The battery capacity is 4,600 mAh (same as on the Pro) and it supports 100W fast wired charging. Wireless charging is 50W (down from 100W on the Pro).

The Honor Magic4 Ultimate Edition will be available in China later this year at a price of CNY 8,000 ($1,260/€1,140/₹95,600). It will be available in Black and White.

Prices and launch dates for the Honor Magic4 series

The Magic4 Pro will launch on April 2 starting at CNY 5,500 ($865/€785/₹65,700) for the 8/256 GB unit. The vanilla Honor Magic4 will arrive first (March 25 in China) with a starting price of CNY 4,000 ($630/€570/₹47,800).

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