More than half a month after the release of MWC 2022, Honor finally held a press conference in China and released the annual flagship - Honor Magic4 series.
Although from the appearance point of view, the Honor Magic4 series is not much different from the previous generation, and also adopts a symmetrical aesthetic and a muse eye design. However, from the perspective of configuration performance and product concept, the Honor Magic4 series is fundamentally different from the previous generation.
If the Magic3 series is only a test of glory in the high-end market after its independence, then the Magic4 series can be called the culmination of glory in the high-end market.
As Zhao Ming said: "For high-end and business people, the Magic4 series we brought this time is to meet the needs of consumers for smartphones in an all-round way." "It is foreseeable that the Magic4 series will be a force to be reckoned with in the high-end smartphone market in 2022.
The smartphone industry can no longer win by stacking materials
On the one hand, the glory impact on the high-end has the shackles brought about by the inherent cognition of the brand, but what is more difficult is that the Android mobile phone supply chain is extremely mature, resulting in a high degree of homogenization of products, and it is difficult to create absolute differentiation in hardware.
Taking the processor as an example, unlike Apple's self-produced and self-sold A series, the high-end processors that can be selected in the Android market are only a few models such as the new generation Snapdragon 8 and Tianji 9000.
From the perspective of the market, with the release of the production capacity of the new generation of Snapdragon 8, in the past six months, Xiaomi 12, OnePlus 10 Pro and other products have adopted this processor. This also makes the performance of Android flagship phones almost in the same dimension, and it is difficult to form a brand premium through the processor like the 2022 iPhone SE.
Similar to the processor, the camera is the same reason, because Sony almost monopolized the industrial chain of high-end camera sensors, so smartphone manufacturers can almost only choose Sony's sensor.
For example, Sony released the IMX766 in December 2020, and subsequently, the flagship products of OPPO, True Self, OnePlus and other manufacturers have adopted this sensor. Even the Xiaomi Mi 12, released in late 2021, uses the IMX766.
The "convergence" characteristics of this upstream industry chain determine that smart phone manufacturers can no longer rely on simple stacking to impact the high-end, because this cannot form a moat in the absolute sense. For example, although the Xiaomi Mi 12 Pro debuted the Sony IMX707, Sony also needs to make money through scale, so with the large-scale listing of the IMX707 mobile phone, the "launch" significance of the Xiaomi Mi 12 Pro will continue to be weakened.
An all-round flagship with core competitiveness
Although the Honor Magic4 series is also the result of the supply chain to some extent, unlike the flagship products in the general sense, Honor has intended to compete head-on with Apple.
Zhao Ming said: "This time the glory Magic4 series was released, in terms of scientific and technological innovation, in the big concept of pain point terminator, the entire definition of the product was developed and the performance performance developed was considered to be successful. At the same time, in terms of product pricing, it is also the management and trading team of Honor who has repeatedly discussed and made this determination during this time, in fact, it is still necessary to show that it is really possible to change the situation of Apple's dominance in the high-end market. ”
The reason why dare to compete with Apple is mainly because in addition to occupying the opportunity of the industry chain, the Magic4 series also has technical advantages and performance performance that are difficult to match with other flagship smartphones.
Taking performance as an example, honor magic4 Pro is equipped with the main configuration specifications of the new Snapdragon 8+LPDDR5+UFS 3.1. This configuration doesn't look much different from other smartphones. But the specific performance is very amazing.
According to our specific tests, magic4 Pro ran Honor of Kings on medium load, tested the ambient room temperature of 25 degrees, turned on the limit frame rate, ultra-high resolution, HD image quality, and turned on anti-aliasing.
The average frame rate of the 30-minute game is 114.8 frames, the overall operation is very stable, the frame rate curve fluctuates between 110-120 frames with a very small range, and the visual stutter is definitely not. The temperature control is good, and the maximum temperature of the fuselage surface is 42.8 degrees.
This is mainly because, with the support of GPU Turbo X and AI super rendering technology, Honor Magic4 Pro can improve the computational efficiency of SOC and consume less power; the graphics processing algorithm based on deep learning further reduces the total load of graphics processing between GPUs, NPU and CPU, so that the load of GPU, NPU and CPU is more balanced, and under the premise of ensuring game image quality, it is once again improved and performance is reduced.
Zhao Ming said frankly: "Qualcomm CEO Mr. An meng and their executives for the honor Magic4, they believe that today's Magic4 series is a real release of this generation of Snapdragon 8Gen1. ”
In fact, performance is only one aspect of the honor Magic4 series that performs well - the Magic4 series has technical advantages that are difficult to match in terms of camera, screen, battery life, etc.
Taking taking photography as an example, from the configuration point of view, honor Magic4 Pro is equipped with a 50-megapixel IMX766 main camera + 50-megapixel ultra-wide angle + 64-megapixel telephoto lens. It really touched the peak of the flagship camera performance.
What is more rare is that in the focal section that the telephoto lens cannot cover, the Magic4 Pro's full focal length fusion scene function can take pictures through the fusion of different lenses, which greatly improves the photo clarity of the full focal length.
For example, in the focal area that the 3.3 times periscope telephoto lens cannot cover, the Honor Magic4 Pro improves the clarity in the photo through fusion technology, whether it is the sharpness or recognizability of the long-range handwriting, it is far more than another flagship machine.
In this regard, Zhao Ming said: "Let the glory Magic4 image present the industry's top camera capabilities, we say break the ceiling of photography and video, leading the development of images, I think from magic4 everyone can see the ability of glory." ”
Honor wins in the insight of consumer needs
The reason why it is the same product spawned by the supply chain, Honor Magic4 can bring technical performance that is difficult for other products to achieve, mainly because Glory adheres to the strategy of demand and technological coordinated development.
Zhao Ming revealed: "Honor has always adhered to the ultimate productism of consumer demand and scientific and technological innovation", how to continuously make innovation and technological breakthroughs in meeting consumer demand, these aspects are the focus of Glory.
According to the 2021 Insight Report on the Security Needs of Chinese Smartphone Users, smartphone users are generally concerned about security and privacy issues. Among them, about 80% of them set or adopted security protection measures in daily life, and only 32% expressed satisfaction, and there is still a lot of room for improving the protection experience of security and privacy.
In this regard, Honor Magic4 Pro and Honor Magic4 Edition are equipped with the industry's first smart privacy call function, which solves the pain point of many users answering the phone, which is based on the dual-unit intelligent collaborative sound technology pioneered by Honor, using software and hardware combined with patented technology, and works collaboratively through dual units.
In this regard, Zhao Ming said: "Our privacy function, it is a full range of privacy protection, there is a professional privacy memory chip, for our personal information, root for a full range of protection, even if you brush the machine, or root alone to take out, can not be identified." ”
On the one hand, Honor's technical strength undertaken by Huawei is not bad, on the other hand, Honor is extremely concerned about the needs of consumers. Because of this, Honor actually touched the pulse of smartphone evolution.
The performance of this product is that although the same supply chain is adopted, the product of glory has a certain room for elevation. From this point of view, Apple's real challenger has finally arrived.