An iPhone Pro with a better camera? Honor Magic 9 is official: A Practical Look

Honor has announced the launch of its next flagship Magic 9 smartphone series, as well as giving us a good look at its striking new design.

The Chinese manufacturer has published the news that the Honor Magic 9 series will be announced in Beijing on 29 September.

We also got confirmation from this Weibo post, if any were needed, that Honor’s partnership with German video camera specialist Arri would form a core part of the package.

That last fact is in full display in the accompanying image, as well as on the Chinese pre-order web page, both of which offer a full look at the Honor Magic 9’s design.

Honor

Honor Magic 9 design

The first thing to note is the colour. Sporting a bold Moss Green finish, this one’s going to stand out in a crowd.

There’s less excitement regarding the phone’s basic shape, which seems to have taken a large step away from the Honor Magic 8 Pro and towards the iPhone 17 Pro (and now the iPhone 18 Pro).

The lines, the two-tone effect of the glass panel, the shape of the camera module platform – it’s all very familiar.

There’s a noteworthy difference, however, in the camera components themselves. The telephoto camera – set to be a meaty 200Mp 1/1.4-inch unit – is the dominant lens here, taking up much of the space with a large, circular, black segment surrounded by ridged metal.

There effect is very evocative of a classic camera, as it’s clearly intended to be. Talking of which, we also get a picture of the phone with its optional 500mm and 200mm teleconverter kits.

The other two sensors occupy the right side of the Honor Magic 9, and are set to include a 200MP 1/1.28-inch main camera.

What we don’t know, of course, is whether Honor has managed to clean up its software act with MagicOS 11, which will be revealed next week.