Honor, a Chinese smartphone brand, has unveiled its latest flagship device, the Honor Magic 6, at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii. The phone features a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, a virtual assistant powered by on-device AI, and a unique eye-tracking feature that lets you open apps using your eyes.
Eye-tracking based multimodal interaction
One of the most intriguing features of the Honor Magic 6 is the eye-tracking based multimodal interaction, or Magic Capsule, as Honor calls it. This feature allows you to interact with the device using your eyes, by changing the direction of your gaze. For example, you can look at a snippet of an app on the screen, such as Uber, and open it in full by just looking at it.
Honor claims that this technology is different from other eye-tracking solutions, as it combines eye movements with other gestures and inputs to create a seamless and natural user experience. Honor did not reveal much details about how this technology works, but it showcased a teaser video featuring a woman using the Magic Capsule feature to open apps on her phone.
On-device generative AI
Another highlight of the Honor Magic 6 is the on-device generative AI, which utilizes the AI capabilities of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor. The phone comes with a virtual assistant that can perform tasks such as creating a video compilation from the videos stored on your device. The assistant can recognize different people and scenes in the videos, and refine the results based on your preferences.
Honor says that the on-device generative AI is different from cloud-based solutions, as it draws from its understanding of the device’s user to provide personalized services. The phone also features a large language model (LLM) with 7 billion parameters, which can generate natural and fluent responses to your queries and commands.
Other specifications and availability
The Honor Magic 6 is expected to have a 6.7-inch OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a quad-camera setup with a 108MP main sensor, a 32MP selfie camera, a 5000mAh battery with 66W fast charging support, and an in-display fingerprint scanner. The phone will run on Android 12 with Honor’s Magic UI skin on top.
Honor has not announced the price and release date of the Honor Magic 6 yet, but Qualcomm says that phones with its new flagship chipset will start arriving in the coming weeks. The phone will likely compete with other premium Android devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S22, OnePlus 10 Pro, and Xiaomi Mi 12.
