The Honor Magic9 Pro Max has a cool new camera feature up its sleeve

Honor has launched its latest flagship smartphone, the Magic9 Pro Max, centered around a triple camera system made in partnership with Arri, a German cinema camera company whose rigs are used to shoot Hollywood films. Honor says the partnership includes real-world image sensor calibration, color management, and live previews with color filters. The camera island is actually based on the three-lens turret of Arriflex cameras from 1937. Two more affordable devices are coming alongside it: the Magic9 and the Magic9 Super Edition, all going on sale from September 28, 2026.

The Magic9 Pro Max sells in China for 6,499 yuan (about $968) for the version with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, but configurations go up to 16GB/1TB. It is available in a range of colors: Shadow Black, Glacier Silver, and Moss Green. Global availability in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia will likely be announced in January 2027, if the Magic8 Pro launch is anything to go by. Honor doesn’t sell phones in the US for national security reasons, so the Magic9 Pro Max joins the long list of Chinese flagship phones you can’t buy in America.

The Magic9 Pro Max comes with a triple camera system on the back. The main snapper uses a 1/1.28-inch sensor with an f/1.57 aperture, optical stabilization, and what Honor calls 3-degree “gimbal-level” stabilization. The 200 MP telephoto lens offers 3.5x optical zoom with a 1/1.4-inch sensor and f/2.6 aperture. This megapixel count should mean that zoom photos look better in poor lighting conditions. The third lens is a 50 MP ultra-wide at f/2.0, and the selfie camera is a 55 MP square front sensor that lets you take photos in vertical or horizontal orientation, just like the one Apple introduced on the iPhone 17.

The cameras are managed by Honor’s new dedicated imaging chip called H1. It’s a 6nm chip that powers features like AI noise reduction on RAW files before regular image processing begins. Honor’s tests claim up to 14 stops of dynamic range, but we’ll have to test how that holds up when we get our hands on the device.

The Arri collaboration is a big deal for videographers. Arri Cinema mode can shoot footage up to 4K at 60fps in 10-bit using the LogC3 curve and Arri Wide Gamut 3. This is a deliberately washed out profile that retains highlight and shadow information for you to note later. The phone comes with 14 Arri Looks (which are essentially filters) preloaded so you can preview color-graded footage as you shoot. A new feature called Cinematic LiveVideo can capture a three-second clip at up to 4K when you hold down the shutter button. However, the 60fps video restriction for Cinema mode is an odd choice considering that the more affordable Magic9 Super Edition can record 4K at 120fps.

Inside the Magic9 Pro Max, you’ll find the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chipset, the most powerful of Qualcomm’s latest mobile chipsets. It makes the most of Qualcomm’s new on-device gaming, video, and AI capabilities. My own tests of devices equipped with the new Snapdragon chip showed that it gets pretty hot. So Honor’s heat management will be very important given that this is a phone that will spend a lot of time operating the camera.

The silicon-carbon battery is rated at 8,800mAh, with 100W wired charging and 80W wireless charging. The display uses a 6.8-inch LTPO OLED panel that Honor rates at 1.5% reflectance thanks to a new anti-glare coating, as well as a peak brightness of 10,000 nits. This brightness claim is the subject of a lot of marketing talk, and while technically true, only 1% of the screen can get that bright at a time. Either way, it should handle direct sunlight just fine. The anti-reflective coating is something you’ll probably notice more during everyday use. The Magic9 Pro Max’s dust and water resistance ratings cover IP68, IP69, and IP69K, meaning it can withstand immersion, high-pressure water, and hot water.

The Magic9 Pro Max offers an aluminum unibody design and features a raised camera section like Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro. Honor claims to have raised the camera module to prevent your fingers from entering the frame while filming. It comes with the company’s MagicOS 11 software, which runs on Android 17. That means it offers a few Honor-exclusive features, such as the company’s YOYO AI Assistant, one-touch highlight clips extracted from longer videos, and file transfer with iOS, macOS, Android, and Windows machines.

Alongside the Magic9 Pro Max, Honor has launched two more affordable handsets. The standard Magic9 is the most compact of the three, featuring a 6.37-inch 120Hz OLED display with a resolution of 1,236 x 2,664. It’s slightly smaller than the 6.58-inch panel on last year’s model, which is great news for anyone who likes smaller handsets, as there aren’t many to choose from in 2026. Despite its size, Honor still managed to insert an 8,000 mAh battery with 80W wired charging and 50W wireless charging. It offers a similar camera system to the Pro Max, with a 200 MP main snapper on a 1/1.4-inch sensor with an f/1.9 lens, a 200 MP periscope telephoto lens on a 1/1.56-inch sensor, plus a 50 MP ultra-wide and the same selfie camera 55 MP square. The Magic9 starts at 5,000 yuan in China, or about $745.

The Super Edition focuses more on battery life than the camera system. It offers a 6.81-inch screen and an 11,000 mAh battery, even larger than that of the Magic9 Pro Max. Honor has managed to fit this into an 8.1 millimeter thick, 227g body, and while it’s not one of the thinnest phones on the market, it’s impressive nonetheless. Cooling the device is provided by a steam chamber and a 30,000 RPM fan, which can move 12W of heat. This may be overkill for this handset since the Magic9 and Super Edition pack last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, but I hope Honor uses a similar cooling system in the Pro Max. It offers a 200 MP main camera on a smaller 1/1.55-inch sensor, a 50 MP 3x telephoto lens, and a 12 MP ultra-wide. The Super Edition starts at 4,500 yuan, or about $670.