Honor has launched the Magic 9, the Magic 9 Pro Max and the Magic 9 Super Edition in Beijing. All three devices are already on sale in China. The Super Edition starts at about USD 670 or KES 87,000. The Magic 9 starts at about USD 740 or KES 97,000, and the Pro Max at about USD 970 or KES 125,000.
There’s no Magic 9 Pro. When we listed the specs two weeks ago, the Pro had already been cut, and Honor launched exactly the three phones we listed. Honor has only confirmed plans to sell the Pro Max outside China so far.
Prices
| Version | China price (CNY) | About USD | About KES |
|---|---|---|---|
| Super Edition, 12GB and 256GB | CNY 4,499 | 670 | 87,000 |
| Super Edition, 12GB and 512GB | CNY 4,999 | 740 | 97,000 |
| Super Edition, 16GB and 512GB | CNY 5,499 | 820 | 106,000 |
| Magic 9, 12GB and 256GB | CNY 4,999 | 740 | 97,000 |
| Magic 9, 12GB and 512GB | CNY 5,499 | 820 | 106,000 |
| Magic 9, 16GB and 512GB | CNY 5,999 | 890 | 116,000 |
| Magic 9, 16GB and 1TB | CNY 6,999 | 1,040 | 135,000 |
| Pro Max, 12GB and 256GB | CNY 6,499 | 970 | 125,000 |
| Pro Max, 12GB and 512GB | CNY 6,999 | 1,040 | 135,000 |
| Pro Max, 16GB and 512GB | CNY 7,499 | 1,120 | 145,000 |
| Pro Max, 16GB and 1TB | CNY 8,499 | 1,260 | 164,000 |
Buyers in China also get the government’s phone subsidy, which takes 15%, up to about USD 70 or KES 9,700, off phones priced at about USD 890, or KES 116,000, or less. Every eligible Magic 9 version gets the full amount off. That brings the cheapest Super Edition to about USD 600 or KES 77,000. No Pro Max qualifies, and neither does the 1TB Magic 9. The Super Edition doesn’t come with 1TB at all.
The Magic 9 costs more than the Magic 8
The Magic 8 launched on 15th October 2025 at about USD 670 or KES 87,000. The same 12GB and 256GB Magic 9 is about USD 70 more, or KES 9,700. At 1TB the gap is about USD 220 or KES 29,000, because the Magic 8 topped out at about USD 820. The USD 670 starting price Honor puts on the series belongs to the new Super Edition, not to the Magic 9.
The Magic 8 Pro started at about USD 850 or KES 110,000, so the Pro Max starts about USD 120 higher, or KES 15,400.
Honor blames costs. Li Jian, Honor’s CEO, told reporters after the launch that every phone maker faces soaring memory and component costs, and that Honor would try not to pass all of that on to buyers. The vivo X500 series went up this month for the same reason, and the Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max each cost about USD 150, or KES 19,300, more than last year’s.
The Magic 9 also has lower charging power than the Magic 8: 80W wired and 50W wireless, down from 90W and 80W.
The three phones, side by side
| Magic 9 | Magic 9 Pro Max | Magic 9 Super Edition | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screen | 6.37in OLED, 120Hz | 6.8in OLED, 1 to 120Hz | 6.81in OLED, 120Hz |
| Chip | Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 3nm | Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, 2nm | Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 3nm |
| Main camera | 200MP, 1/1.4in, f/1.9 | 200MP, 1/1.28in, f/1.57 | 200MP, 1/1.55in, f/1.9 |
| Telephoto | 200MP, 3.5x | 200MP periscope, 3.5x | 50MP, 3x |
| Ultrawide | 50MP | 50MP | 12MP |
| Front camera | 55MP | 55MP plus 3D depth camera | 50MP |
| ARRI colour and video | Yes | Yes | No |
| Battery | 8,000mAh, 25% silicon | 8,800mAh, 40% silicon | 11,000mAh |
| Charging, wired and wireless | 80W and 50W | 100W and 80W | 80W and 50W |
| Thickness and weight | 8.49mm, 209g | 8.59mm, 233g | 8.10mm, 227g |
| Water and dust | IP68, IP69, IP69K | IP68, IP69, IP69K | IP68, IP69, IP69K |
| Unlocking | Fingerprint, face | 3D ultrasonic fingerprint, 3D face | Fingerprint, face |
| Cooling fan | No | No | Yes, 30,000rpm |
| Software | MagicOS 11, Android 17 | MagicOS 11, Android 17 | MagicOS 11, Android 17 |
The Magic 9 and the Pro Max get Honor’s camera partnership with ARRI, the German maker of cinema cameras. The Pro Max works with two clip-on zoom lenses, the G200 and G500, and the Magic 9 takes the G200. We’ve covered the G200 and G500 lenses and their prices in a separate piece.
The Magic 9 Pro Max: what changed from the Magic 8 Pro
| Magic 8 Pro (October 2025) | Magic 9 Pro Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | CNY 5,699 (USD 850, KES 110,000) | CNY 6,499 (USD 970, KES 125,000) |
| Chip | Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 3nm | Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, 2nm |
| Screen | 6.71in, 6,000 nits peak | 6.8in, 10,000 nits peak |
| Main camera | 50MP | 200MP |
| Battery | 7,200mAh | 8,800mAh |
| Wired charging | 120W | 100W |
The chip is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, the faster of the two 2nm chips Qualcomm announced last week. A smaller process number means the transistors are packed closer together, so the chip does more work for the same power. Honor quotes Qualcomm’s lab figures of 13% faster on the processor, 44% on graphics and 35% on AI tasks, all against last year’s 8 Elite Gen 5. The other two Magic 9s still use that older chip.
The Pro Max’s rivals this month are the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max, with the same chip and an 8,500mAh battery, and the vivo X500 Pro Max, with MediaTek’s Dimensity 9600 Pro and 8,000mAh. Both start at about USD 1,040 or KES 135,000. Honor undercuts them by about USD 70, or KES 9,700, and has the biggest battery of the three.
The Pro Max fits 8,800mAh into a body 8.59mm thick because its battery has a silicon content of 40% and an energy density of 1,000Wh per litre. Honor’s page calls the silicon figure industry-leading.
Silicon holds far more lithium than the graphite phone batteries normally use, so the same space holds more charge. The catch is that silicon swells as it charges, and a cell that swells too much cracks itself apart over time. That’s why the percentage creeps up slowly. The Xiaomi 18 Pro is at 32%, and the standard Magic 9 at 25%. Honor hasn’t published cycle life or swelling figures for the new cell. So if you buy a Pro Max, you get about 22% more battery than a Magic 8 Pro had, and we’ll only know how it ages after a year of use.
The Super Edition has a fan inside
Phone chips slow themselves down when they get hot, which is why a game that starts smooth can stutter later in a long session. Almost every phone cools passively, through metal plates and the frame. The Super Edition adds a fan that spins at 30,000rpm. Air comes in at the top and runs through a duct that touches the heat source directly. Honor says the fan improves cooling by 30%, measured against the same phone with the fan switched off.
The RedMagic 3 had a fan back in 2019, but a fan needs an air path through the body, and that’s hard to square with waterproofing. Honor’s own WIN gaming phone managed it in December 2025, with a 25,000rpm fan, a 10,000mAh battery, IP68, IP69 and IP69K ratings and a body 8.3mm thick. The Super Edition goes thinner, at 8.1mm, with a bigger 11,000mAh battery and the same ratings.
Honor hasn’t published how loud the fan is. If you play long sessions, the cheapest Magic 9 is the one built to hold its speed. The trade-offs are an older chip, a weaker ultrawide and no ARRI features.
Also launched: the Watch 6 Pro and MagicPad 4
The Honor Watch 6 Pro starts at about USD 250 or KES 32,800 at first sale. It has a 1.5-inch OLED screen and up to 18 days of battery life. Honor says it’s the first watch to monitor for cardiac arrest, when the heart stops beating. The feature is only open to adults who enrol in a research programme, it isn’t meant for people already flagged as at high risk of sudden cardiac death, and Honor hasn’t published how accurate it is.
The China MagicPad 4 has a first-sale price of about USD 490 or KES 64,000 for 8GB and 256GB. It has a 12.1-inch 165Hz screen, a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 and a 10,100mAh battery, and weighs 537g. As we explained this month, it’s a different tablet from the MagicPad 4 sold outside China.
Join the discussion