Phones
How the HONOR Magic 4 Pro was made: Behind the scenes with HONOR
HONOR recently revealed its proprietary technology behind manufacturing the HONOR Magic 4 Pro premium smartphone. HONOR allowed us, and several other media members, to get a closer look at its HONOR Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park in Shenzen. During the interview, HONOR revealed its manufacturing capabilities and showed how it delivers cutting-edge innovation.
Before we get started, you might want to find out more about the devices that we’re going to talk about in this article. The HONOR Magic 4 and Magic 4 Pro were announced at MWC 2022. The Magic 4 Pro comes with a few industry-first innovations, such as the 100W HONOR Wireless Supercharge technology that can wirelessly charge up the device to 50% in just 15 minutes.
Opening the HONOR Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park was a significant milestone for the company, and George Zhao, CEO of HONOR, had this to say:
“The opening of the HONOR Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park last year was a significant milestone of our success in integrating our R&D capabilities into our manufacturing processes. The consolidation allows us to better harness our expertise across both fields, […] “In addition to bolstering our manufacturing capacities, the smart-manufacturing facility houses world-class production, testing and quality control equipment that ensures our premium products live up to our customers’ high expectations.”
R&D and Manufacturing
The HONOR Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park opened its door in September 2021, and it’s the company’s first self-funded factory. The factory is equipped with “cutting-edge” manufacturing and testing facilities, and it has all of the tooling, materials, and other equipment required to put together smartphones. The company also shared that 20% of its staff is assigned to work in R&D (Research and Development) to develop new technologies and equipment to manufacture devices.
The Park is highly automated and digitalized. As a fun fact, HONOR shared that 75% of its production line is automated and fully autonomous to minimize the risk of human error. Additionally, more than 40% of the automated production equipment is developed by HONOR itself. The company also shared that it’s not planning on getting rid of human workers. HONOR wants to “pursue the most suitable combination with automated and human workers for the best quality.”
When it comes to numbers, HONOR didn’t disclose how many people are working at its Park, but it shared that 20% of the employees are allocated in the R&D department and that each production line has 24 people assigned to produce smartphones.
The park also houses multiple laboratories where HONOR tests over 200 reliability tests on the HONOR Magic 4 Pro to ensure it meets industry high standards and HONOR’s stringent expectations. The reliability tests include friction tests, short-distance drop tests, durability testing, crush, and soft pressure tests, high temperature, humidity, water testing, and many more.
Manufacturing devices
We also had a chance to directly ask HONOR about how long it takes to manufacture a single HONOR Magic 4 Pro smartphone. HONOR disclosed that there are more than 100 steps in the manufacturing process to produce a single unit, using the highly automated production line. On average, it takes about two days to complete a device.
Manufacturing challenges
Manufacturing the HONOR Magic 4 Pro also comes with a wide variety of challenges, and it’s not as easy as putting a device into the oven, and taking it out two days later as a finished product. HONOR broke down the main culprits into three technical challenges.
- “First is the Multi-camera fusion photography testing equipment that we need to develop for all focal ranges. The second one is the AI privacy call feature that requires high precision mounting. The other one is for the 3D Quad-Curved LTPO screen assembly.
- For example. for the multi-camera fusion technology, we need to make sure we provide the best quality in imaging. That’s why we doubled the testing equipment so we can calibrate any two of the cameras and we can calibrate them 100%. Secondly we have developed our automated testing system and technology to make sure the results are consistent.
- Thirdly, our testing system can collect more than 300 types of parameters on the go using big data analytics. Then we can identify any deviation in real-time and provide alert, so as to make sure the entire process is more precise so that eventually the consumers will have the best experience with the image.”
Sustainability & Environmentally friendly materials
HONOR shared that it’s aware of its carbon footprint and it’s using environmentally friendly materials to cut down on carbon dioxide emissions. The company shared that it’s “always exploring new possibilities using new materials.”
- “For instance, we’re using green packaging material to make sure they are light weighted. They are reduced in size and they’re environmentally friendly using recyclable resources. For all the packaging material for Magic 3 and 4，we have chosen to use wasted sugarcane as the raw material for the tray, replacing the conventional plastic trays, hugely reducing carbon dioxide emission. Our chargers and cables are using paper film instead of plastic ones, which is not used by most of our competitors.
- And for all the packaging material and manuals, we use soybean ink to print, instead of non-renewable traditional petroleum-based ink, and we’ve reduced carbon dioxide emission by 80 tons.”
Display assembly
The display assembly is also a challenging process, and it’s one of the most expensive components on a modern smartphone. HONOR uses six-axis robotic arms and several high precision cameras to mount the panel with an accuracy range of ±0.075mm, which outputs products with a low manufacturing tolerance of 0.1mm.
What is AI Privacy Call?
When you listen to a phone call, the sound goes in all directions, making it impossible to have a private conversation when you’re out in public in a closed environment, such as an elevator, small room, or restaurant. That’s where the AI Privacy Call comes into play. It lets users turn on the feature, enabling the sound to focus on the owner’s ear in one direction. This reduces sound leakage, making it difficult for others nearby to listen in on the calls and hear the person on the other end.
How does it work?
To develop AI Privacy Call, HONOR made an Intelligent Dual Sound-Emitting Unit, which includes a bone conduction component using piezoelectric ceramics that’s mounted directly to the display. Due to the brittle display, it requires extreme precision, as even a tiny mistake could cost the entire panel, which isn’t cheap, to begin with. HONOR tells us the R&D team overcame the challenge in about three months. It created an automated, high-precision mounting equipment to accurately and precisely mount the tool. It uses computer software and optimized algorithms to achieve an accuracy of 0.01 mm and a yield of 99.99%.
Ultra-Fusion Computational Photography
HONOR also took extra time to talk about the triple camera setup, including the Ultra-Fusion Computational Photography technology. The technology involves using all of the camera sensors simultaneously, fusing the images together to improve the final result. This allows the small sensor to capture more data, which yields a higher-quality image. This also prevents companies such as HONOR from using larger sensors, saving space for other essential components.
The new technology required HONOR to double its camera calibration equipment. The new system provides many additional benefits, such as improved calibration and testing procedures. It uses enhanced AI algorithms to deliver more detailed images across the supported focal range.
HONOR Magic 4 Pro
HONOR Magic 4 Pro is the latest flagship smartphone from the company. It comes with all the high-end specs, including Snapdragon 8 Gen1, 50MP triple-camera, and 100W wired and wireless charging.
Smartphone companies are announcing their new foldable flagship devices left and right. On August 10, Samsung unveiled the new Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4. Motorola also unveiled the new RAZR 2022 flip phone, and Xiaomi revealed its latest Mix Fold 2 foldable device.
In my last post, I explained why I can justify spending $1,799.99 on the latest Galaxy Z Fold 4. However, suppose you’ve seen the specifications and the technology inside the Xiaomi Mix Fold 2. In that case, you may have been tempted to pick that up instead, as it seems to be better than Samsung’s latest offering.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, here’s a quick summary of the specifications of the Xiaomi Mix Fold 2. The device features the same foldable form factor as the Galaxy Z Fold 4, and it has a 6.52-inch AMOLED cover display with 120Hz refresh rate and a comfortable 21:9 aspect ratio – which is even closer to a traditional smartphone than the Fold 4. The inner screen measures at 8.02-inches, and it’s an LTPO 2.0 OLED display, supporting 120Hz adaptive refresh rate with HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and 1,300 nits peak brightness. The screen also features UTG (Ultra Thin Glass) technology, like previous foldables, and it can fold flat, unlike the Galaxy Fold 4.
The phone measures 5.4mm when unfolded, and just 11.2mm when folded. For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Fold 4 measured 6.3mm and 15.8mm respectively. The Mix Fold 2 is much closer to a traditional smartphone with a beefy battery, while the Galaxy is still somewhat of a brick.
The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, coupled with 12GB of RAM and 256/512GB and 1TB storage, the same as the Fold 4. The camera department is also rather familiar, as the Mix Fold 2 packs a similar 50MP, IMX766, f/1.8 sensor, alongside an 8MP f/2.6 telephoto with 2x optical zoom, and a 13MP f/2.4 ultrawide. On top of that, Xiaomi also partnered up with Leica to optimize the camera sensors, and there are additional filters to achieve a complete Leica look when taking photos. The device doesn’t have an under-display camera, or any selfie camera on the inner display, instead, it has a 20MP selfie camera on the cover display.
The last, but notable difference is in the battery department. The Xiaomi Mix Fold 2 has 100 mAh more than the Fold 4, which is relatively small at 4,500 mAh. However, the Xiaomi device supports 67W fast wired charging, which can top up the device from 0 to 100% in just 40 minutes. The Fold 4 can only go from 0-50% in 30 minutes using the 25W charging technology. The downside is that the Mix Fold 2 doesn’t support wireless charging or reverse wireless charging, which could be a dealbreaker for many, including myself.
Why I would buy, or at least consider buying the Xiaomi Mix Fold 2
As a foldable smartphone enthusiast, the Xiaomi Mix Fold 2 is very appealing. It has a larger cover display and inner screen and the latest and greatest chip on the market. Hopefully, it has a decent camera setup and a long-lasting and fast-charging battery. All of this can be yours for around CNY 8,999 (~1,335) for the 12/256GB model, which is significantly less than what Samsung is asking. For reference, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 starts at $1,799.99.
I can see the Xiaomi Mix Fold 2 appeal to a lot of people, and the price alone makes it a worthy competitor, although it remains to be seen how much it’ll cost outside of China with the included fees and taxes.
The main reason I would buy the Mix Fold 2 over the Galaxy Fold 4 is to save money and space in my pocket. I’ve used the Galaxy Z Fold 3 over the past year, and while I love the device, it’s fair to say it’s a large brick, and if you’re not used to the heavy weight and bulky form factor, it could quickly become painful to carry it around.
Assuming that the wireless charging and water-resistant features aren’t important to me, I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase the Xiaomi Mix Fold 2 immediately. It packs everything that most users want, and I could see myself enjoying it. Xiaomi is also great at taking photos and getting the most out of the battery, thanks to their optimization techniques, which makes me confident that I’d be a happy Mix Fold 2 user.
Reasons against buying the Xiaomi Mix Fold 2 outside of Asia
The primary reason for deciding against the Xiaomi Mix Fold 2 comes down to a few features that the company had to sacrifice to save space and money on manufacturing the device. The foldable doesn’t have an IP rating. While it may be able to survive a bit of splash water damage, it’s unlikely to survive a full submersion – this isn’t a dealbreaker for me, as I don’t use my devices at the beach or pool. Still, it’s essential for safeguarding and protecting a rather expensive investment.
Secondly, the fact that it doesn’t support wireless charging is a deal breaker for me since I always charge my devices at my desk during daytime, and also while driving and navigating around.
The affordable price tag is also something that’s worth considering, given that Xiaomi might not make it officially available in most regions, and support may be limited or restricted. For those living in Asia, it’s an excellent option, but for those of us living in Europe and North America, it may be better to go for a more expensive foldable that has better overall software and hardware support, and also packs the additional features.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4
The latest Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 comes with the most powerful Qualcomm SoC, a wider display, a better hinge mechanism, and many significant upgrades over its predecessor. You can pre-order it now and receive the Standing Cover with S Pen, up to $1,000 off with eligible trade-in, and up to $100 Samsung Credit.
Samsung announced the Galaxy Z Fold 4 on August 10, at the Galaxy Unpacked event. At the event, the company also revealed the brand new Galaxy Z Flip 4, the latest Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Watch 5 Pro smartwatches, as well as the new Galaxy Buds 2 Pro wireless earbuds. The new devices feature significant upgrades over their predecessors, and the new phones are now powered by the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 SoC, feature a better hinge mechanism, and are also slightly more lightweight and smaller.
I have been using the Galaxy Z Fold 3 since last year August, and those who caught some of my Tweets will know it’s my favorite device. I’ve never had as much fun as I do with the Fold 3, and it has dramatically improved the quality of my life by increasing my productivity and making specific tasks easier – especially when multitasking. I understand that some might call it a gimmick, but once you wrap your head around the way you intend to use it, and you find the best practical use case for it, it instantly becomes one of the best and most fun devices you’ll ever own.
Display size matters
Pun intended. The Galaxy Z Fold 4 is slightly shorter and wider than the Galaxy Z Fold 3. The difference in the width is only about 0.3mm, but it makes all the difference. The bezels are smaller, and the aspect ratio and width are closer to a standard smartphone than the last generation.
I can’t tell you how often I used popular and well-known applications and websites, only to discover that some UI elements are cut off. Sometimes the only way to comfortably use services, apps, and websites was to unfold the device and use the large display. It’s not the most ergonomic or user-friendly thing to do, but it’s something that I managed to get used to over the past 12 months.
The wider display should eliminate all of these problems, and typing on the keyboard will also be much easier due to the added screen estate. I loved how easy it was to use the Fold 3 with one hand, but I think that will still be possible on the Fold 4,, since it’s still narrower than most traditional smartphones.
I’m hoping to see a better battery life
The 4,400 mAh battery in the Galaxy Z Fold 3 is small, and while it gets me through a whole day, it often causes me to have battery anxiety. I always pack a portable charger with me when I go on a road trip, since I can’t trust myself not to play games to make time fly faster.
So far, early impressions indicate that the new Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 and the improved Android 12L might yield better efficiency results, but we’re yet to see the final results in our full review. I’m hoping that the Fold 4 will live up to expectations and provide a much better battery life that doesn’t require as much thinking before going out.
Better camera on the back
Many people complained that Samsung didn’t make any significant changes to the Fold 3’s camera setup, and while I can completely agree with that statement, the results were still flagship worthy. There was some noise in low light and at night, and it wasn’t quite a Pixel 6 Pro level of quality, but it was adequate and still very good. Of course, when you factor in the high price tag, you’ll see why so many people complained, but I found the camera on the back really good for capturing moments and important memories.
The Galaxy Z Fold 4 is equipped with a near identical camera setup to the one found on the Galaxy S22 Plus. So far, it shows a significant boost in the quality of photos when using the primary camera and the 3x optical telephoto sensor. The 30x Space Zoom also seems impressive looking at a few early samples, but we’re yet to comment on the images in our final review.
Conclusion
These reasons alone might not be enough for a lot of people to spend another $1,799.99 on a brand new foldable, but let’s not forget that you can trade-in your previous, or old smartphones at Samsung and receive an insane amount of credit to reduce the overall costs. Carriers are also stepping in with some ridiculously amazing deals, and the Samsung Upgrade program is also a great way to spread the cost over a two-year period, while having the option to upgrade annually.
I decided that the upgrades were enough for me to justify spending the extra money. As a Samsung Upgrade customer, I decided to upgrade to the Fold 4, given how much better the experience can be on the new generation. The Fold 3 was a small, but mighty upgrade compared to the Fold 2, and while it’s the same this time around, I think the changes are well worth the money.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4
The latest Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 comes with the most powerful Qualcomm SoC, a wider display, a better hinge mechanism, and many significant upgrades over its predecessor. You can pre-order it now and receive the Standing Cover with S Pen, up to $1,000 off with eligible trade-in, and up to $100 Samsung Credit.
What are your thoughts about the Galaxy Z Fold 4? Did you buy it, upgrade, or decide it’s not for you and skip it? Let us know in the comments!
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