Honor has given a sneak peek of its upcoming Magic 6 smartphone

Chinese tech manufacturer Honor has offered a glimpse of its upcoming flagship smartphone, the Magic 6, during Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit. While many specifics about the phone remain undisclosed, Honor did reveal that it would feature built-in eye-tracking technology and an onboard artificial intelligence system powered by a Large Language Model (LLM).

One of the standout features of the Magic 6 is the “Magic Capsule,” which is described as an “eye-tracking-based multimodal interaction.” Eye-tracking technology has practical applications for smartphones, as sensors and cameras can respond to where the user is looking. This could have significant benefits for individuals with disabilities, granting them nearly full access to the device through subtle eye movements. However, it may raise concerns about privacy as the phone tracks the user’s gaze.

Although detailed specifications for the Magic 6 are still unknown, Honor confirmed the presence of an onboard LLM, which is driven by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile chipset. It’s worth noting that this LLM is onboard, in contrast to the typical cloud-based LLMs used in AI chatbots on smartphones. With the Magic 6, all the data the chatbot accesses is already on the phone, promising faster and more reliable results. This could turn the device into a powerful personal assistant with access to photos, contacts, videos, and more, all while maintaining user data privacy as nothing is sent to the cloud.

Honor demonstrated various features that leverage this technology, including a smart assistant named YOYO, which can create short videos from stored footage on the device via simple chat prompts. Users can also customize templates, themes, and music with similar commands. Additionally, the chatbot can collect images and videos on the phone that match specific search criteria, with more use cases to be revealed later.

Honor’s Magic 6 flagship smartphone was announced without a release date or pricing information. However, Qualcomm mentioned that phones featuring its new chipset would start shipping in the coming weeks, potentially including the Magic 6. In the meantime, Honor has gained recognition for its foldable phone offerings in the market.