Honor this hebdomad unveiled its flagship Magic 7 Pro to an international interview stick with its release in China deep last twelvemonth .
It ’s a wild smartphone in many regard , put up top - level screen tech , oodles of magnate , and a camera setup that admit a 200MP telephoto lens – the highest declaration of its variety on the market in good order now .
As part of Honor ’s big gambit for 2025 , theHonor Magic 7 Prouses a suite of GenAI - power tools under the AI Honor Image Engine banner to try and boost the quality of simulacrum captured on the twist .
Generally , I ’ve been very impressed with the Magic 7 Pro ’s television camera capabilities . The 50MP main camera may not be the highest resoluteness around , but with specs include OIS , a expectant 1/1.3 - inch detector and a varying f/1.4 - f/2.0 aperture , it takes a jolly stellar pic , and the same can be said for both the 200MP 3x telephotograph and 50MP ultrawide lens system – even as swooning levels get down to drop .
rather , the argument arrive with one of the Magic 7 Pro ’s big young feature : AI Super Zoom , available when zooming in at 30x or above .
More specifically , it ’s powered by Honor ’s proprietary Telephoto Enhancement LM , a speech modelling trained on raise telephoto shots with a whopping 12.4 billion parameters , allowing it to identify physical object and advance light , texture and colour , with 127 billion computation per image before it ’s sent back to your speech sound but what ’s not obvious is how your AI Super Zoom shots are actually created .
You might assume that this works in a similar way to other AI - powered rapid climb enhancement instrument seen on the likes of theOppo come up X8 professional , simply boosting the item in your otherwise muzzy original shots , but that ’s not the case here . In fact , it ’s completely unlike from what Oppo and others are doing .
For one , you ’ll need an active internet connection to habituate the feature as it uploads the image you ’ve just taken to the cloud , where it ’s then processed and ‘ enhanced ’ . That ’s not the large deal in itself ; Samsung , Xiaomi and other phone Lord have all landed on this hybrid on - gadget and cloud AI system , apparently offer the well of both earthly concern .
The job , good referee , is that the image you ’re presented with is n’t the photo you took earlier . Far from it .
It might look interchangeable on the surface , but what you ’re actually date is a wholly new image beget entirely by Honor ’s swarm - based Telephoto Enhancement Large Model , staring with the same outcome around AI hallucinations we see when get popular GenAI image tool like Midjourney to give photorealistic images .
Take the below example ; shot outside my sleeping room windowpane , the AI - enhanced purview of the train raceway and chimney stacks behind my house look great on the airfoil , with more detail than the prototype captured by the phone itself – but look closer and you ’ll start to see massive repugnance between the two .
That includes , but is not limited to , trade out the orange foliage on an autumnal tree for cerise flower , getting rid of the video antenna next to one of the chimney heaps , implementing a slightly unlike tree diagram , and chimney stacks that feeling , lets be honorable , bastard with odd brickwork .
Rather ironically , Honor actually provides built - in functionality that have you compare the two image side - by - side , highlighting just how unlike the before and after can be .
I ’m pretty certain that the Shard ’s glass exterior does n’t look that way in real life :
This scene looks more like a painting than a real exposure :
This is supposed to be a sheep , if it was n’t open :
It can even replace texture , seemingly at will :
Now , to be comely to Honor , I was explicitly told when I pick up the phone that AI Super Zoom was not designed to take photos of complex computer architecture , religious buildings and people , exactly because of the issues I ’ve mentioned above .
The consequence I have is that there ’s nothing on the earpiece inform consumers of this , so they ’ll in all likelihood use it to take photos of anything they see and get those hit - and - young lady result .
When focalize chiefly on shot of nature , landscapes and simpler buildings , as Honor urge , the AI Super Zoom does a markedly good job . There are still differences when viewed side - by - side , and some finer detail give away the AI - generated nature , but they ’re more than passable for sharing with friends and family line , as figure below .
There ’s also hope that , as Honor claim , the quality of the AI - generated upshot will continue to improve as the Telephoto Enhancement Large Model continues with its grooming , but how much of a difference it ’ll make is yet to be ascertain .
Regardless of the quality of the results , I still feel like it ’s one of the most controversial AI camera features we ’ve seen on a smartphone yet . Why ? Because what you ’re left with is n’t the photo you captured , or even a substantial - life picture ; it ’s just an AI - generate bringing close together of your picture , land itself square in uncanny valley territory .
It ’s at this head I ca n’t help but require , when is a exposure no longer a exposure ? Is an image that appear a fate like your original generated by AI enough , or is a true photograph one that you ’ve captured without the use of AI processing tools ? Is it somewhere in between ?
That doubt would ’ve seemed a moment odd a few years ago , but I feel we ’re fast approaching that point where it needs to be discussed .
Thankfully , this is n’t a feature you ’re forced to use once you go beyond the 30x mark – alternatively , a release come out in the Camera UI to toggle the functionality on and off . Plus , more than that , it ’s disabled by default , so users likely wo n’t be unknowingly using the technical school .
Still , I do experience a little uncomfortable when present with a picture on my sound ’s Gallery app that I , in no configuration or form , actually took myself .
