Honor’s Magic 9 Pro Max has a big camera and a bigger battery

New photography partner Arri is making its presence felt already.

New photography partner Arri is making its presence felt already.

by

Dominic Preston

Sep 28, 2026, 8:00 AM UTC

This mossy green looks great, but the 9 Pro Max is also launching in black and silver.

Image: Honor

Dominic Preston

is a news editor with over a decade’s experience in journalism. He previously worked at

Android Police

and

Tech Advisor

.

Honor launches its new Magic 9 flagship phones in China today, and the 9 Pro Max features a design revamp, a capable camera, and a colossal battery.

This is Honor’s first flagship launch —Robot Phoneaside — since itannounced its collaborationwith camera company Arri. The initial impact is twofold. Thenew camera islandis Arri-inspired, drawing from the “three-lens turret” design first introduced in 1937’s Arriflex 35, complete with a knurled texture around the main lens.

Arri used variants of this three-lens turret design across most of its film cameras.

Image: Honor

Arri has played a part in the camera itself, contributing the ability to shoot in Arri LogC3, together with 14 preset Arri Look LUTs, access to Arri’s wider library of official and third-party LUTs, and support for the APV 10-bit 4:2:2 codec. The cameras themselves include a 200-megapixel main lens using a 1/1.28-inch-type sensor, a 3.5x telephoto using the same resolution and a 1/1.4-inch sensor, and a 50-megapixel ultrawide — though this latter lens doesn’t support all the Arri Cinema Mode features. A “cinema-grade” directional microphone should help with video recording too. Less technically impressive, but just as useful, will be the square-format selfie camera, which likeApple’s Center Stagewill be able to capture in either landscape or portrait.

Honor says that the wider camera island is more space-efficient, leaving extra space for a huge 8,800mAh battery, now up to 40 percent silicon content. The 9 Pro Max is powered by theSnapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. I asked Honor why it picked the Extreme version, given the 9 Pro Max doesn’t support the 8K60 or 4K240 video recording that chip enables, and was told it was “about delivering a complete and consistent flagship experience, rather than pursuing a single benchmark result.”

The Magic 9 Pro Max supports Honor’s G200 and G500 teleconverter lenses, plus a custom SmallRig video kit.

Image: Honor

The Magic 9 series launches in China today. Honor has confirmed that an international launch is coming, but we’re still waiting to find out when.

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