Honor pokes fun at Samsung by highlighting five key features missing from the Galaxy S25 Ultra

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and Honor Magic 7 Pro
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra (left) and Honor Magic 7 Pro (right) (Image credit: Future)

There’s nothing like a bit of comparative advertising to spice up Flagship Android Launch Season, and Chinese mobile maker Honor seems determined to play chief mischief-maker.

After apologizing to Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 owners who may have felt “let down” by their “chunky” folding phone last year, the company has again taken aim at Samsung by highlighting five key hardware and software features supposedly missing from the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

The jab comes as part of a new social campaign that sees Samsung – or ‘Sam’ – gifted with accessories designed to “enhance” the Galaxy S25 Ultra. These include a zoom lens, a power bank, and a ring light. The implication here is that Honor’s new flagship phone, the Honor Magic 7 Pro, boasts better zoom capabilities, battery life, portrait capture technology, and other key features versus Samsung’s latest device. Meow.

In a press release accompanying the new campaign, Honor details these supposedly superior features in writing:

  • Magic Portal for Seamless App Access: Magic Portal enables quick access to over 150+ third-party apps with a simple circle gesture, streamlining tasks across search, transportation, entertainment, shopping, and office tools.
  • AI Super Zoom for Richer Details: Leveraging cloud AI, Honor's AI Super Zoom delivers superior image quality for long-distance shots beyond 30x, capturing far clearer and more detailed photos compared to Samsung’s Space Zoom.
  • Stunning Portraits and Fast Capture: Featuring the industry’s first on-device portrait large model, the Magic 7 Pro delivers striking portrait details with AI Enhanced Portrait and Harcourt Portrait. Its HD Super Burst and AI Motion Sensing further solidify Honor's leadership in fast capture technology.
  • Unmatched Durability and Charging: The Magic 7 Pro boasts IP68 and IP69 water and dust resistance, 100W wired SuperCharge, and 80W wireless SuperCharge. It also features the industry’s first dual 3D biometric security system with 3D Ultrasonic Fingerprint Unlocking and 3D To Face Locking.

Jeez, talk about confidence.

Seeing as the Galaxy S25 Ultra only launched a matter of days ago, we haven’t yet put the phone through its paces, and as such, we’re not in a position to say whether Honor is being too big for its boots here.

We do, however, know that features like AI Super Zoom, Harcourt Portrait, and Magic Portal are unique to the Magic 7 Pro and more of the best Honor phones, so we can understand Honor’s eagerness to highlight them in some playful marketing.

Indeed, we described Honor’s latest flagship as “an outstanding phone that impresses in almost every area” in our Honor Magic 7 Pro review, and it’s true that Honor’s proprietary smartphone software has come on leaps and bounds in recent years (see its Deepfake Detection feature).

That said, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is certainly no slouch – and we don’t need to have completed our full review process to tell you that.

In our hands-on Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review, we described Samsung’s latest flagship as potentially “the most complete AI-ready mobile package on the market,” so we look forward to pitting the Galaxy S25 Ultra against the Honor Magic 7 Pro and more of the best Android phones very soon.

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Axel Metz
Phones Editor

Axel is TechRadar's UK-based Phones Editor, reporting on everything from the latest Apple developments to newest AI breakthroughs as part of the site's Mobile Computing vertical. Having previously written for publications including Esquire and FourFourTwo, Axel is well-versed in the applications of technology beyond the desktop, and his coverage extends from general reporting and analysis to in-depth interviews and opinion.  Axel studied for a degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick before joining TechRadar in 2020, where he then earned an NCTJ qualification as part of the company’s inaugural digital training scheme.

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