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In China, the phone is available now for 3799 yuan, roughly £434. Related: Best smartphones Huawei and Samsung have both announced devices that feature what they refer to as “punch-out” notches (basically just a punched-out hole for the camera sensor), while Vivo is adding an extra screen to the rear of its phone. Honor is taking some retro inspiration, however, and is trying to bring back the once-iconic slider form factor. It’s not going to catch on. Slider phones of the late 1990s and early noughties hid their keypads behind their screens; Honor uses a similar mechanism to conceal the device’s front camera. Sliding down the screen you’ll hear a satisfying click and out pops a primary 16-megapixel f/2.0 camera, flanked by two depth-sensing 2-megapixel sensors. I’ll admit that the sliding mechanism is addictive, especially since it’s accompanied by a swooshing sound that really gets in your head.

Get past that initial “quirkiness”, though, and you’ll soon come to realise that the overall design just doesn’t work. The Honor Magic 2 is a thick-feeling phone. It’s heavy, too, and the seam created by the sliding portion rubs against your hand when you’re using it. Most phones these days, no matter how generously sized, feel comfortable in the hand – the Honor Magic 2 just doesn’t. This device also lacks wireless charging and an IP rating. Such sacrifices simply to rid the notch just don’t seem worth it. Honor also mimics the colour-changing shiny rear of its parent company Huawei’s P20 Pro handset.

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I love the P20 Pro but I’m not a fan of the back of that phone. In the Honor Magic 2, the rear appears to pick up smudges even more easily than its sibling, with the device becoming a grimy mess soon after unboxing. You’ll also notice that plenty of dirt and dust becomes trapped in the portion of the device that slides. Design aside, the majority of the Honor Magic 2’s DNA comes from the Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro. It features an in-display fingerprint sensor that works fine, however, it’s nowhere near as reliable or quick as a traditional sensor.

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You have to really push your thumb against the panel for it to recognise your digit; often it just does nothing. Don’t get me wrong – I like the idea, but the execution is poor; it just doesn’t appear ready yet. You’ll be pleased to learn, then, that you’re not restricted to the in-display tech. Those depth-sensing cameras on the front of the Honor Magic 2 enable face unlock.

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This is by far the quickest way of accessing the phone. Related: Best Android phones Honor uses Huawei’s EMUI as the base for its software, which is built upon Android 9. Check out our Huawei Mate 20 Pro review for a full overview of the software – which, in my opinion, remains the same here. It’s a software skin that tries to do too much, altering nearly every aspect of Google’s base software.

Even with the speedy Kirin 980 chip powering the Magic 2, I’ve noticed frequent bouts of sluggishness when switching between apps. I won’t be too harsh on the performance: the version I’ve been using is designed specifically for use in China, and as such, the software has some additions that wouldn’t be included in a Western release. What the sliding mechanism does bring is a screen free of any distraction.

The 6.39-inch OLED panel is rounded in the corners and runs pretty much edge-to-edge – aside from a slight chin at the bottom. It’s a nice-looking display, with full DCI-P3 coverage and a 1080 x 2340 resolution. From my short time with the Honor Magic 2, the camera appears to be pretty decent too. There’s a 24-megapixel black and white sensor, along with two 16-megapixel colour sensors – and, of course, Honor’s “AI Vision”.

The front cameras include many features, too, with a faux-bokeh blur mode and a heavy beauty mode.

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