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As for battery life, the phone lasted an impressive eight and a half hours in our non-stop video playback test – better than flagship rivals like the Pixel 3 or OnePlus 6T – and in regular usage it very comfortably lasted a full day, and would probably scrape its way to the end of the second if you pushed it. Hidden power And one final note on the internals: the processor. The Magic 2 is also the first Honor phone to pack Huawei’s latest flagship, the Kirin 980 – also in the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro. Backed up by either 6GB or 8GB of RAM, it means this thing really flies, and it’ll breeze through just about anything you throw at it. It’s been the case for a few years now that flagship phone performance is improving faster than most people’s actual requirements, so there’s a real question about whether you even need a phone this fast. But still, it’s here, it is fast, and if you care about that, this won’t disappoint. Language barriers The fact that the Magic 2 is a China exclusive doesn’t affect the phone hardware, other than the hassle of buying it in the first place. Software is another story entirely. It’s easy to switch to English during setup, so that’s fine.

But even once you run through that you’ll find a phone loaded with strange apps, bloatware, and themes that include Chinese language characters whether you want them to or not. You can work around most of this, but it takes time, effort, and at least a bit of knowhow, and for most people it really isn’t worth it. You’ll probably want to sideload Google Play Services for starters, then go about downloading all your regular apps and making sure they’re set to be your defaults. There will still be headaches. Huawei’s EMUI – here in a modified ‘Magic UI’ form – has come on a long way, but still has irritations.

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It’s cluttered, and occasionally throws up headaches you don’t expect, like blocking Gmail notifications because it turns out the aggressive battery management software is throttling the push notifications. They’re all minor irritations, but they’re ever-present, and you’ll know best how much you can put up with them – or learn how to fix them. But if you don’t even know what ‘sideload Google Play Services’ means, you’re best advised to stay clear. Verdict The Magic 2 is a beautiful piece of hardware, and the slider function pulls double duty as a satisfying novelty and the enabler of that big, beautiful display. Performance is rock solid – no surprise with the Kirin 980 inside – and the superfast charging is very welcome, but so-so camera performance and software irritations are enough to make us question whether the Magic 2 is worth the cost – or hassle – of importing.

There’s a lot of brilliant tech inside this phone, but most of it will turn up in Honor’s next flagship, which will be cheaper and easier to get hold of. So unless you have your heart set on the slider, we’d wait for that to arrive. ONDECEMBER 13 "BEST SMARTPHONE 2018: WHICH MOBILE PHONE IS BEST?" Best smartphone 2018: Which mobile phone is best? There are so many good phones to choose from in 2018 but which one is the king of the castle? Is there even a winner?