March means MWC – or Mobile World Congress – has taken over Barcelona, and one exhibitor that had plenty to announce at this year’s event was Honor.
We’ve rounded up all the Honor news from MWC 2025, from the brand’s big AI-focused Honor Alpha Plan to a range of product announcements.
The company also announced a major update to its software update promise for Honor Magic users that
Keep reading to discover everything Honor announced at the event, or head to our MWC 2025 page to find all the latest news from the show so far.
Seven years of software updates
One of the standout reveals from Honor’s MWC barrage of news wasn’t hardware-based at all.
The company has promised seven years of Android operating system and security updates on its Honor Magic phones in the EU. That’s three additional years of updates on top of the previous four years promised to Honor users. We’ve been calling for Honor to implement this change, and we’re so glad it’s finally arrived.
This puts Honor’s Magic phones in line with flagship handsets from Google and Samsung when it comes to software updates. It also puts the company ahead of Apple’s five to six years of iPhone updates (although this does vary) and its former parent company Huawei’s five years of updates.
Honor Alpha Plan
Honor’s second biggest announcement of MWC was undoubtedly its Alpha Plan, the brand’s new strategy to transform Honor into a global leading AI device ecosystem company.
The plan consists of three steps. First, Honor will develop an intelligent phone. The company will collaborate with partners to open technology boundaries and establish a “paradigm” for AI devices as the world moves toward agentic AI. That is AI that can act autonomously with less human supervision or guidance.
The second step involves co-creating a paradigm for an AI ecosystem in the physical AI era – think robots, drones and self-driving cars.
The final step states that Honor will “open human potential boundaries” and “co-create a new paradigm for civilisation” in the AGI era. AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is a hypothetical stage of AI wherein machines can learn and perform any task that a human can. It’s also often considered the end goal of AI development.
The company showcased some of the agentic AI technology it has developed for the intelligent phone mentioned in step one, including a GUI (Graphical User Interface)-based personal mobile AI agent that makes restaurant reservations through third-party services while taking your calendar appointments and local traffic into account.
It also announced AiMAGE, Honor’s new imaging technology branding for mobile photography. AiMAGE uses a 1.3 billion parameter on-device model to improve image clarity by 50%, while a 12.4 billion parameter cloud model dramatically increases the quality of telephoto images, in particular.
Additionally, Honor introduced a new all-ecosystem file-sharing technology that offers ultra-fast speeds across iOS and Android devices, along with the release of its AI Deepfake detection feature for flagship phones in international markets.
Honor MagicBook Pro 14
Honor showcased four products at MWC, including the Honor MagicBook Pro 14.
While this happened to be the product with the least information available, it’ll hopefully be Honor’s attempt to build the best laptop it can.
This laptop is designed to be lightweight and features what Honor calls a “vine-leaf curved design”. An AI PC, the MagicBook Pro 14 also features Honor Turbo X game-enhancement software, improving both the performance and battery life of the device.
Not much is really known about this laptop yet, especially the EU version, so we’ll be eagerly awaiting more release date information in the coming weeks.
Honor Pad V9
The company also announced its newest tablet, the Honor Pad V9. The tablet includes an ultra-thin body, a 2.8K Eye Comfort display, a high-performing battery and is enhanced with AI features.
Our mobile editor Lewis is on the ground at MWC and he was thoroughly impressed when he got some hands on time with the Pad V9, claiming it to be the ‘best value tablet at the show’. They’re big words, but for £399 you’re getting a lot more features than you’d get with the basic iPad 10.
You can find out how it stacks up against its predecessor using our early Honor Pas V9 vs 9 analysis.
Honor Watch 5 Ultra
Next up is the Honor Watch 5 Ultra. This smartwatch offers a premium design, up to 15 days of battery life and plenty of smart technology.
This wearable is lovely to look at – if you’re a fan of that classic timepiece style so many of the best smartwatch options go with.
However, we do bemoan the lack of Wear OS here, with the watch instead running Honor’s own software. This means there won’t be any standard mobile payment solutions onboard, and the app selection will likely be limited.
Still, if you’re not fussed about Wear OS there’s plenty to like here – even if we take the looks out of it. The multi-week battery life is key and this is something you will not find on watches – like the Pixel Watch 3 – running Wear OS. Those devices are more likely to last two days, not two weeks.
It’s IP68-rated for protection from water and has both a customisable shortcut button and a rotating crown. Pricing starts at €279.
Honor Earbuds Open
Honor also unveiled its latest pair of earbuds, the Earbuds Open.
As you may have guessed from the name, these earbuds have an open, ergonomic design. Rather than burying inside your ears, they sit on the outside and allow more of the outside noise in.
Interestingly, these are one of the few earphones with a design like this to also boast ANC – although we’ll need to spend a lot more time with them before we can judge whether that feature works as well as some of the best headphones we’ve tested.
Elsewhere, the Earbuds Open have handy AI features, including translation and real-time interpretation, while, according to Honor, they deliver powerful sound. Honor can say what they want about the sound, but our experts will be the true judge of that.
