Honor may revive variable-aperture camera on Magic10

Honor could be preparing to bring back a physical variable-aperture camera for its next flagship family, according to a recent tip. Tipster Smart Pikachu posted on Weibo that the feature, introduced with the Magic6 series and present on the Magic7 lineup, may reappear in the Magic10 series after being dropped on the Magic8 models.

Honor introduced physical variable aperture on the Magic6 series and kept it for Magic7, but the Magic8 series omitted the feature. The Weibo post does not include launch dates or model counts, and Honor has not announced when exactly the Magic10 series will launch or how many smartphones it will include.

Naming and model implications

The variable-aperture hardware previously appeared on specific Honor models: the Magic6 Pro, the Magic6 RSR Porsche Design, the Magic7 Pro, and the Magic7 RSR Porsche Design. Those names matter because Honor’s model lineup has shifted. The Magic9 series included a Pro Max model but did not carry Pro or RSR Porsche Design variants.

If Honor has dropped the Pro and RSR monikers and continues with a Pro Max designation, then any return of the variable aperture would most likely be limited to a Magic10 Pro Max. That scenario is conditional and rests on two unknowns: whether the tip is accurate and how Honor will name the new devices.

The Weibo tip offers no technical specifics, so there is no confirmation of aperture ranges, lens makers, sensor changes, or how variable aperture would be implemented compared with earlier Magic6 and Magic7 designs. For now the report is a single-source leak and should be read as tentative.

Variable-aperture cameras on smartphones are not new to the industry. The first phone commonly credited with a selectable physical aperture was Motorola’s Motozine ZN5, released in 2008.