Arri camera flagships with eSIM at the lowest possible price: Importing the Honor Magic 9 (Pro Max)
With the Vivo X500 series and the Oppo Find X10 flagships already available to import from China for several weeks, more and more flagships powered by the new Qualcomm chips are now appearing at the usual retailers. Following the Xiaomi 18 Pro and Pro Max, the Arri camera flagships recently launched in China can now also be imported. In addition to the exciting Honor Magic9 Pro Max, these include the Honor Magic 9 (powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5) and the Magic9 Super battery behemoth, which lacks Arri branding but features a fan and an 11,000 mAh battery.
We looked around and found at least some of the three Magic 9 models at the following retailers: Tradingshenzhen, Wondamobile (no Magic9 Pro Max so far), Trinity Electronics (only the Pro Max so far), AverageDad (only the Pro Max), and Giztop. According to our price comparison, Tradingshenzhen is once again the cheapest, although the price differences tend to be small this time. The Honor Magic9 Pro Max is arguably the most interesting model: in addition to its fully equipped camera system and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, it also offers two eSIMs for the first time. More on that below.
Honor Magic9 Pro Max
The 12/256 GB configuration costs €1,037 at Tradingshenzhen (US$1,167), while 12/512 GB costs €1,127 (US$1,269), 16/512 GB costs €1,217 (US$ 1,370) and 16/1TB costs €1,387 (US$ 1,562). While Honor advertises two eSIMs and two nano-SIMs, Tradingshenzhen's specifications state "No eSIM". We have asked the retailer about this, but they do not have any personal experience with the eSim yet and don`t want additional returns based on a false promise. According to Reddit posts, such as this one, the built-in eSIM appears to work as usual outside China. Within China it apparently remains restricted to local providers, which makes sense. These claims have not yet been confirmed, and we have no first-hand experience with Chinese models equipped with eSIMs either. However, it currently looks as though a major limitation when importing Chinese smartphones could soon disappear, at least for some newer Honor and Huawei flagships at the moment.
Honor Magic9 and Magic9 Super
Tradingshenzhen also the other two Honor Magic 9 editions mentioned in stock, with prices starting at €697 for the Super version, called "Power Edition" here (US$ 785) and €807 (US$ 909) for the regular Magic9 with 12/256GB.
Limitations and public holidays
Due to China's National Day holiday, Tradingshenzhen will not begin shipping until October 7. All Magic9 models seem to support LTE band 20 according to the dealer while the official Honor specsheets do not specify network bands. Do check the compatibility of the 4G/5G bands with the area you live in though. The Chinese version of MagicOS 11 has support for many different language options besides English and Chinese. Google apps, including Google Pay, should not pose a problem, while Quick Share and using Gemini as the default AI assistant will require workarounds and/or alternatives. Based on past experience with imported Chinese phones, WearOS smartwatches will not work, Android Auto can also be a problem in some cases.
Source(s)
Tradingshenzhen, Reddit (1, 2)
Image: 皮卡叔Doc, Weibo
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