MWC 2025 | Honor catches up with Samsung and Google, new strategy to greatly benefit Magic7 Pro and more

Sounding somewhat like world domination, the “Alpha Plan” was unveiled by Honor at Mobile World Congress 2025, signalling a fresh strategic direction under the company's new CEO, James Li. Marketing lingo aside, the announcement certainly includes several very useful features for users of current and future Honor products.

7 years of updates rivalling Samsung and Google

Perhaps the most significant improvement from a consumer’s standpoint is the company’s promise to provide seven years of Android and security updates for Honor Magic phones starting with the Magic7 Pro. This naturally includes all future Honor Magic devices. The update guarantee will first be introduced in the EU, with other regions set to follow later. However, a footnote in the press release reveals that the Honor Magic Lite series is notably excluded from this extended support. Right now, only Google and Samsung offer seven years of Android updates, meaning Honor will rise to the top three Android OEMs if you are purely considering the length of update support. On a related note, starting with the Snapdragon 8 Elite, Qualcomm has made it easier for manufacturers to provide their customers with up to eight years of updates.

AiImage to vastly improve photo quality

The Alpha Plan is designed to catapult Honor into the age of AI, so it should come as no surprise that the company spent a lot of time discussing its visions for AI. For instance, AiImage is a promising new feature that Honor claims can enhance the image quality of its cameras by up to 50% thanks to large language models (LLMs) running locally on the phones themselves. There is also a larger cloud-based model that supposedly can greatly improve the quality of telephoto images. Of course, it remains to be seen whether Honor can deliver on these promises.