Honor makes some excellent Android phones, but it's been behind Samsung and Google in terms of updates. That's about to change.
As announced at its MWC 2025 keynote, Honor is bringing seven full years of updates to its Magic series devices, including regular flagship phones like the Magic7 Pro and foldables (although the current Magic V3 will miss out on this new policy). That makes it the third Android phone maker to do so, after Google and Samsung.
This is part of Honor's newly-announced "Alpha Plan," the company's new mantra for being an AI ecosystem company over a device-focused one. The plan makes several changes to Honor's previous focuses.
That includes big new investments and enhanced collaboration with Google and chipmaker Qualcomm, an AI Connect suite for sharing files between Android and iOS and new AI-powered imaging and safety tools. It's not clear exactly how this will play out yet, but it sounds like Honor's phones will be part of the plan going forward for some time.
Making Magic futureproof
Longer software support helps keep otherwise fully-functional devices going for longer, hopefully preventing some unnecessary or wasteful upgrades. Other Android brands offer between two and five years for their flagship products, which shows just how far this newly-minted trio of phone makers is in the lead.
There are still questions as to if offering this much support is a meaningful benefit though. Last year, the CEO of Android phone brand OnePlus argued that there's no guarantee that your phone will be capable of handling things smoothly by the time its seventh software upgrade arrives, so promising so many updates is perhaps irrelevant.
Interestingly, Honor's new policy refers to seven years of Android updates, unlike Samsung which has switched to talking about seven generations of Android support.
Even with rumors that Android 16 is coming earlier than expected this year, we should still only see a new version of Android every year. But if Google decides to pick up the pace again, perhaps that will lead to Honor offering a longer update cycle.
Honor didn't have any new phones to show off today, but the Magic7 Pro and Magic V3 remain great devices to pick up if they're sold where you live. Instead, Honor's hardware focus was on the rest of its ecosystem, with a new Honor Tab V9 tablet, Honor Watch 5 Ultra smartwatch and Honor Earbuds Open.
