Pixelworks Powers HONOR Magic4 Series to Take the Lead of High-End Smartphone Market

Always-HDR Mode, Adaptive HDR and Dual MotionEngine® Technology Bring Premium Visual Experience for Consumers

SHANGHAI, March 17, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Global technology brand HONOR today unveiled a brand-new line-up of all-round flagship smartphone—HONOR Magic4 Series in China. The product line-up incorporates multiple cutting-edge technologies to solve users' pain points and deliver a magical experience to users around the world.  HONOR Magic4 Series is composed of three models: HONOR Magic4, HONOR Magic4 Pro and HONOR Magic4 Zhizhen Edition. Pixelworks, Inc. (NASDAQ: PXLW), a leading provider of innovative video and display processing solutions, today announced that two models of the newly launched HONOR Magic4 Series flagship smartphone, the HONOR Magic4 Pro and HONOR Magic4 Zhizhen Edition, incorporate the Pixelworks X5 Plus advanced visual processor. The HONOR Magic4 Series is the masterpiece of HONOR Magic Series smartphone, which aims to reshape the high-end flagship market with powerful performance and excellent visual enjoyment adaptable to most display scenarios.

According to the information from HONOR's product launch event, as the smartphone with the top configuration among the HONOR Magic4 Series, the HONOR Magic4 Zhizhen Edition is highly competitive for its cutting-edge performance. In terms of hardware, the flagship is built on the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 8 Gen 1 mobile platform, powered by its self-innovated GPU Turbo X technology and Pixelworks' fifth generation visual processor, which unlocks the full potential of hardware performance with well-balanced power consumption. For the camera, the flagship features Ultra Fusion Photography and Magic-Log mode function, which supports capturing HD photos while recording video. Specific to the display, the smartphone features a 6.81-inch flexible AMOLED screen with maximum resolution of 2848x1312 pixels, and combines LTPO 1~120Hz adaptive refresh rate and 1920Hz PWM dimming technology.

Powered by Pixelworks X5 Plus visual processor, HONOR Magic4 Pro and HONOR Magic4 Zhizhen Edition flagships bring users multiple upgraded visual display attributes, including:

Dual MotionEngine® Technology— Pixelworks Dual MotionEngine® (MEMC) technology uses parallel processing that produces superior visual quality across a wide range of content, video formats, frame rates and multimedia Apps. The technology boosts the frame rate of video content to 60Hz and game content to 120Hz, which provides flicker-free video quality and ultra-low latency gaming experience. Meanwhile, Pixelworks distributed processing offloads GPU workload to reduce overall system power consumption, which prevents overheating and extends game play on mobile devices. These benefits can be utilized across multiple mainstream video Apps, such as iQIYI, Tencent, Youku and BiliBili, and more than 10 popular mobile games, including Honkai Impact 3, Genshin Impact, King of Glory, The Magic Blade and Game for Peace.

Always-HDR mode – Pixelworks uses real-time SDR-to-HDR conversion to expose more details and shades of color for the vast majority of existing gaming content, which is often in SDR (standard dynamic range) format to enable an always-immersive experience.

Adaptive HDR – Provides precision tone mapping for HDR 10 and HDR 10+ content and dynamically adjusts display attributes such as display brightness, tone mapping adaptive with different content types and ambient brightness to achieve high-precision HDR quality with enhanced details and expanded color scales. This function is available on video Apps including iQIYI and Tencent.

Absolute Color Accuracy – Both the HONOR Magic4 Pro and HONOR Magic4 Zhizhen Edition flagships are factory-tuned with display calibration technology from Pixelworks, resulting in an average Delta E—an indicator for measuring color accuracy less than 0.5 (lower is better), meaning no deviations from perfect color reproduction can be detected by the human eye. With Pixelworks calibration, the flagship can display up to 1.07 billion colors and support 100% DCI-P3, giving rise to sharper, more true-to-life colors as seen from most visual scenarios.

True Flesh Tones – A calibrated flesh tone solution ensures accuracy in all display modes to convey true-to-life skin tones for all content involving real people, whether in photos, videos captured on the phone or popular movies streamed from an App.

Color Shift Correction – As part of the display tuning process, this new feature enables color accuracy across the entire screen by correcting for color shift artifacts that can occur on AMOLED panels at low brightness.

Smooth Brightness Control – In dimly lit viewing environments, this feature provides finely tuned and automatic luminance control that enables ultra-smooth display brightness transitions with an unprecedented 16,384 gradients of brightness.

"As the pioneer of HONOR's Magic series heading for high-end flagship smartphones, HONOR Magic4 series did its best to elevate the performance of both hardware and software, thus providing consumers with an all-round product to satisfy user needs from different dimensions," said Kun Li, GM of Magic series Products, HONOR.  "We feel glad to collaborate with Pixelworks on the HONOR Magic4 series smartphones. By utilizing Pixelworks visual technology, users can enjoy premium visual quality and silky-smooth gaming experience with less worries on power consumption. In terms of the sensitivity on catching user needs and striving for demand-driven innovation, we have something in common with Pixelworks. Hope our partnership could raise the visual experience of high-end flagships to a higher level, as perfect forever waits ahead."

"Congratulations on the release of HONOR Magic4 series smartphones!" said Leo Shen, Sr. VP, GM of Mobile BU, Pixelworks. "At Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022, HONOR impressed many industry partners and consumers with the powerful performance and outstanding design of HONOR Magic4 and HONOR Magic4 Pro flagship smartphones. It is very challenging to develop a product that can meet the diverse demands spanning from different groups of users. To achieve this, a company needs sharp market insight, unremitting efforts on technology innovation, inclusiveness to embrace differentiations, and trust in its partners. The HONOR Magic4 Pro and HONOR Magic4 Zhizhen Edition have definitely proved that HONOR is well-equipped with the above qualities, which led to the fully upgraded performance including display, camera and privacy on these devices. We hope through our join efforts, the two flagships can bring more innovative visual enjoyment to users and new leaps in visual display performance can be provided to consumers with our expanded partnership in the future."

Availability

The recently announced HONOR Magic4 Pro and HONOR Magic4 Zhizhen Edition smartphones are expected to be commercially available in April 2022.

About HONOR

Established in 2013, HONOR is a leading global provider of smart devices. We are committed to becoming a global iconic tech brand and enabling a smart life across all scenarios and all channels, for all people. With a strategic focus on innovation, quality and service, HONOR is dedicated to developing technology that empowers people around the globe to go beyond through its R&D capabilities and forward-looking technology, as well as creating a new intelligent world for everyone with its portfolio of innovative products.

For more information, please visit HONOR online at www.hihonor.com.

About Pixelworks

Pixelworks provides industry-leading content creation, video delivery and display processing solutions and technology that enable highly authentic viewing experiences with superior visual quality, across all screens – from cinema to smartphone and beyond. The Company has more than 20 years of history delivering image processing innovation to leading providers of consumer electronics, professional displays and video streaming services.

For more information, please visit the company's web site at www.pixelworks.com.

Note: Pixelworks, MotionEngine and the Pixelworks logo are registered trademarks of Pixelworks, Inc. Qualcomm and Snapdragon are trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated, registered in the United States and other countries. Qualcomm Snapdragon is a product of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements may be identified by use of terms such as "begin," "continue," "will," "expect", "believe," "anticipate" "projected" and similar terms or the negative of such terms, and include, without limitation, statements about the launch dates of smartphones containing Company's products.  Such statements are based on management's current expectations, estimates and projections about the Company's business. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve numerous risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Actual results could vary materially from those contained in forward looking statements due to many factors, including, without limitation: our ability to execute on our strategy; competitive factors; the success of our products in expanded markets; current global health and economic challenges, including the impact of COVID-19; and changes in our target markets, including as to demand. More information regarding potential factors that could affect the Company's financial results and could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements is included from time to time in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, as well as subsequent SEC filings.

The forward-looking statements contained in this release are as of the date of this release, and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update any such statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Pixelworks, Inc.