Honor Magic 8 Pro smartphone review – a worthy flagship option to consider

Honor, once a sub-brand of Huawei, has caught the market’s attention with a range of flagship worthy smartphones including the Magic 8 Pro.

The device has slick design, an impressive camera system, a massive 7,100 mAh battery and a generous sprinkling of AI features.

It is available now and is priced at $1,999.

DISPLAY

The Honor Magic 8 Pro has a 6.71-inch LTPO OLED display with a 2808 x 1256 resolution and 120Hz adaptive refresh rate.

One strength of the screen is its brightness. It can hit a respectable 6,000 nits of peak HDR brightness, which makes it easy to read in any conditions, including direct sunlight.

Your eye health is also of the highest consideration with this device, with several features to protect you in all situations including Dynamic Dimming.

This defocuses the edges of the screen so you eye has less to focus on and less work to do which reduces eye fatigue. We have not seen this feature on any other device.

One issue we had was with the pre-installed screen protector.

It started to lift off the edge and formed a small flap at the bottom of the display.

And this was only after less than two week’s use – what would it look like in a year?

DESIGN

On the design side the Honor Magic 8 Pro has rounded corners but flat edges.

The display is covered with Rhino Glass for added strength but isn’t just a flat slab.

The outer edges of the screen taper towards the bezel to give it a stylish look and feel.

And it is built with strength in mind and includes an IP68, IP69 and IP69K rating to make it extremely resistant to dust and water.

There is also a customised button on the right edge that can be used for a variety of purposes, including camera control.

One use is you as a shortcut to AI. When pressed it will offer suggestions on what is on your screen.

For example if it’s looking at a message, it will suggest ways it can be rewritten or a range of replies.

If there’s an image on the screen, it will give you editing options as well.

PERFORMANCE AND SOFTWARE

The device is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor with 12GB RAM, putting it in the same class as other flagship devices.

Performance is slick and fast allowing users to navigate and switch from app to app instantly.

This is never more evident than when using the many AI features of the device.

If you’re the type of user who enjoys multitasking and getting the most out of your device on the move, then the Honor Magic 8 Pro will be able to easily keep up with your workflow.

And if you’re a gamer, the good news is the Honour Magic A Pro can help you get your game on with outstanding performance running smoothly and clearly.

Your phone may warm up a touch while running at 120 frames per second at 1080p for extended but the device’s thermal cooling comes into play and keeps things at a comfortable level.

The Honour Magic 8 Pro is running MagicOS 10 on top of Android 16. It provides a clean and easy-to-navigate system that’s fast and responsive.

But there are so many extra apps that come with MagicOS 10 that have to sit beside Android’s default apps and the other apps users choose to download.

The good thing is they were mostly all grouped within their own folder.

SECURITY

The Honour Magic 8 Pro is secured with an in-screen fingerprint reader or with facial recognition.

Both were super responsive and unlocked the device instantly.

CAMERA

The device has a triple camera system located on the large circular bump on rear panel made up of a 50MP wide, 200MP telephoto and a 50MP ultra-wide camera.

On the front is a 50MP wide camera to capture impressive selfies.

Photos in good light all turned out very well but the good news is the camera system is not a one-trick pony.

The 200MP telephoto has a 3.7x optical zoom as well as a digital zoom that can go well beyond that and still maintain the quality.

But the test of a good camera is coming up with a great result in demanding conditions and the Honour Magic 8 Pro can do just that.

Honour calls its camera Ultra Night and it does a remarkable job drawing out additional light into the sensor in low-light situations.

We know there is a bit of AI at play in these situations but the result still is a sharp and bright image.

Even zooming in on a dark delivers decent results with very little noise and surprising clarity.

The Honour Magic 8 Pro customizable side button is positioned similarly to the camera control button on the iPhone.

Users can set functions for single, double, and long press.

For our use we set single press to activate the torch, double-press to access Google Gemini and long-press to activate the camera.

When using this button for the camera, it allows for you to adjust the zoom and activate the shutter which is very similar to Apple’s camera control.

On the editing side AI can also come into play with features including AI Eraser, AI Upscale, AI Cutout, AI Outpainting and AI style. All these touch-up features take advantage of the AI in the cloud before presenting them on your device.

It’s a nice set of AI tools along with the live AI scene mode we can recognise what’s in front of it and adjust the settings to optimise the result.

And on the video side the device can shoot 4K at up to 120fps.

BATTERY

Battery performance is one of the tentpole features that customers look for and the Honour Magic 8 Pro delivers in spades with its 7100 mAh silicon carbon battery.

This battery chemistry allows for greater capacity without being much larger than a regular battery.

With this much power up our sleeve we were able to run the phone for nearly two full days before we needed to recharge.

And that was using the device as our daily driver for nearly two weeks.

Then when it’s time to charge, there is 100W wired superfast and 80W wireless charging as well to get you back to 100 per cent in no time.

The Honor Magic 8 Pro is available now in Sunrise Gold, Sky Cyan and Midnight Black and is priced at $1,999.

VERDICT

The Honor Magic 8 Pro is a worthy choice for a flagship device for those customers who want to look out the Apple and Samsung range. Those explorers will be rewarded with a smartphone that can more than hold its own in this competitive market.