I’ve been testing the Honor 600 Pro for the last couple of weeks (the super cute Molly Limited Edition version, to be precise), but there’s one cool feature that I’ve overlooked up until this point.

The Chinese tech giant has been making quite a big deal out of the phone's AI Image to Video 2.0 tool, which lets you transform static shots into moving video clips in just a few taps. Now, Honor is a bit guilty of sticking the word ‘AI’ on basically anything to make it sound more impressive, so I just assumed that AI Image to Video 2.0 would be little more than an image editing tool wrapped up in AI branding, memory-holed alongside the likes of the AI Memories app — which, hilariously, is literally just a standard screenshot tool — and the completely useless AI Settings Agent.

Last night, however, I wanted to show off some of the 600 Pro’s big features at after-work drinks with my colleagues (yes, our nights out really are that riveting), saw AI Image to Video 2.0 in the photos menu, and decided to give it a shot.

Bring on the prawns

The results? A steady stream of what I can only describe as absolute, unmitigated slop—but I mean that in the best possible way.

AI Image to Video 2.0 gives you an impressive range of presets to choose from. There’s an option that lets you stand next to your favorite fictional character, one that puts your pets in human clothes and makes them talk, and even one that brings your pen and paper doodles to life.

Picking one of these presets basically just fills in the prompt automatically with some basic descriptive text and, while there are some tantalizing picks, I beelined straight to the unrestricted freestyle mode to see just how wacky things could get. My input was simple. A photo of Phones Editor Axel Metz, pint in hand and perched on a spare gaming chair that we’d wheeled over to the pub from our office across the street.

My first prompt: to send the chair flying up into space with Axel in it. After a few minutes waiting, while the 600 Pro processed my request in the background, I was presented with an eight-second clip of exactly that and, honestly, I was pretty surprised at how good it looked.

The prompt was understood perfectly, and there is an impressive level of visual consistency in what it generated, even when the background scene panned into the sky. It came with sound too; the chair creaking loudly and audible shouts of “This is amazing!” as it took flight. Don’t get me wrong, the result is obviously artificial and the painfully generic American voice it generated for Axel sounded nothing like him. But it was still enough to get some decent laughs at the table and everyone was clamoring to add their own prompts to test it out.

Flying chairs are one thing, but you can be seriously weird with what you can achieve with AI Image to Video 2.0, much to Axel’s chagrin. VPN Editor Rob Dunne had the ground beneath the chair crumbling into a massive fiery pit, while Axel himself demanded to be transformed into an inflatable, arm-flailing tube man.

I came in with the idea for a sea of tempura prawns pouring into the shot, which it generated beautifully, albeit with the bizarre addition of Axel’s AI self singing “I’m going prawn mode” throughout.

If you’ve got a group of friends with a raft of in-jokes to bring to life, all this silliness is going to be an awful lot of fun.

Free... for now

Unfortunately, there is a pretty big catch. There’s a little label every time you hit the generate button that clarifies that the free generation is only available as part of a “limited-time free trial.”

This does make some sense, as it’s mainly powered by a cloud service which must be extremely expensive to maintain, but I’m still a little disappointed that I won’t be able to conjure billions of tempura prawns forever.

There are some usage limits right now as well, and working out how many you’re actually entitled to is enough to make your head spin. Per the Honor website, if you activate your device before July 31, 2026, you get 10 free uses per day for exactly 76 days, and then 10 every 30 days from day 77 onwards.

Activate your phone after that date, and you only get the latter 10-every-30-days allowance. There doesn’t appear to be any on-screen counter telling you how many you’ve got left at any given time either.

You can pay for additional uses, though the pricing structure is equally confusing. There’s introductory pricing, which is presumably a bit cheaper, though I can’t find details on how much it actually costs up until December 31, 2026 when the regular rate kicks in.

Still, AI Image to Video 2.0 is a cool little gimmick that gives the Honor 600 Pro a neat trick up its sleeve. It’s available on the significantly cheaper Honor 600 model as well, so more budget-conscious buyers can join in the fun, too.

It feels like the whole world is obsessed with Labubus. You can’t walk around a major city like London without spotting countless little grinning monsters dangling off the straps of handbags or clipped to the back of rucksacks. Dodgy street markets are filled with racks of unconvincing fakes (or 'Lafufus’ as they’ve come to be known), and every time you walk past one of manufacturer Pop Mart’s many shops, you’ll inevitably see long queues as shoppers race to get their hands on the originals.

The plush toy’s trademark—slightly creepy—smile is inescapable, but there’s another, less disconcerting face that you might have seen around. Designed in 2006 by Hong Kong creative Kenny Wong, Molly is a child-like mascot with big blue eyes and a playful pouting expression. She was Pop Mart’s top-selling character before the Labubu craze and has appeared in collabs with some of the most prominent pop-culture brands.

You can find figures of a Squid Game Molly, a Donald Duck Molly, a Zootopia Molly, and now she’s bursting into the tech world via a new limited-edition phone made by Chinese smartphone giant Honor.

Fit for the 'gram

The Honor 600 Pro Molly Limited Edition is one of the best-looking special-edition devices I’ve seen. Its sleek, iPhone-like design is perfectly on trend, and the Golden White color exudes an understated luxury. Some might say the phone looks like a dupe, but Apple could never make something this cute.

Although you can buy the regular Honor 600 Pro—which we described as “a classier and more composed alternative to the usual flagship brigade” in our review—in the same colorway, this edition is marked by the glittery Molly illustration; the character is printed on the phone’s rear panel, outfitted in a fetching beret and puffy dress. It’s a phone that you would expect to see clasped in the hands of someone wearing a princess-inspired hime lolita dress as they take yet another selfie for their thriving Instagram page.

Honor obviously knows this too, as plenty of the phone's unique software features are centred around photography. Every Honor phone comes with a selection of optional photo watermarks (so you can show your followers exactly which device your shots were taken with) and the Honor 600 Pro Molly Limited Edition gets a bunch of exclusive picks.

There are three basic designs to choose from—Molly Paradise, Molly Planet, and Molly’s Adventure—but countless customization options are available for each one.

Molly Paradise, for example, adds a basic Polaroid-like frame to your snap in the color of your choice, complete with a Pop Mart logo and some ‘Molly 20th Anniversary’ branding (the character is celebrating 20 years since its creation, after all).

You can decorate the frame with some little art of Molly in a tap, in a range of outfits and poses to fit your desired theme. For a casual vacation pic, you might want to add the flight attendant Molly dragging her little suitcase, while Molly wearing scuba goggles and carrying a big fish would be perfect for a photo taken on your latest beach outing.

Fashion meets serious specs

The phone comes pre-loaded with a Molly theme, which consists of a gold-patterned wallpaper and a lock screen featuring the same illustration as the rear panel. As with the watermarks, there’s an impressive level of customization here.

The always-on-display, for example, can be adorned with Molly if you wish. There’s another theme on offer too, which actually lets you create your very own unique Molly wallpaper by dragging and resizing little illustrations and logos.

No, the overall software experience isn't completely transformed. This is still very much an Honor 600 Pro running the company’s MagicOS 10 software (which is based on Android 16), but these little touches show an impressive level of attention to detail and make the phone feel that much more special.

The same is true of the unboxing experience, which is simply a delight. The Honor 600 Pro Molly Limited Edition comes in a mammoth Molly box that’s designed to look like a briefcase, complete with a functional carrying handle. Inside, you’ll find the phone itself in a unique Molly-fied version of the regular packaging, in addition to an adorable handbag-style phone case that looks a bit like an old-fashioned camera, a colorful lanyard to attach to it, a commemorative print, a pin badge, and more.

Considering it only costs an extra £100 to upgrade from the regular Honor 600 Pro (which retails for £899.99 in the UK), I was pretty impressed with the sheer number of extra goodies thrown in with the Molly Limited Edition model. You can also take advantage of a £300 discount coupon at the time of writing if you buy through the Honor store. As ever, though, the phone isn’t available in the US or Australia.

Under the hood, the Honor 600 Pro Molly Limited Edition has the same formidable specs as the regular 600 Pro. That means you’re getting a staggeringly bright 6.57-inch AMOLED display, 512GB of storage (so you won’t have to worry about running out of space), the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC paired with 12GB of RAM, an all-day 6,400mAh battery, and a three-camera setup that includes a capable 200MP main shooter, plus a 50MP periscope lens and a 12MP ultra-wide.

I’ve been using the phone for the last couple of days, and while there are some minor frustrations — you’re only getting the slow USB 2.0 standard with its Type-C port, and its dual speakers are a noticeable downgrade compared to those on my usual flagship Honor Magic 8 Pro — it’s hard not to fall in love with a device that just looks this good.

• Chinese smartphone maker Honor has poked fun at the Trump Mobile T1 Phone in a recent social media post
• It suggests the Trump Mobile product is "Chinese-made"
• Trump Mobile previously claimed the device is manufactured in the US, though now it only says it's assembled there

Smartphone maker Honor has suggested the upcoming Trump Mobile T1 Phone is "Chinese-made" in a playful new social media post.

The post appeared on the official Honor UK X account and pokes fun at a recent ad for the Trump Mobile device. The short Trump Mobile video, which seems to be at least partially AI-generated, showed off the garish gold handset and was accompanied by a caption stating that it's going to start shipping this week.

"If you are in the market for a Chinese made Gold phone, may we suggest something a little more... premium?" Honor wrote in response to the Trump Mobile post, rounding off its post with a cheeky wink emoji and an image of the brand's Honor Magic 8 Pro in its Sunrise Gold colorway.

Trump Mobile originally claimed that the T1 Phone would be built in the US, though references to this assertion were removed from official branding some time after the device was first revealed in 2025.

Now, the Trump Mobile website describes the phone as being "shaped by American innovation" with "American teams helping guide design and quality," though it doesn't actually specify where it is made.

In a recent statement to Reuters, Trump Mobile CEO Pat O'Brien said that the product is "assembled in the US," which is a much less ambitious claim but does at least seem more feasible.

Trump Mobile has confirmed that the T1 Phone features a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a 50MP main lens, an 8MP ultra-wide lens, a 50MP 2x telephoto lens, and a 5,000mAh battery.

It's also powered by the rather dated Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 SoC, and runs on Android 15. Ouch.

These specs have led to speculation that the T1 Phone is simply a rebranded Wingtech Revvl 7 Pro 5G, which has a very similar spec sheet. The Wingtech Revvl 7 Pro 5G originally launched in 2024 and is manufactured in China. It's already available in the US through T-Mobile.

• Honor's innovative Robot Phone now has a release window
• It's set to launch in Q3 (July-September) of this year
• It has also been shown off at Cannes to demonstrate its filmmaking capabilities

Honor’s Robot Phone last made an appearance at MWC 2026, but back then, it was seen as something of a concept device. Now, though, it has an official release window.

Honor has announced that the Robot Phone will launch in Q3 of this year (likely in China first), so sometime between July and September, and alongside this announcement, the company has taken the phone to Cannes China Night, to show off its potential for filmmaking on a phone.

Unlike a normal smartphone, the Honor Robot Phone has an AI-powered camera attached to a gimbal. The camera can stick out the top of the phone and rotate independently of the rest of the handset, so it could be a versatile filmmaking tool.

Advanced tech and an Arri collaboration

Honor is marketing the device as “the next evolution of mobile filmmaking and AI hardware innovation”, with features like its “ultra-compact 4DoF gimbal system delivering robot-grade motion control” being shown off at Cannes, along with AI Object Tracking and AI SpinShot, which allow the camera to follow subjects and carry out fluid rotational movements.

The company also took the opportunity to emphasize that “for the first time ever, core elements of Arri Image Science are being integrated directly into a consumer device”. Arri, if you don’t know, is a designer and manufacturer of professional camera technology that’s been in business since 1917.

So it sounds like the Honor Robot Phone could be a highly capable device when it comes to AI-backed filmmaking, but that also sounds like quite a niche proposition — and given the design of this phone, it was always likely to be somewhat niche regardless.

It will be interesting to see, then, whether it can also attract buyers who aren’t interested in being the next Spielberg. We should find out in just a matter of months.

Honor has never been shy about revealing its design inspirations. The camera module on the Honor 200 Pro was a nod to Barcelona’s Casa Milá, the Magic 6 Pro’s ‘Star Wheel’ to luxury watchmakers like Panerai, and the Porsche Design Magic 6 RSR’s ‘peakline’ to the Porsche Taycan. I expect the Chinese brand will be less forthcoming about the muse for its latest phone, the Honor 600 Pro.

Honor is pitching its newest mid-ranger (which succeeds the Honor 400 Pro outside of China) as a rival to the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE, but the 600 Pro’s undeniably Apple-inspired looks invite comparison to the iPhone 17 Pro instead.

There’s the full-width horizontal camera module, the “precision-carved unibody design”, and the identical arrangement of the phone’s rear lenses and sensors. The Honor 600 Pro also comes in a choice of Black, Golden White, and Orange, which is an odd trio of colors that I’m sure I’ve seen offered elsewhere recently.

Jokes aside, these similarities are, I suspect, completely intentional on Honor’s part, and no doubt the brand knew it was in for a barrage of good-humored ribbing when it teased the 600 series earlier this month. But Honor is also confident that 600 Pro offers enough in the way of unique features to be considered more than just an industry imitator. And it’s right to be.

“The [600] series has been designed to balance familiar premium aesthetics with Honor’s own distinctive identity,” the brand told TechRadar. “While it reflects broader industry trends towards minimalist and refined forms, it also introduces unique Honor elements, such as the unibody cold-carving process, ultra-narrow bezels, and carefully crafted material finishes.

“For the Honor 600 Pro specifically, the updated camera module design was driven by both functional and aesthetic considerations — enabling a more balanced layout while supporting the upgraded imaging system, including the periscope telephoto lens, and creating a cleaner, more modern visual language compared to the previous generation.”

In justifying the 600 Pro's new design, Honor is alluding to two of the three biggest selling points of its latest smartphone: the improbably thin display bezels, the 200MP main camera, and the almighty 7,000mAh battery.

Starting with the display, the 600 Pro boasts a 6.57-inch AMOLED screen (2728 x 1264) whose surrounding bezels measure just 0.98mm — the thinnest of any phone, ever. For reference, the display bezels on the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and iPhone 17 Pro measure 1.42mm and 1.44mm, respectively. I've personally never used a phone with bezels narrower than 1mm, so the 600 Pro’s near-borderless screen is quite something to behold.

The 600 Pro’s rear camera system comprises a 200MP wide lens (f/1.9), a 12MP ultra-wide lens (f/2.2), and a 50MP periscope telephoto lens (f/2.8) with 3.5x optical zoom, which is a versatile setup for different shooting situations. You’ll, of course, get plenty of AI assistance to go with all that hardware, too, including Honor’s AI Color Engine and its new SuperMoon 2.0 night mode.

We’ve come to expect iPhone-, Pixel-, and Samsung-beating batteries from the best Android phones out of China, and the Honor 600 Pro is no different. It packs a 7,000mAh silicon-carbon cell under the hood, which is significantly bigger than the 5,300mAh battery inside last year’s Honor 400 Pro and just a tad smaller than the 7,300mAh battery in the ridiculously long-lasting OnePlus 15.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max, meanwhile, runs on a 5,088 mAh battery.

Other key features of the Honor 600 Pro include its Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset (which is also used in the Samsung Galaxy S25 series), a dedicated AI button for easy AI-powered video creation (we’ve got a TikTok on Honor’s AI Image to Video 2.0 tool coming soon), and 80W wired and 50W wireless charging.

In other words, Honor’s latest mid-ranger isn’t really a mid-ranger at all. It boasts specs that rival — and in some cases, surpass — those of bona fide flagships like the iPhone 17 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, and if Honor can get the price right, we could be looking at one of the best-value phones of the year.

We know the 512GB model costs the equivalent of £620 in Malaysia, but Honor hasn’t yet confirmed official UK pricing — availability in the US and Australia seems unlikely, though Honor did recently launch the 400 Pro in the latter region, so the 600 Pro could follow at a later date.

We’re still putting the Honor 600 Pro (as well as its cheaper sibling, the Honor 600) through our full review process, so you can expect to read our verdict on both phones in the coming days. But in the meantime, rest assured that Honor’s latest ‘Number Series’ device is much more interesting than its unoriginal design might have you believe. Besides, who doesn't like orange?

Honor Magic 8 Pro review: Two-minute review

After its strong showing with last year’s Magic 7 Pro, Chinese smartphone maker Honor is back with another excellent flagship. The Honor Magic 8 Pro is everything you could want from a top of the line smartphone, with a stacked spec sheet that features Qualcomm’s superb Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC (the same chip that powers the likes of the more expensive Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra), backed up by 12GB of RAM and a generous 512GB of storage in all available models.

It almost goes without saying, but this is a seriously speedy phone that breezes through everyday tasks and is an absolute gaming powerhouse to boot. I’ve been using it as a daily driver for months, putting it through its paces with high-end titles like Zenless Zone Zero and the recent Tomb Raider port, which it handles effortlessly at maximum graphics settings. Whether you’re playing the latest games or watching movies and shows on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, you can rest assured that everything is going to look stunning on the top-notch 6.7-inch OLED display. It’s incredibly bright and vibrant, topping out at 6,000 nits, with a crisp 1256 x 2808 resolution and buttery smooth 120Hz refresh rate.

I also love Honor’s new design, which refines the already strong look of the Magic 7 Pro with a larger and rounder camera module that gives the phone a more even look than before. The Magic 8 Pro comes in much better colors if you’re willing to venture outside the basic Black, too, including bright Sky Cyan and the radiant Sunrise Gold version that I tested. I’m a sucker for gold or rose gold colorways, and the shimmery back material here is an absolute stunner.

That said, I’m not too impressed by the addition of a dedicated, touch-sensitive AI Button on the Magic 8 Pro. This is effectively just Honor’s version of Apple’s Camera Control button, letting you zoom the camera in or out by simply sliding your finger across it. Tap it while on the home screen, and you’ll open up some of Honor’s AI tools, which are honestly a little lacking and don’t really justify a dedicated button. The AI Photos Agent is great, offering genuinely useful tools like the ability to remove passersby, upscale images, remove reflections, and so on, but the AI Settings Agent and AI Memories apps are both borderline useless.

Like other Honor devices, battery life is superb here. The battery optimization software can be a little too eager to shut down background apps that you might want to keep open, but it’s easy to add exceptions in the settings. The Magic 8 Pro unit that I used boasts a mega 7,100mAh silicon-carbon battery, which gives it more than enough juice to last a full day with moderate use. Even when you’re streaming content or playing intensive games, it’s difficult to run out of fuel in a single day. If you’re a lighter user, you should be able to achieve multiple days of runtime — especially if you enable the battery saver mode.

There is a caveat, though: buyers of the Magic 8 Pro in EU regions will get a reduced 6,270mAh silicon-carbon battery. This is a small downgrade that most aren’t going to notice, and will by no means restrict your ability to squeeze out a full day of use. Still, it’s worth bearing in mind given that competing devices like the Oppo Find X9 Pro and OnePlus 15 have batteries exceeding 7,000mAh in the same region.

Also, shoppers in the US and Australia have to contend with limited availability as Honor phones are not officially sold there. You may be able to import the Magic 8 Pro through some online retailers, but do bear in mind that this may impact network compatibility and your access to support or warranty services.

Honor Magic 8 Pro review: Price and availability

• £1,099.99 in the UK
• Almost always on sale for £899.99
• Frequently comes with great freebies
• Not officially available in the US or Australia

If you’ve bought an Honor device before, you’ll know that they are always almost on sale via Honor’s official website. The Honor Magic 8 Pro is no exception, and while it has an £1,099.99 RRP, it’s easy to find for as little as £899.99 at various times throughout the year.

Considering the high specs (plus that generous 512GB of storage), the Magic 8 Pro is absolutely incredible value at that lower price, and things only get better when you factor in the various freebies Honor likes to throw in.

At the time of writing, in addition to the £200 discount, the Honor Magic 8 Pro comes with a decent budget tablet (the Honor Pad X9a) that normally goes for £149.99, plus a £49.99 power adapter and £59.99 earbuds — that’s about £260 of extra value right there. The same offer might not be available as you read this, but it’s always worth checking Honor’s official website for similar freebies before heading straight to Amazon and other third-party retailers.

As with most other Honor phones, the Magic 8 Pro is not officially sold in the US or Australia.

• Value score: 5 / 5

Honor Magic 8 Pro review: Specs

Here's a look at the Honor Magic 8 Pro's key specs:

Honor Magic 8 Pro review: Design

• Sleek and stylish
• Follows usual Chinese phone design trends
• New AI Button

Honor hasn’t rocked the design boat with its latest flagship, but rather opted to refine the already strong aesthetics of the Honor Magic 7 Pro. The biggest difference with this new model is a more rounded ‘squircle’ camera bump, which has been moved a little higher up and made ever so slightly larger to give the phone a more balanced look. It’s a very sleek and stylish design, provided you like a big camera module — a trend in most Chinese flagships.

The phone feels lovely in the hands, with the hefty aluminum frame giving a good impression of durability. The back is plastic, but it’s impressively high-quality and reinforced in such a way that I didn’t even notice it wasn’t actually glass until I checked the device's spec sheet.

I’m very clumsy with my phones and generally use them without a case, which is a recipe for quite a few nasty drops. Embarrassingly, in my time with the Magic 8 Pro, I’ve dropped it from arm height directly on concrete a couple of times, and it’s emerged unscathed, bar a few small nicks on the Honor NanoCrystal Shield screen and a tiny dent in one corner. This is an impressive showing, and I have no doubts that it could take a much more intense beating with similarly strong results.

In addition to the volume rocker and power button, the right side of the Honor Magic 8 Pro now boasts a new AI Button. Unlike the other buttons, it’s flush against the side of the phone and is touch-sensitive. You customize what the button does in the phone’s settings menu, and I’ve found it’s most useful when used to open the camera, though given the existing camera shortcut on the lock screen, it’s not really something that I use a lot.

The Magic 8 Pro is available in three colors: Sunrise Gold, Sky Cyan, and Black. My personal favorite is comfortably Sunrise Gold, which happens to be the one sent to me for testing. It’s got a lovely shimmery look to it, with a subtle gold color that looks luxurious but, importantly, not overly garish.

• Design score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic 8 Pro review: Display

• Impressive brightness
• Strong resolution and refresh rate
• Features Magic Capsule

The Honor Magic 8 Pro has a formidable 6.7-inch 1256 x 2808 OLED panel with HDR support that's capable of reaching a blinding 6,000 nits brightness. Cranked up to the max (which is 1,800 nits in non-HDR content), it remains fully visible in even the harshest sunlight.

The 120Hz refresh rate is silky smooth and ensures that scrolling social media and system menus looks and feels great.

Some might not appreciate the rounded corners or subtle curve along the edge of the phone’s display, but I find that it's lovely under the fingers.

At the top of the screen, you'll find a small island with the front camera and 3D depth camera. You can use this for 3D face recognition, though I was perfectly happy just sticking to the Magic 8 Pro’s impressively snappy under-screen fingerprint reader.

This island is also home to the Magic Capsule, Honor’s take on Apple’s Dynamic Island concept. It provides an easy way to see your current song, any active timers, whether you have a voice recording running, and similar system app functions.

The whole screen is covered by Honor's NanoCrystal Shield coating, which seems to hold up quite well. You're still going to end up with scratches if you accidentally stick the phone in a pocket next to your keys, but otherwise, you shouldn't expect to pick up many blemishes in general use. I also appreciate the fact that the phone comes fitted with a plastic screen protector right out of the box, too.

• Display score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic 8 Pro review: Cameras

• Great camera performance
• Especially good in challenging environments
• Aggressive image processing

The Honor Magic 8 Pro’s camera array is headlined by a 200MP telephoto shooter with 3.7x optical zoom and 100x digital zoom. It performs excellently on the whole, though photography purists will inevitably spot that images do tend to suffer from rather aggressive processing that sometimes leaves edges looking a little too smooth or even slightly smudged if you like to zoom in on captured photos.

Still, the results are always bright and cheerful with strong colors and loads of detail. The optical zoom is speedy and effective, and you can get some surprisingly good results from the 100x digital zoom, though you should expect lots of visible AI processing. 4K 120fps video capture is also supported on the Magic 8 Pro, which makes it feel decidedly flagship.

This telephoto shooter is joined by a 50MP ‘Ultra Night’ wide lens, which really comes into its own in challenging lighting conditions. Whether it’s at a bustling club or an eclectic show, the Magic 8 Pro manages to capture details impressively clearly. It deals with motion extremely well, too, helping you effortlessly achieve great shots.

The weakest part of the camera setup is easily the 50MP ultra-wide, which is decent but nothing special in this market segment.

You also get plenty of cool modes to play around with, including Harcourt-inspired portraits and an absolutely incredible Stage mode that really takes the camera performance to another level at concert events.

• Cameras score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic 8 Pro review: Camera samples

Honor Magic 8 Pro review: Performance

• Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 delivers lightning-fast performance
• Flawless in daily use and gaming
• Some audio settings tweaks needed

What is there really to say about the performance of a phone outfitted with Snapdragon’s latest top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset? You can easily achieve a rock solid 60fps in demanding titles like Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero, even with the graphics cranked all the way up to the maximum settings. The phone stays impressively cool under heavy load, too, and doesn’t suffer from too much battery drain.

For daily use, the performance of the Magic 8 Pro is simply flawless, whether you’re scrolling through social media apps, online shopping, or browsing the internet. The 12GB of RAM (plus a rather superfluous additional 12GB of ‘Honor RAM Turbo’) is more than enough to multitask effectively and ensures that you will rarely struggle to flick between multiple apps.

The base 512GB capacity is excellent too, and should be plenty for most users. I download a helluva lot of high-fidelity music and high-end games, and have barely scraped past the 250GB mark in months of use.

The speakers on the Magic 8 Pro are also surprisingly good. No, they’re intended to replace your standalone JBL speaker, but music that you blast is perfectly pleasant and has an impressive level of bass. Just make sure to enable the premium bass mode in settings and disable 3D surround sound, as the latter leaves music sounding tinny and weird.

Also, make sure to turn off both Honor Sound Spatial Audio and Honor Sound Stereo Studio under Headphone Sound Effects settings, otherwise your sound with headphones is going to feel noticeably off.

• Performance score: 5 / 5

Honor Magic 8 Pro review: Software

• MagicOS 10 is easy to use
• Seven years of support promised
• AI features are hit-and-miss

As a former Apple user, I've always championed Honor's MagicOS 10 for its attractive design and ease of use. Yes, the brand is rather shameless in its copying of the Silicon Valley giant’s latest software innovations (just seen MagicOS 10’s very Liquid Glass-inspired transparent new look), but it's hard to argue with the results.

Menus are well laid out and look pretty, and there are plenty of customization options to play around with. All of the system apps look great and are brimming with functionality too, with the well-organized Notes app and transcribing Voice Recorder regular favorites when I'm working at tech events.

In the EU and some other markets, Honor has also promised seven years of software support. This is an excellent commitment and puts Honor up there with market leaders like Samsung.

I do have to admit that I expected a lot more from the phone's AI features, given the brand's focus on them in marketing. There are a few good inclusions here, like some effective AI photo editing tools and the ability to generate summaries or graphs in Notes, but some of the software feels half-baked.

The AI Settings Agent is a prime example of this. On paper, it's a chatbot that can adjust your phone settings by turning off Bluetooth, enabling your hotspot, and so on when asked by voice or text. A cool idea, but in practice, it's slow, buggy, and can't parse complex commands at all. Then there's the AI Memories app, which is simply baffling. It's just a bog average screenshot tool with the word “AI” slapped on it for no apparent reason.

There's also no getting around the fact that buyers outside of China are missing out on the YoYo Agent, Honor's agentic AI assistant. Instead, you get Gemini built-in which is much less exciting.

• Software score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic 8 Pro review: Battery

• 7,100mAh silicon-carbon, or 6,270mAh in the EU
• Easily powers through multiple days of use
• 100W wired charging, 80W wireless charging

Honor has always delivered phones with superb battery life, and the Honor Magic 8 Pro is no exception. As I mentioned previously, the model I tested sports a 7,100mAh silicon-carbon battery, though buyers in the EU will have a slightly smaller 6,270mAh model.

It comfortably lasts a full day of use and then some, and I’m a particularly frequent phone user who’s always checking social media and blasting music through my headphones.

With minimal use, you could easily squeeze multiple days out of a single charge, especially if you turn on the battery saver mode. The phone supports blazing-fast 100W wired charging, plus staggering 80W wireless charging, provided you use Honor’s own peripherals.

In terms of the competition, the Magic 8 Pro is comparable to the iPhone 17 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, though it offers faster wired charging than both of those phones. The OnePlus 15, meanwhile, remains the overall battery life champion — but the Honor runs it close.

• Battery score: 4.5 / 5

Should you buy the Honor Magic 8 Pro?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Honor Magic 8 Pro review: Also consider

Not so keen on the Honor Magic 8 Pro? Stack it up against these compelling alternatives.

How I tested the Honor Magic 8 Pro

• Tested for multiple months
• Used as a daily driver
• Compared to other phones

I tested the Honor Magic 8 Pro over a period of multiple months, with Honor providing the phone a few weeks before its official launch back in October 2025.

It’s been my daily driver for that entire time, used for hours every week, and thoroughly compared with my hands-on testing of other phones from Honor in addition to top Android alternatives. Throughout my testing time, I was careful to evaluate the phone’s performance in a wide range of apps, including top games, social media applications, and more.

Read more about how we test

First tested March 2026

Smartphones have evolved considerably over the past 10 years, but one area that has remained relatively static is durability. The Galaxy S7, released in early 2016, was the first mainstream flagship phone to feature an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance, and it wasn’t until almost nine years later that this evolved to an IP69 rating with the OnePlus 13 (among other OnePlus and Oppo phones).

In the same period, the smartphone form factor itself has warped into something totally new. We now have flip phones and book-style folding phones, but one of the biggest issues preventing their widespread adoption is durability. Despite many of these devices being tested for hundreds of thousands of folds, consumers remain understandably concerned about durability in the elements.

Now, though, we're starting to see non-folding phones boasting the same durability credentials as their non-folding counterparts. And the first to go the whole way? The Honor Magic V6, which was announced at MWC 2026 a few weeks ago. But is it truly durable? What does IP69 in a folding phone really mean? I decided to test the rating by putting the Magic V6 in my washing machine, and the results shocked even me.

IP68 vs IP69?

You’ve probably heard the term IP68 before, but what’s the meaning of the acronym, and how does IP69 differ from IP68?

IP68 means an Ingress Protection rating of 6 (the maximum available for dust resistance) and 8 (for water resistance). IP ratings range from 1 to 6 for dust resistance and from 1 to 9 for water resistance, and phones can have either rating or both. It was common for early folding phones to be rated only IPX6 or IPX8, meaning some water resistance but no dust protection.

The key difference between IP68 and IP69 is the type of water resistance they offer. The former is designed for submersion (usually between 1 and 3 meters for 30 minutes or longer), making it perfect for general waterproofing and protection against most everyday scenarios. IP69 steps this up considerably by offering protection against high-pressure, high-temperature jets, including those from dishwashers, washing machines, and steam cleaners. Industrial sanitation and other heavy-duty environments.

In short, IP68 protects against scenarios such as your phone falling in a puddle or you being caught in a torrential thunderstorm. Meanwhile, IP69 protects your phone from more extreme environments, the most common being accidentally dropping it in a dishwasher or washing machine without realizing it.

What happened when I 'accidentally' put a folding phone through a washing machine?

I wanted to simulate a possible scenario where you accidentally left a phone in a pocket while putting some clothes in a washing machine. To do so, I put the Honor Magic V6 in the pocket of a hoodie and ran it through a quick wash cycle at 40 degrees Celsius, or approximately 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

It was only the hoodie and the phone in the washing machine, and I chose this approach to limit the damage the phone might sustain from the metal drum. It turns out that this mitigation lasted for about 30 seconds, because as soon as the drum started spinning, I could hear the clunk of the Magic V6 against the drum. This made the results even more surprising!

45 minutes and a 1,400 RPM spin cycle later, what happened? The Honor Magic V6 survived, albeit a little worse for wear!

Taking it out of the washing machine with considerable trepidation, I was surprised to see that the phone worked absolutely fine. The front screen works and looks no different, but given that this is a folding phone, the real test was the main internal screen. Here’s where it got more interesting.

First, there was a slight crackling sound when unfolding the Magic V6, but the display itself remained perfectly fine. The only thing that’s changed is that there are now some artifacts on the main screen, reminiscent of smartphone water damage a few years ago. But considering that most folding phones use a flexible, plastic-based polymer or an ultra-thin Glass with a plastic layer for the main screen, these artifacts shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Crucially, all the phone's features still work. The fingerprint sensor and facial recognition work, even when using the cameras above the main screen. The cameras work absolutely fine, but there are several skirmishes and blemishes around the edges of the camera island. Talking of blemishes and skirmishes, the edges and corners of the phone also have many scratches, where it’s clear it was hitting the metal drum.

The results are conclusive, with three key takeaways!

I’m quite surprised that the Honor Magic V6 survived as well as it did. It’s clear that IP69 dust and water resistance is the new baseline for every phone manufacturer to follow, especially as it protects against the most extreme scenarios that IP68 doesn’t.

I remember breaking a phone over ten years ago by accidentally putting it in the washing machine, but it wasn’t a folding phone like the Magic V6, and now we know for certain that the Magic V6 can survive an accidental trip through the washing machine if the worst should happen.

That said, there are a few key takeaways that are worth noting. First, do not do this intentionally. I’m using a review sample that Honor provided to me last month, and I conducted this test knowing that, whatever happened, the company would ultimately replace this unit. They haven’t seen the contents of this article, but if this were a phone I'd purchased, I would be quite upset with the overall condition. That’s not Honor’s fault — and the damage would likely be far less to the edges had it been a machine full of clothes — but it’s nonetheless worth keeping in mind.

The second big takeaway is that this test proves folding phones are just as durable as regular phones. Yes, this wasn’t a sandstorm, but a washing machine is a rough environment for any electronics, and the fact that a folding phone still survives despite this treatment is a testament to its durability, Honor’s design, and the longevity of the foldable category as a whole.

The third big takeaway is obvious: IP69 is now the benchmark we should expect from the best foldable phones. Rival devices like the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold offer IP68 dust and water resistance, but Honor has managed to fit IP69 protection into a body that’s considerably thinner and lighter than the best Google Pixel phones and many of the best Android phones. There’s little excuse for companies not to do the same going forward, in folding phones or otherwise.

The Honor Magic 8 Pro Air is one of the most surprising phones I've used this year. While Samsung and Apple have reportedly abandoned their thin phone endeavors (or at least been disappointed by the sales of their respective slim devices, the Galaxy S25 Edge and iPhone Air), Honor has gone ahead and proven that thin phones can be great.

I’ve used every 'thin phone' made so far, including the Tecno Spark Slim and the Huawei Mate 70 Air, both of which had very limited launches. They, too, were markedly different from the Galaxy S25 Edge and iPhone Air, but neither quite hit the mark.

How, then, did Honor manage to succeed when everyone else didn’t? The answer is actually quite straightforward: the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air is a bona fide flagship.

The key challenge with thin phones so far

The secret to the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air's success is in its name: this is a Pro phone. The biggest challenge with other thin phones is that they feel like compromises, whereas Honor chose to make a thin phone that doesn't feel like an objectively worse phone than its flagship Honor Magic 8 Pro.

The iPhone Air prioritized a thin profile over everything else, necessitating its external MagSafe battery pack and single camera. The display is absolutely fantastic, and its size is fantastic too, but the rest of the phone still requires a series of conscious choices. It’s an excellent phone, but it’s not excellent for everyone — TechRadar's Axel Metz recently described it as "Apple's most beautiful, most frustrating iPhone."

The Galaxy S25 Edge is slightly thicker than the Air, but it still has a smaller battery than the rest of the Galaxy S25 lineup. And although it has one more camera than Apple's phone, it still doesn’t match the camera credentials of the Galaxy S25 or Galaxy S25 Plus, let alone the new Galaxy S26 series, including the excellent Galaxy S26 Ultra.

Then there’s the Huawei Mate 70 Air, which marks a considerable step towards the sweet spot that, I think, the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air hits. However, Huawei's phone still asks you to make a conscious choice about which features truly matter to you. One particular downside of the Mate 70 Air is its considerably slow charging; another is the quality of its three cameras.

Yes, three is better than two and definitely better than one. But the main camera is 50MP, the telephoto is 12MP, and the ultra-wide is just 8MP. That's not a flagship trio by any stretch. These cameras also come in a body that measures 6.6mm, which is a whole 1mm thicker than the iPhone Air. Granted, the Huawei Mate 70 Air does have the biggest battery of any thin phone at 6,500 mAh, but it’s a noticeably thicker device than the chief competition.

What the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air gets so right

Then there’s the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air, and Honor made a key decision here that makes the phone truly special.

Rather than consciously choosing weaker specs than those in its flagship sibling, the Honor Magic 8 Pro, Honor instead equipped the 8 Pro Air with a specially developed, thinner version of a nearly identical camera stack. In fact, in many ways, the Magic 8 Pro Air is the representation of what a non-folding version of the new Honor Magic V6 would be.

It features the same triple-camera setup as Honor’s newest folding phone, including a 50MP main camera, a 50MP ultra-wide camera, and a 64MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom. There’s also a 50MP selfie camera and a color spectrum sensor. In short, it’s an excellent camera array that’s far better than what you'll find in any other so-called 'thin phone'. This is particularly crucial given how important the camera is for many customers at the sharper end of the smartphone price spectrum.

The other key area that's important to most, if not all, customers is battery life, and this is where the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air absolutely excels.

It uses Honor’s latest third-generation silicon-carbon battery technology and packs a 5,500mAh battery with 80W wired charging, 50W wireless charging, and 5W reverse wired charging. The phone's MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chipset also blends efficiency and performance, delivering flagship-level power without the thermal overhead demanded by processors like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

Those specs wouldn’t look out of place in a regular-thickness phone, but the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air is remarkable in that it boasts all of that hardware in a body that’s just 6.1mm thick. Yes, it does feel a little thicker than the iPhone Air, but I actually love the design, and it feels more like the perfect balance between form and function.

5 things the Magic 8 Pro Air gets right about thin phones

So in summary, there are five key takeaways from the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air that all competitors should take note of, and aim to emulate in future thin phones.

The most important thing is that a thin phone shouldn’t feel like a compromise. The Honor Magic 8 Pro Air doesn’t ask for sacrifices on the core areas that matter most to customers. Rather than feeling like a conscious decision to forego certain features, you are still getting a truly Pro experience, especially compared to the competition.

Then there's the battery life and camera performance.

The biggest challenge with all thin phones so far — the Huawei Mate 70 Air aside — is that you have to accept lesser battery life than you'd get in a true flagship phone. The Honor Magic 8 Pro Air is the opposite.

While its battery life is slightly lower than that of the Magic 8 Pro, it’s still more than acceptable for a flagship phone; you'll get between 5 and 6 hours of screen-on time and excellent standby time on a full charge. That's the sort of on-screen endurance you can expect from most regular smartphones, let alone one as thin as the Magic 8 Pro Air.

The third key spec is the camera, and the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air proves that thin phones can have excellent cameras. Again, the phone doesn’t exactly match the excellent Honor Magic 8 Pro in terms of camera performance, but it still packs some phenomenal cameras that I enjoy using as much as, if not more than, those on my iPhone 17 Pro. That’s a testament to Honor’s desire to ensure that its thin handset lives up to the Pro in its name, and I think it nailed that brief.

The fourth key takeaway is the size of the device. Of course, a so-called 'thin phone' has to be thinner than a typical flagship, and the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air, at 6.1mm, is 2.7mm and 1.1mm thinner than the similarly sized iPhone 17 Pro and Galaxy S26, respectively. Yes, the iPhone Air is even thinner, but I think Honor got the balance right between offering a slim experience and delivering flagship hardware.

The final takeaway is the weight and, subsequently, the in-hand feel. At 155g, the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air is 10g lighter than the iPhone Air (which, admittedly, has a larger 6.5-inch screen), and it feels incredibly balanced in the hand despite its thicker frame.

It feels extremely premium, and just goes to show that you can achieve the same 'wow factor' as the iPhone Air without compromising on features. The vibrant orange color is the undoubted star, though the other choices — including Purple, White, and Black — are excellent as well.

The answer is clear: this is how you build a thin phone

For any company building a thin phone, the product decisions are now clear, as the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air has redefined what a thin phone can and should be.

It’s not about being the thinnest phone possible, but about finding the right balance between thickness and features, form and function. In the case of the Magic 8 Pro Air, that means getting a truly flagship experience in as thin a body as possible, and the result is one of the nicest phones I’ve ever used.

The Magic 8 Pro Air is so good that I can’t put it down. It’s my favorite phone to turn to and carry, and it has replaced the iPhone Air in my arsenal just because it’s still a flagship phone. It’s the only thin phone I would happily use as my primary, and not only is it the best thin phone, but it’s also one of the best phones you can buy right now.

Sadly, it’s only available in China, but it costs just CNY 4,999 (~$725). That means the Magic 8 Pro Air is not only better than its key global competition, but cheaper, too. Your move, Apple and Samsung.

While Samsung’s foldables experienced a major glow-up in 2025, Honor has been refining its competing Magic V series with an unwavering consistency over the last four years. The newly-unveiled Honor Magic V6 is another record-breaker that should have rivals worried.

Last year’s Honor Magic V5 took the crown for “World’s Thinnest Foldable” and the V6 ups the ante ever so slightly, by shaving another 0.1mm off its predecessor’s already-svelte body. That’s really just the tip of the iceberg, however, with engineering refinements and new functionality that’ll pose a real challenge for the bevy of foldables expected to follow, in the coming months.

I was able to get hands-on with the Magic V6 ahead of its international debut in Barcelona, and had the opportunity to quiz Hope Cao, Senior Product Expert at Honor, about creating the Magic V6.

Honor Magic V6 specs and price

Stronger than ever

Foldables always come under fire from skeptics due to their complicated engineering, intricate hinge mechanisms, and softer, flexible displays, when compared to your conventional candybar smartphone.

Samsung’s debut Galaxy Fold had some serious durability issues, which forced the company to completely rethink how it approached constructing its devices. That served as a cautionary tale to rivals like Honor. As a result, we’ve since seen the entire industry invest more time and money into building folding phones that are actually equipped to handle the rigors of normal daily smartphone use.

In the case of the V6, despite its razor-thin profile, Honor has ensured it’s made for the real world. It's even brought receipts, with independent certification from recognized bodies including TÜV Rheinland and SGS.

Speaking to Cao, he dove into more detail on the engineering refinements at work, especially those underneath the phone’s elegant exterior.

“Targeting the issue of hinges being prone to failure, the V6 utilizes 2800MPa (up from 2300MPa on the Magic V5) Honor Super Steel to fortify the mechanical core, which is almost twice the strength of Samsung’s material. This is combined with an AI simulation system, which leverages tens of thousands of virtual drop scenarios, ensuring the structure’s absolute durability and long-term reliability.”

Like the V5, this newer hinge is again rated for 500,000 folds, but Honor’s also bolstered the phone’s construction with IP68 and IP69-certified water resistance. This level of protection is currently exclusive to the V6 in the foldable space, with IP69 in particular, being a rarity outside of devices from the likes of Oppo and OnePlus.

Biggest battery out there

Honor is no stranger to pushing the envelope on battery tech, but the V6 has legitimately raised the bar for the competition. That includes a larger and more energy-dense battery than any other foldable currently on the market. Even though the international version of the V6 comes with a smaller capacity offering than its Chinese equivalent, it still clocks in higher than any rival foldable right now.

Despite its impressive 4.1mm thickness (4.0mm on the white version) when open, the Magic V6 still manages to house a sizable 6,600mAh cell, up from 5,820mAh on the Magic V5.

At the launch of the V6, Honor also showed off its fifth-generation ‘Blade Battery’. As thick as a playing card, this next-gen cell has found its way into the China-exclusive 1TB model of the V6, granting the foldable a record 7,000mAh battery capacity.

Cao explained, “this [Honor’s Blade Battery] houses the world’s thinnest mobile phone battery cell, with a thickness of only 0.15mm, yet boasting a silicon content as high as 32%. This enables a maximum battery capacity of 7,000+ mAh on the 1TB version sold in China, ushering the foldable category into the 7,000+ mAh era. Underlying technical innovations include a “super glue” binder in the anode material, 4.57V cathode material, and the thinnest copper foil.”

True cross-platform compatibility

Multitasking on a device like the V6 is already a freeing experience, compared to split-screen use or app switching on a conventional candybar phone (and even other foldables). But Honor has been gradually expanding its cross-device compatibility further than any other phone maker.

As much as the company undoubtedly wishes its users operated in an Honor-only bubble of personal tech, it knows that’s seldom the case. As Cao points out, “we are well aware that many high-end users are ‘dual-device owners’ (dual-phone users) operating across ecosystems.”

With their sights set on Apple users in particular, Honor has expanded the V6’s interoperability with the best iPhones; letting you mirror notifications between devices and activate an instant hotspot from the V6 when your iPhone’s signal is poor. What’s more, you can now mirror notifications from the V6 onto your Apple Watch, as well as extend the display of your MacBook onto Honor’s hot new foldable.

The phone’s OneTap feature can wirelessly beam a 1GB file to your MacBook in about 25 seconds. When you pair AirPods with the V6, you get everything from a familiar setup animation to control over the buds’ noise cancellation modes and Find My support.

Early thoughts

The Honor Magic V5 was arguably the most capable foldable of the last year, and the V6 looks on track to receive that same crown in 2026. The only fly in the ointment is that Honor hasn’t yet set a release date (or announced a price).

Despite its impressive new durability credentials, its sizable camera hardware, large displays (with stylus support on both), and new AI-backed functionality, its ambiguous on-sale date gives rivals time to bolster their 2026 foldable offerings, in an effort to thwart the V6’s promising lead.

From my time with it so far, it has a design with presence and a software experience that’s bursting with potential, I just hope we’re not kept waiting for the phone to actually make it to market.

• The Honor Magic V6 could have a battery of up to 7,150mAh
• Global versions might be 6,850mAh, but that's still much higher capacity than most foldable phones
• It could also have up to 120W charging, a top-end chipset, and 16GB of RAM

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is one of the best foldable phones you can buy, but you might not need to wait for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 to find something even better, as the Honor Magic V6 is launching on March 1, and a new leak suggests it could have some seriously impressive specs.

The headline spec looks to be its battery, which according to some interface screenshots shared by Chinese leaker Experience more (via Phone Arena) could be 7,150mAh. Or at least, one version of the phone might have a 7,150mAh battery, but another is listed with a 6,850mAh one, and it’s likely that the lower capacity version will be the global variant.

But even that would be higher capacity than any current foldable phone, with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 for example having just a 4,400mAh one.

More powerful and faster charging

But that’s not the only way in which the Honor Magic V6 could have Samsung’s foldable beat, as this leak also suggests it will have a more powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset and either 80W or 120W charging, depending on which version launches outside China. But that’s up from just 25W with the Galaxy Z Fold 7, so it's a massive increase either way.

This leak also points to the Honor Magic V6 having up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, which is a match for the Galaxy Z Fold 7.

And even when Samsung launches the Galaxy Z Fold 8, we wouldn’t think it will match the battery capacity or charging power here, since Samsung tends to be quite conservative on those fronts. So if those things are important to you, it might be worth just buying the Honor Magic V6 instead.

Of course, none of these specs are confirmed just yet, but with the Honor Magic V6 launching on March 6, we’ll know the official specs soon.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – or so they say. That’s certainly true in the world of phone design, where a trend started by one company can echo through the industry in months or even weeks.

One of those trendsetters is Apple, which sends shockwaves through the phone market with the reveal of each new generation of iPhone. Last year’s iPhone 17 series was no different, and the new designs for the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, as well as the new iPhone Air, have served as – ahem – inspiration for plenty of other phones already.

However, there's a point where inspiration goes a bit too far, but for some phone makers being accused of taking design elements from Apple’s latest handsets doesn’t seem to be a worry.

In fact, I’d say there are some phones on the market now that are just blatant iPhone 17 series clones (we’re including the iPhone Air as an iPhone 17 series model as it came out at the same time). Keep scrolling for a list of the five most shameless iPhone 17 series clones from other phone makers — just keep in mind that none of these phones are available in the US.

Honor Magic8 Pro Air

Let’s start with the new kid on the block, the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air – no prizes for guessing which iPhone this Android handset takes its inspiration from.

Announced in January 2026, the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air looks conspicuously similar to the iPhone Air, and Honor’s naming scheme makes the link pretty obvious. What’s odd about the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air (apart from its long name) is that, on paper, it’s a more capable handset than the iPhone Air in a couple of key ways.

The Magic 8 Pro Air has three rear cameras and a 5,500mAh battery – larger than even the iPhone 17 Pro Max’s battery capacity. For reference, the iPhone Air was widely criticized for its single rear camera and limited battery life. With that said, Honor’s slim flagship isn’t quite as thin as Apple’s, as the Magic 8 Pro Air measures 6.1mm thick compared to the 5.6mm iPhone Air.

Still, it’s hardly the most original design we’ve seen, and near enough copies the ‘plateau’ motif from the iPhone Air as well as the orange color of the iPhone 17 Pro.

It’s not even original enough to be the first Honor phone to nab design ideas from the iPhone Air – that title goes to the Honor 500 (released in China in November 2025), which arguably looks even more similar to Apple’s thin flagship. For now it seems that the Magic 8 Pro Air is a China-exclusive release, and the Honor 500 has only launched in select Asian markets – we’ll be on the lookout for a global launch for either or both handsets.

Honor Power 2

Double trouble – we’re sticking with Honor for the next entry on this list, the Honor Power 2, which despite being a mid-range handset takes more than a few cues from the most expensive iPhone on the market.

While the name of this phone doesn’t give quite as much away as the Magic 8 Pro Air, once you get your eyes on the Honor Power 2, it becomes clear that someone at Honor’s R&D department has a bit of a thing for the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

What makes this so obvious is that the Honor Power 2 has the same plateau at the top of the phone, housing a triple-camera setup in a triangular pattern. With how simple phone design is these days, that means it already looks almost exactly the same as the iPhone 17 Pro. And did I mention it’s also bright orange?

That’s right, Honor didn’t just stop at construction – the brand has also nicked the quirky orange color scheme from this year’s flagship iPhone. How imaginative.

Xiaomi 17 Pro and Xiaomi 17 Pro Max

I’m torn about including this next entry in the list, because despite a good helping of Apple inspiration, I do think the final product has some original and worthwhile ideas.

I’m talking about the Xiaomi 17 Pro and Xiaomi 17 Pro Max, released in China in late September 2025. On the surface, these phones aren’t that similar to Apple’s top-end handsets. The biggest difference is in the rear display on the Xiaomi flagships, which takes cues from the cover display on flip phones to offer a convenient way to check the time, receive messages, or take photos with the rear camera system.

However, we can’t ignore the name scheme here, which is not just similar to the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, but absolutely identical. What’s more, Xiaomi skipped over the Xiaomi 16 Pro entirely just to catch up to Apple, jumping straight from the 15 series to the 17 series.

I’m a fan of the best Xiaomi phones, and understand the need to keep pace with the big names in the industry, but this just seems desperate, even if the phones themselves are both cool and capable.

Poco F8 Pro and Poco F8 Ultra

Sticking with Xiaomi, we’re heading over to gaming-focused sub-brand Poco for the next iPhone-inspired models on this list, the Poco F8 Pro and Poco F8 Ultra, released in November 2025. Once again, the giveaway is the raised camera plateau, which houses three cameras and a flash module in Xiaomi’s typical square arrangement.

How similar these mid-range phones look to the iPhone 17 Pro depends on how it’s configured. In the silver colorway, the Poco F8 Pro very much resembles a silver iPhone 17 Pro, but the other color options are less directly tied to Apple’s models.

And considering that there’s no basic Poco F8 to speak of, it’s possible that the ‘Pro’ suffix was added to bring Apple’s high-end flagships to mind alongside the similar design.

As for the Poco F8 Ultra, the Bose speaker on the plateau and optional denim material option help to differentiate it from Apple’s design. I can’t see Apple releasing an iPhone that feels like a pair of jeans any time soon.

Inifinix Note Edge

Infinix isn’t a brand we talk about much here at TechRadar, as it’s mainly focused on releasing phones in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. But I had to include the recently announced Infinix Note Edge handset on this list, as it’s another clear-cut iPhone Air copy with a dose of iPhone 17 Pro design in there for good measure.

We’re talking about another thin, large phone with a camera plateau – but Infinix goes one step further with an Android wrapper that looks almost exactly like iOS 26.

However, Infinix seemingly at least had the good sense to withdraw its bright orange color option by the time of the phone’s official announcement (via GSMArena). I also find the name – Note Edge – pretty humorous, as it brings to mind the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge or older Galaxy Note phones much more than it does any Apple handset.

And to give credit where credit’s due, the Infinix Note Edge does sport some impressive specs, especially when it comes to its 6,500mAh battery capacity, which more than doubles the iPhone Air’s 3,149mAh capacity.

By the looks of these iPhone clones, it seems that Apple’s influence on phone design is set to continue – be sure to check out our list of the best iPhones if you’re thinking about picking up the real thing anytime soon.

Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Two-minute review

With the Honor Magic 8 Lite, the battery is undoubtedly the star of the show. It has the same massive 7,500 mAh capacity as the Oppo Find X9 Pro, but when combined with its lower-end energy-efficient chip, it lasts even longer. I'm not exaggerating when I say that four days on a single charge is quite easy to achieve with this phone.

The Magic 8 Lite's construction has been significantly upgraded this year, too. It now carries the highest possible IP rating, so dust and water will pose no threat, while a shock-resistant frame and reinforced tempered glass should keep it fairly safe from drops.

The phone's display is another highlight, and it ticks all the most important boxes. It's bright, has a speedy 120Hz refresh rate, supports PWM dimming, and has slim symmetrical bezels all the way around.

Unfortunately, the Magic 8 Lite's performance isn't quite so impressive. You'll see the occasional stutter when you're going about your daily business, and you'll need to use very low graphics settings to get a playable experience in modern games.

The cameras, too, left me wanting more. Honor hasn't upgraded the camera hardware on its Magic Lite series for the last few generations, and while the main sensor on this latest model is quite good, the ultra-wide is pretty terrible.

The software won't be to everyone's taste (and it's not fully up to date), but it has some genuinely useful features, as well as some neat AI tricks that are often reserved for pricier flagship phones. I found it very easy to live with.

So, whether the Magic 8 Lite is right for you will all depend on your priorities. As a photographer and a gamer, I didn't have the greatest time with Magic 8 Lite, but not everyone is like me. Battery life is the number one concern for many users, and that's one area where the Magic 8 Lite will definitely not disappoint.

Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Price and availability

• Announced on December 8, 2025
• Coming to the UK and Europe in January
• Not available in the US

The Honor Magic 8 Lite was announced on December 8, 2025, and is expected to begin shipping in the UK and Europe in January. As usual for Honor products, it won't be coming to the US.

Honor hasn't confirmed official pricing just yet, but with the Magic 7 Lite retailing for £399 at launch, I'd expect the Magic 8 Lite to cost a similar amount.

If so, that would put it in league with big-name rivals like the Samsung Galaxy A56 and Google Pixel 9a, though the Magic 8 Lite already stands out by offering the biggest battery of the three, as well as an IP69K rating.

• Value score: TBC

Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Specs

Here's a look at the Honor Magic 8 Lite's key specs:

Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Design

• Plastic frame with 6-layer drop-resistant structure
• Forest Green, Midnight Black, and Reddish Brown options
• IP68/IP69K dust and water-resistant

With the Magic 8 Lite, Honor has done away with the curved edges we saw on the last few generations, instead opting for a boxy design with flat siderails, which is bang on trend. While I appreciated how slim the curved edges made the Magic 7 Lite feel, the newer model feels more premium and modern.

The phone is available in three different colors: Midnight Black, Reddish Brown, and Forest Green. I have the latter in for review, and it looks lovely. The rear panel has a velvety matte feel, and the color shifts slightly when the light hits it. It's not a fingerprint magnet, either, which is often a problem with matte-finish phones.

The cameras are arranged in a centrally placed halo, just like on the previous generation, and the design reminds me of the Huawei Mate-series flagships. Love it or hate it, there's no denying it stands out from the crowd.

One of the big upgrades this year is the new IP68/69K rating for dust and water resistance. This means the phone is effectively immune to dust ingress and can withstand dunks in fresh water, as well as blasts from jets of hot water. So, if you can't resist scrolling while you take a shower, this is one of the few phones that will survive the ordeal.

The drop resistance has also been cranked up a notch. Honor reckons it'll survive drops from up to 2.5m heights, thanks to a new 6-layer drop-resistant structure that incorporates non-Newtonian fluid.

The phone still has a plastic frame, but it doesn't seem to be holding it back in terms of durability. The tempered glass coating on the screen has also been toughened; it now has a 31% deeper tempering depth to help with scratch and crack resistance.

• Design score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Display

• 6.79-inch 120Hz OLED display
• 3840Hz PWM dimming
• 6,000-nit peak brightness

The Honor Magic 8 Lite now has a fully flat screen, rather than curved edges, and I much prefer it. Not only does this mean you avoid unwanted reflections and accidental edge touches, but it's also easier to find a quality screen protector.

The bezels are slimmer, too, and they're symmetrical on all sides, which gives the phone a more premium look. The pill-shaped selfie cutout is also gone, and you now get a more typical circular punch hole.

The screen is also brighter than before, able to reach a whopping 6,000 nits at peak brightness. I certainly never had any trouble seeing the display out in the sunlight.

It's an OLED panel, and as you might expect, it delivers the deep, inky blacks and vibrant colors that the technology is known for. A 120Hz refresh rate keeps things looking smooth as you swipe around, too.

If you're concerned about eye strain, you'll be pleased to learn that the Honor Magic 8 Lite supports 3,840Hz high-frequency PWM dimming. This will help your eyes feel fresher when using the phone at low brightness levels.

Another neat feature is Honor's AI Heavy Rain Touch/Glove Touch tech. This ensures that the touchscreen continues working when others might fail, for example, when there's water on the screen. It's very useful in the British wintertime.

• Display score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Cameras

• 108MP main (f/1.75)
• 5MP ultra-wide (f/2.2)
• 16MP selfie camera (f/2.45)

The Honor Magic 8 Lite has two rear cameras: a 108MP main and a 5MP ultra-wide. Around the front, there's a 16MP punch hole selfie camera.

This is the exact same hardware that we saw on the Magic 7 Lite and Magic 6 Lite before that. Neither of those phones impressed me with their photographic abilities, so my expectations were on the ground when coming to test the Magic 8 Lite.

Indeed, the ultra-wide is as bad as you might expect. You can get passable results in perfect lighting, but there's only so much you can do with such a low-resolution sensor. In low light, you should avoid it entirely.

The main camera, on the other hand, is quite decent. Just don't let the 108MP specification fool you into thinking you'll get exceptionally detailed shots. It spits out 12MP JPEGs by default, and you'll need a bright sunny day if you want to use the full resolution, as the pixels are quite tiny.

I had hoped that this high-resolution sensor would allow for big digital crops without much of a loss in quality, but that's not the case. You can see the quality degrade quite significantly at 3x zoom, and it gets worse as you approach the maximum of 10x.

Still, in the right conditions, you can get some great shots with the Magic 8 Lite. Honor's processing is a little punchy and contrasty for my tastes, but you are given plenty of controls to adjust the way your images look.

The selfie camera is fine, but wholly unremarkable. It's on par with most budget-focused handsets, and it gets the job done, but it doesn't have the edge that Instagram addicts will be looking for.

I found that portrait mode cutouts weren't the most reliable, often chopping off bits of hair. Plus, there's less control than I'm accustomed to. There's no way to change the blur level on the selfie camera, for instance; it's just on or off.

For video shooting, you can capture at up to 4K 30fps on the main camera, while the other two lenses top out at 1080p. Video stabilization isn't the most impressive, and the lack of consistency across lenses means that budding content creators will be left wanting more.

• Cameras score: 3 / 5

Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Camera samples

Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Performance

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chipset
• 8GB RAM
• 256GB / 512GB storage

The Honor Magic 8 Lite is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 SoC. It's a healthy upgrade compared to the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 that was (strangely) present in both the Magic 6 Lite and 7 Lite.

Still, this is a budget-focused chipset, so you should temper your expectations when it comes to performance. It's paired with 8GB of RAM, which should be sufficient for some multitasking, and either 256GB or 512GB of storage.

In normal day-to-day use, when scrolling social media and responding to emails and WhatsApp messages, the phone feels quick enough. At times, though, you can feel the difference between this and a flagship device. You can expect to see the occasional stutter in the system animations, and sometimes things will take a split second longer to load. Honestly, though, it's very easy to live with.

However, when you boot up a demanding game, that performance gap widens significantly. In fairness, the Magic 8 Lite was still able to play Wuthering Waves, which is well known as one of the most challenging Android titles, but I had to stick to the lowest preset to get playable framerates, and I still saw the odd performance dip.

So, this phone is not a good choice for keen gamers, but if you're more into Candy Crush or retro titles, you might find this level of performance to be all you need.

• Performance score: 3 / 5

Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Software

• Magic OS 9, based on Android 15
• Plenty of AI features
• 6 years of updates and security patches (in EU regions)

The Magic 8 Lite runs Magic OS 9, which is the same software you'll find on Honor's 2025 flagships like the Magic 7 Pro and Magic V5. That said, we've already seen Magic OS 10 begin to roll out to these handsets, so it's a little strange that the Lite model is launching one step behind. Hopefully, the upgrade will materialize before too long.

Honor promises six years of OS upgrades and security patches for the Magic 8 Lite in the EU, so it will definitely get the new OS, but how soon it will arrive remains to be seen. Regardless, it's a very decent update policy at this price point; it doesn't match the seven years that you get with Honor's flagship phones, but it outdoes a lot of the similarly priced competition. It should be noted, though, that outside of the EU, this phone only gets two years of updates.

Magic OS continues to be a divisive Android skin. It's heavily stylized, and it changes a lot of the core fundamentals, so Android purists probably won't love it. Personally, though, I quite enjoy it. I think it looks nice, and it adds some genuinely useful features.

Honor's Magic Portal is probably the most unique offering. It allows you to drag text and images from one app to another, and I find myself using it quite frequently. I was pleased to see that Honor's "Knuckle to Portal" gesture is now supported on the Lite model, too, as it was missing when I reviewed the previous model.

In terms of functionality, there's a lot of overlap between Magic Portal and Google's Circle to Search, which is also supported on this phone. That said, having more than one way to accomplish a task is rarely a bad thing, because if one service isn't behaving the way you'd like, you can try the other.

You also get loads of AI-powered image editing tools on the Magic 8 Lite, like an object eraser, reflection removal, outpainting, background removal, and more. Again, a lot of these features are built into Google Photos, too, but if you use both platforms, you can see which one does a better job.

I'm a big fan of Honor's Magic Pill feature, which is functionally almost identical to Apple's Dynamic Island. It's nothing particularly new, but it means you have quick access to things like media controls and timers, no matter which app is running in the foreground.

The aggressive power-saving measures that the OS applies by default are less impressive. If you want timely notifications, you might find that you need to go into the settings and tweak things. I often found I wasn't getting notifications from my video doorbell, for example.

• Software score: 3 / 5

Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Battery

• 7,500mAh silicon-carbon battery
• 66W wired charging
• No charger included

Without a doubt, one of the most appealing aspects of the Magic 8 Lite is its insane battery life. The 7,500mAh silicon-carbon cell is up there with the largest batteries available today (tied with the Oppo Find X9 Pro and RedMagic 11 Pro). The difference here is that it's paired with a less powerful and more energy-efficient chipset, which results in the best battery life of any phone I have tested to date.

When I was working in the office, and not playing too many games or taking a lot of photos, I found I was only using around 25% of the Magic 8 Lite's battery per day. I managed to make the phone last for four days on a single charge, and it wasn't particularly challenging to do so.

Of course, battery life varies wildly depending on how you use your phone, but even the heaviest of users should be able to achieve two days on a charge without any difficulty. So, if you're always forgetting to charge your phone, the Magic 8 Lite could be an absolute game-changer.

What's more, despite having a massive battery, the phone also doesn't take too long to charge. It supports up to 66W speeds using an official Honor charger, but sadly, you don't get one included in the box.

With the right charger, you can expect around a 50% charge in just half an hour, while a full charge will take just over an hour. Not too shabby.

As ever, I would have loved to see wireless charging support, especially since the feature seems to be making its way to more mid-rangers, but there's none of that here.

• Battery score: 5 / 5

Should you buy the Honor Magic 8 Lite?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Honor Magic 7 Pro review: Also consider

The Honor Magic 8 Lite is a battery life champion with great durability, but there are plenty of other great options around the same price. Here are a couple of competitors that are worth looking at:

How I tested the Honor Magic 8 Lite

• Review test period: One week
• Testing included: Everyday use, including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback
• Tools used: Geekbench 6, 3DMark, GFXBench, native Android stats

I put my SIM card into the Honor Magic 8 Lite and used it as my main phone for just over a week. I used it exactly as I would use any other phone, taking lots of photos, gaming, messaging, working, streaming video, and navigating with Google Maps and Waze.

I also compared the experience of playing graphically challenging games like Wuthering Waves and Zenless Zone Zero to my experience on other Android mid-rangers like the Nothing Phone (3a) and Samsung Galaxy A56. I also ran multiple benchmarks on the handset, including 3DMark, GFXbench, and Geekbench.

I assessed the battery performance based on my real-world usage, and charging times were measured using an official Honor 100W wall adapter and cable.

Read more about how we test

First tested November 2025

Honor Magic V5: Two-minute review

The Honor Magic V5 is a truly impressive folding phone. It’s the thinnest booklet-style folding phone ever, with two excellent displays, a design that expertly balances ergonomics and aesthetics, and fantastic battery life. Its rear camera system stands up to some of the best folding phones, while its internal hardware is as powerful as you’d expect from a device marketed on its multitasking capabilities.

The first thing you notice about the Honor Magic V5 is just how thin it is. At just 4.1mm thick (not including the sizeable camera bump), the Magic V5 is thinner than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, Google Pixel 10 Pro, and even the region-locked Oppo Find N5, only beaten by the tri-folding Huawei Mate XT (another China exclusive). It’s so thin that it’s made me ask whether folding phones should keep getting thinner – its 7.95-inch inner screen really does disappear into your hand thanks to that ultra-thin frame.

Speaking of displays, the Magic V5 sports two excellent panels. Its 6.43-inch cover screen strikes a nice balance between compact and useable, and its 20:9 aspect ratio isn’t far off that of the iPhone 17 or Samsung Galaxy S25. The inner display measures 7.95-inches, with an approximate aspect ratio of 18:19.5.

That almost-square display is one of the best I’ve used on a folding phone, and makes reading articles, watching videos, taking photos a real joy. I also can’t get over just how similar the viewing experience is between the two displays – that’s a hard thing to nail given the change in material between the glass cover screen and plastic inner display, but Honor has done an excellent job.

The winning streak continues when it comes to the Magic V5’s battery, which is huge not only for a folding phone, but for a smartphone in general. With incredible engineering and straight-up alchemy, Honor has fit a 5920mAh battery into this phone – that’s larger than the battery in any comparable folding phone, and it's even bigger than the battery in the current-gen iPad mini. Charging is fast, battery life is long.

The Honor Magic V5 is the strongest contender to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7. The Magic V5 outclasses Samsung’s latest booklet foldable in so many ways, and where Samsung does take the lead it isn’t by much. At £1,699 the Magic V5 decisively undercuts the Z Fold 7, which starts at £1,899 – though like all other Honor phones, the Magic V5 is unfortunately unavailable in the US. That limited availability will keep it off of our lists of the best phones and best folding phones, but if you’re looking for a folding phone in the UK or Europe, the Honor Magic V5 should be a serious contender.

Honor Magic V5: Price and Specs

• Not available in the US
• Costs £1,699 in the UK (512GB of storage)
• Comes in three colors, including a unique gold option

Like all Honor phones, whether you can get the Honor Magic V5 depends on where you live. It’s not available in the US, but can be bought online or through carriers in the UK, Europe, and other regions.

In the UK, the Honor Magic V5 costs £1699.99 for the model with 512GB of storage – there are no other configurations to choose from. Honor is bundling a 66W power adapter and Magic Pen stylus in the UK – though as there is no stylus in the box, I'm not going to cover the accessory in this review.

Let’s address the elephant in the room – £1,699.99 is a lot of money for a phone. However, the Honor Magic V5 does manage to undercut its rivals quite significantly. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 starts at £1,899.99, while the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold starts at £1,799.99 – and both come with 256GB of storage, half of what the Honor Magic V5 offers.

And when you consider the Honor Magic V5’s impressive hardware specs, class-leading thinness and design, and impressive camera system, the value for money becomes even more apparent.

As for colors, the Magic V5 comes in Black, Ivory White (an online-exclusive option) and Dawn Gold, which has an eye-catching ripple effect on the rear panel. The specs below are for the Ivory White model I tested; the other two colors are actually a little thicker, at 4.2mm unfolded and 9mm folded, and are slightly heavier at 222g.

• Value score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic V5: Design

• Looks simply phenomenal, and feels built to last
• Very comfortable to use
• Large camera bump and slightly noisy hinge

The Honor Magic V5 is the best-looking phone I’ve ever reviewed. This is a truly gorgeous piece of technology, and it’s clear that maximal attention has been given to achieving as much symmetry and ergonomic balance as the folding phone form factor will allow. The Ivory White color model is also the world’s thinnest folding phone at just 4.1mm thick when opened (not counting the substantial camera module). It’s a technical wonder that has me asking whether folding phones actually need to get any thinner.

Besides thinness, I noticed that the Magic V5 goes further than its contemporaries in providing a more comfortable experience. In the past, I’ve used folding phones with sharp edges and awkward bumps that make them uncomfortable to use for long sessions. On the Magic V5, Honor has flattened and rounded all the corners around the hinge, as well as the edges of the hinge itself – the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is almost as svelte, but has much sharper edges. The outer corners of the phone are also rounded off, which makes the unit very comfortable for one-handed or unfolded use.

Functionally, that hinge works well. It feels light to open, but not loose – it takes no real effort to open but won’t wobble much when partially unfolded.

As for construction, the Honor Magic V5 is composed of an aluminum chassis and a woven fiber rear panel that feels as solid as glass or ceramic materials used in other phones. The cover display is glass and the inner display is plastic, with raised plastic bezels housing the magnets that keep the phone snapped shut. Moreso than any other folding phone I’ve used the Honor Magic V5 lays totally flat when opened – and the crease on the inner display is so minimal that I had to remind myself to look for it when I set the phone up for the first time.

The camera housing is also superbly designed, and perfectly walks the line between subtlety and flair with its all-black coloring, textured metal ring, and octagonal bracketing. The phone also sports dual IP58 and IP59 dust and water resistance ratings – better than the Galaxy Z Fold 7 but not quite dust-sealed as the IP68-rated Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Fresh water shouldn’t be an issue, but keep it well away from fine dust, gravel, and sand.

The Honor Magic V5 is a wonder of engineering and the most comfortable folding phone I’ve ever used. I’m a large guy with a pretty big handspan, so I sometimes found it a bit difficult to get enough purchase on the phone to get it open, but I’m sure this experience varies.

However... after my test period for this review had concluded and about two months of use in total, I noticed that the inner screen protector had begun to separate from the folding display. That's not the type of thing we want to see from any folding phone, especially after such a short period of use. For now, we can't say whether this is a design flaw or just a one-off issue: we've contacted Honor directly to ask for comment and another test unit.

• Design score: 5 / 5

Honor Magic V5: Displays

• 6.43-inch cover display
• 7.95-inch folding display
• Both display have near-identical pixel density and top out at 3000 nits

The displays on the Honor Magic V5 are wonderful. The 6.43-inch cover display is amongst the sharpest and most vibrant screens I’ve used, and the 7.95-inch inner display is bright and immersive – what’s more, the viewing experience feels very consistent when switching between the two displays, something other folding phones have struggled to achieve.

In fact, when I unfolded the phone for the first time, I had to remind myself to look for a crease in the inner screen. It’s a far cry from the view-warping creases of folding phones from even a few years ago – I also noticed that, unlike some folding phones, the Magic V5 unfolds nearly perfectly flat, which makes it even easier to get lost in the expansive inner display.

In terms of technical specs, the Honor Magic V5’s cover display sports a resolution of 1060 x 2376 pixels, with 404 pixels per inch, while the inner display has a resolution of 2172 x 2352 pixels at 403 pixels per inch. What’s more, both panels top out at an absolutely ludicrous 5000 nits of brightness. Of course, those are theoretical limits, and your actual experience won't reflect those potentially harmful levels.

Compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 7, the Magic V5 offers a sharper, higher resolution inner display, but can’t quite match the resolution and pixel density of the Galaxy’s cover screen.

Of all the folding devices I’ve used, the Magic V5 feels the most frictionless when switching between the two displays. Naturally, the glass cover display is a tiny bit sharper and looks a touch clearer, but Honor has calibrated these panels such that there’s little noticeable difference in color, brightness, or detail.

If there is an issue with the Honor Magic V5’s 7.95-inch folding display, it’s the issue common to all folding phones – that being that its larger screen space isn’t always efficiently used. Videos with a typical 16:9 aspect ratio can’t fill out the almost-square panel, and games often struggle to find a suitable safe zone (particularly first person games like Call of Duty). The inner screen is wonderful to look at, and perfect for reading, scrolling, and video calls, but a proper tablet might be better for streaming the best new shows.

• Display score: 5 / 5

Honor Magic V5: Cameras

• 50MP main camera
• 64MP telephoto camera with 3x zoom
• 50MP ultra-wide camera
• Twin 10MP selfie cameras

Folding phones have, until this year, had slightly weaker camera systems than their slab-phone counterparts – but times are changing. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 launched with a 200MP main lens, resetting expectations for the types of pictures that folding phones can produce.

The Honor Magic V5 sports three great rear cameras that come very close to producing flagship-standard images. Across a variety of shooting conditions I was able to take great photos with the Magic V5 – I was particularly impressed by how much detail the sensors captured; even noisy scenes with lots of foliage were reproduced with good definition, even if the contrast sometimes left me wanting. The image stabilization is also great all the way out to the maximum 100x digital zoom.

However, I found the post-processing could be fairly aggressive, and was often unsure of how much AI had impacted the final image, especially at long zoom ranges. That’s something to keep in mind if you prefer your photos to be a true reflection of the camera’s abilities, as there’s no way to fully disable the image processing pipeline.

The Magic V5 sports a triple-camera array housed on its rear panel, composed of a 50MP main camera, 50MP ultra-wide camera, and 64MP 3x telephoto camera. This gives the phone a lot of range and flexibility for still photography – the telephoto camera in particular strikes a nice balance between reach and usability for portraits and tighter landscape shots. Photos from all three cameras are bright and vibrant without looking unrealistically colorful, though there are some more vibrant profiles to choose from.

Taking photos with the inner display is really intuitive – that 8-inch panel makes for a great viewfinder, and the unfolded frame allows the phone to rest steadily in-hand. However, I found the default camera app a little bit clunky, with some quick options (most notably aspect ratio) hidden behind an in-app menu.

The Magic V5 supports video shooting at 720p, 1080p, and 4K resolutions at either 30fps or 60fps. That large display is a boost for shooting video too, with plenty of blank space around the 16:9 frame to place your thumbs (though, for some reason, some controls are still placed over the viewfinder).

One of the only true let-downs on the Magic V5 is its pair of selfie cameras. The inner and outer displays house identical punch-hole 10MP selfie cameras that prove lacking in almost every situation. This is allayed by the rear camera selfie feature, which uses the cover display as a viewfinder, but that won’t always be the most convenient option.

Honor Magic V5: Camera samples

• Cameras score: 3 / 5

Honor Magic V5: Software and AI

• Android 15 with MagicOS 9
• Honor AI and Google Gemini
• Comprehensive multitasking tools

Like other Honor phones, the Magic V5 runs MagicOS 9, an Android iteration based on Android 15. As far as Android interfaces go, MagicOS sits somewhere between the speed and looseness of OnePlus’ OxygenOS and the stiffer, more structured feel of Samsung’s OneUI. It does the job.

As you might have guessed, the Honor Magic V5’s software shines brightest when it comes to foldable-specific features – the phone has a large suite of multitasking tools that allow for split screen and multi-windowed usage.

You can use a maximum of three apps at once in split screen mode (with one partially hidden off to one side), with another open in a floating overlay. To activate split screen mode you can either drag another app up from the taskbar or hold the bar that appears at the top of the screen. You can also open a single floating window when the phone is folded.

The situations that call for this level of multitasking are honestly pretty rare, but this is still an impressive amount of flexibility that helps the Honor Magic V5 feel like more than just a really big phone. Similarly to Apple’s Stage Manager tool for iPadOS, groups of windows stay together when you swipe up to see your opened apps, and I found it pretty easy to swap between split screen, multi-window, and full-screen modes with the on-screen buttons and contextual menus. However, some software isn't optimized for the folding display; I can give a pass to Honor on third party apps, but even pre-installed Google-made apps like YouTube sometimes gave me weird UI glitches. Luckily, this isn't too common.

MagicOS has a few more tricks up its sleeve. The phone can drive an external display at up to 1080p with the Magic Desktop feature, which is similar to Samsung’s DeX environment and allows for desktop-style usage with a keyboard and mouse. Back on the touchscreen, certain apps have a pull-down tab on the homescreen icon itself, which allows you to, say, quickly glance the time in another timezone or type down a quick note.

The phone is also loaded with AI tools from both Honor and Google (via Gemini, Circle to Search etc). These are found all over the OS, from generative note writing to AI image editing, and an uncanny feature that generates short videos from still images (first seen on the Honor 400 earlier this year). I personally found that Honor has been pretty heavy handed with implementing AI, to the point that it can be harder to find basic functions. For example, to crop an image in the photo gallery, you have to select “AI Edit”, which is now the catch-all term for photo editing.

• Software and AI score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic V5: Performance

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset
• 16GB of RAM
• Never slow, but does heat up a bit

As is typical for high-end folding phones, the Honor Magic V5 is fully loaded with top-end internal hardware, which translates to consistently great performance across multitasking and gaming. It’s got the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and a full 16GB of RAM – that’s as good as it gets for Android phones, so you won’t come up against hardware constraints. The Magic V5 also comes with 512GB of storage, so no matter which configuration you choose you’ll have plenty of space for photos, videos, and apps.

I was able to make full use of the Magic V5’s software capabilities thanks to this array of high-end silicon. I never encountered any stuttering in the UI, and loading various apps was snappy and seamless, whether in full-screen or in MagicOS 9’s multitasking modes. There’s no lag when switching between apps or in games like Call of Duty Mobile – everything just runs, which is, in fairness, what you want from a phone that costs this much.

However, all that power in such a thin frame does mean the Magic V5 gets pretty warm. It never got uncomfortably hot, but it did seem to warm up very quickly compared to flagship slab phones. This is an these common to thin phone designs, as we’ve recently seen with the iPhone Air – the Magic V5 never got uncomfortably hot, but heat can have negative effects on battery life and potential performance over time, so it's something to keep an eye on.

With that said, I reviewed the Oppo Find N5 earlier this year – another ultra-thin folding phone with a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset – and didn’t notice much in the way of heat.

• Performance score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic V5: Battery

• 5820mAh battery capacity would be impressive on a slab phone, let alone a foldable
• All-day battery life with plenty to spare
• 66W wired charging with 50W wireless charging

By some miracle of physics, the Honor Magic V5 has a 5,820mAh battery. Let’s put that into perspective – the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 has a 4,400mAh battery, the OnePlus Open has a 4,805mAh battery, and the Honor Magic 7 – a flagship slab phone – has a 5,650mAh battery. Folding phones are typically consigned to smaller batteries due to their split construction, but the Honor Magic V5 sports cells that add up to a fractionally smaller total than a massive Pro-grade cameraphone. It’s really quite something.

This translates to excellent battery life. I’ve used a few folding phones that sport ‘all-day’ battery life, but the Honor Magic V5 gets through a full day of mixed use so effortlessly that I might not think about recharging until midway through the next day. The phone supports 66W fast wired charging with Honor’s proprietary charging kit, but as there’s no brick in the box I could only test it with third party chargers (I got up to 80% in just under an hour with a 40W brick). The handset also supports an impressive 50W power draw in wireless charging. That’s much higher than the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and many slab phones.

I will concede that the Honor Magic V5 seems to chew through battery a bit faster than slab phones, but the phone’s low-power mode is a real lifesaver when you’re caught away from an outlet. I felt fine leaving the house in the morning with around 50% charge, knowing that this would carry me through half a day or more of mixed use very comfortably. Of the folding phones I've used, this has the best battery life for sure.

Folding phones are known to be less efficient with their battery capacities than their slab phone contemporaries, as the cell is typically split between the two halves of the phone. That the Honor Magic V5 offers such impressive battery life is testament to Honor's engineering prowess.

• Battery score: 5 / 5

Should you buy the Honor Magic V5?

Honor Magic V5 score card

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Honor Magic V5: Also consider

How I tested the Honor Magic V5

I used the Honor Magic V5 for an extended review period, culminating in a week-long stint as my daily driver. I used the Magic V5 to make calls, send messages, scroll through the internet and social media, play games, take pictures, and shoot video. I made sure to balance my use between the cover screen and folding display, and found that both screens could handle most tasks very well.

• Honor has revealed its next flagship phone, the Magic 8 Pro, in China
• It's full of AI features and boasts the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip
• It will be available in Europe later this year

Honor has unleashed its new Magic 8 series of flagship phones in China, and they're jam-packed with artificial intelligence (AI) features.

The Chinese brand dubs the new Honor Magic 8 Pro its "first self-evolving AI smartphone" – but what, exactly, does that mean in real terms?

Well, its major new feature is the YOYO Agent, an agentic AI tool that, according to Honor, will be able to assist in more than 3,000 scenarios. Examples provided by the brand include the ability for the YOYO Agent to delete blurry photos from your camera roll upon request, as well as compose and send business emails using information from your inbox.

The YOYO Agent will be instantly accessible via the phone's all-new AI Button, which, when held down, will also activate a Google Lens-like YOYO Video Call feature for gathering information about subjects within the viewfinder. If you'd rather use the button for something else, you'll also be able to set it to activate a range of one-tap functions.

The AI tools don't stop there, though, with new AI features coming to the phone's camera setup. These include 'AI anti-shake technology', which should make it easier to take clear, zoomed-in images. There's also Magic Color, 'the industry's first AI-powered color engine', which will apparently increase the quality of color processing for better pictures.

AI backed up by serious specs

Behind all of its AI bells and whistles, the Honor Magic 8 Pro boasts some seriously high-end specs, namely the newly released Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, which powers many of its AI features through its Hexagon NPU. This is paired with a hefty 12GB of RAM and a robust 512GB of storage.

On the display front, you're getting a 6.71-inch OLED panel (1256 x 2080) with a variable refresh rate up to 120Hz and a staggering brightness of up to 6,000 nits.

There are three rear cameras, too: a 200MP telephoto lens, a 60MP lens, and a 50MP ultra-wide that can also be used for macro shots.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 should be a very power-efficient chipset, with 16% overall power savings compared to the previous Snapdragon 8 Elite per Qualcomm, but Honor hasn't used that as an excuse to skimp out on the battery.

Buyers in China get a 7,100mAh silicon-carbon model, though those in Europe will have a smaller 6,270mAh version. All versions will support 100W wired charging, or 80W wireless charging for quick top-ups.

The phone weighs 213g and comes in four colors: Glacier White, Sky Cyan, Black, and, my personal favorite, Sunrise Gold.

It'll ship with the new Honor Magic OS 10 Android skin, which features a very Liquid Glass-like translucent visual design and plenty of customizability. My current daily driver, the Porsche Design Honor Magic 7 RSR, is running Magic OS 9 right now, and I'm a big fan, so I'm keen to see how this new iteration of the operating system holds up.

While the Honor Magic 8 Pro is available to pre-order in China today, it will come to other markets like Europe later this year. There's no official word on UK pricing yet, but I would expect the phone to start somewhere in the region of £1,099.99, like its predecessor, the Honor Magic 7 Pro.

As with other Honor models, expect plenty of discounts and bundled freebies to bring that price down in due time, though.

You might also like

• The Honor MagicPad 3 would be the iPad Air killer, if it wasn't for one fatal flaw
• Honor matches Apple, Samsung, and Google with new update promise for its flagship phones – but how long is 'too long'?
• Honor’s new AI-powered portrait mode made me feel like a movie star

Honor’s latest book-style foldable, the Magic V5, has finally landed in the UK and Europe after debuting in China earlier this year.

It arrives just a few weeks after the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and a month ahead of the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, which is set to begin shipping on October 9.

But how does Honor’s latest foldable flagship compare? We’re currently putting the Magic V5 through its paces – stay tuned for our full review in the coming weeks – but below, we’ve detailed the new phone’s price and on-paper specs versus two of the best foldable phones of 2025.

The Honor Magic V5 with 512GB and 12GB of RAM starts at £1,699.99, undercutting the Pixel 10 Pro Fold by £50 and the Galaxy Z Fold 7 by a hefty £100. You'll also get twice as much storage for that price, though Google’s phone does offer a larger 16GB RAM capacity as standard.

Design-wise, Honor claims that the Ivory White version of the Magic V5 is the “thinnest foldable phone” on the market, but our own testing proved that the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is, in fact, the thinnest book-style foldable in any orientation. Mind you, at 4.2mm when open and 9.39mm when closed, Honor’s Magic V5 is still improbably slim, and the difference in thickness between it and the Samsung is tough to discern with the naked eye.

The Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, meanwhile, is visibly thicker than both the Honor and Samsung, but it does best the competition with a unique IP68 water and dust resistance rating; the Magic V5 and Galaxy Z Fold 7 get IP58 and IP48, respectively.

Here’s how all three phones compare on the specs front:

At a glance, the Honor Magic V5 boasts bigger ultra-wide, telephoto, and front-facing sensors than both the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Pixel 10 Pro Fold, while its hefty 5,820mAh silicon-carbon battery could deliver superior battery life, too.

The phone's Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset also promises Galaxy-equaling performance, though we'll need to run our own in-house tests to confirm whether that's the case.

Nonetheless, we've come a long way from the days of the Royole FlexPai and original Samsung Galaxy Z Fold. The latest Honor, Samsung, and Google foldables are powerful, durable, and versatile devices that rival the very best phones on the market, and you're unlikely to be left disappointed with any of them.

The Honor Magic V5 and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 are available to order now, while the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold is up for pre-order (as mentioned, the phone begins shipping on October 9). Our full Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 review is live now, and we'll be posting our full Honor Magic V5 and Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold reviews in the coming weeks.

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In recent years, Honor has partnered with the likes of Moschino, Porsche Design, and Studio Harcourt on some of the best Honor phones, but the brand’s latest fashion-forward collaboration is undoubtedly its sparkliest yet.

Designed by the titular fashion designer, the Honor Magic V Flip 2 Jimmy Choo edition features a shimmering, glitter-coated rear panel and a metallic hinge embossed with Choo’s full name and academic title (that’s Professor Jimmy Choo Yeang Keat OBE to you).

Honor says the phone’s limited edition color evokes “crushed stardust scattered across a deep blue sea,” which is perhaps the most celestial description of a smartphone I’ve ever heard. But beyond its sparkles, the China-only V Flip 2 is a genuinely impressive rival to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 – for multiple reasons.

On the outside, it boasts a familiar 4-inch OLED cover display with a 120Hz refresh rate, which is the same sort of cover screen you’ll find on both the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Motorola Razr Ultra 2025. Honor’s flip phone, though, gets a class-leading IP58 resistance rating, which means it’s slightly more resistant to dust than those two big-name models.

On the inside, the V Flip 2 sports what Honor describes as “the most invisible crease of any flip phone on the market right now,” and in our brief hands-on time with the device, this crease is indeed barely noticeable. It sits between a 6.82-inch OLED display that offers a 120Hz refresh rate and a rival-beating peak brightness of 5,000 nits.

In terms of performance, Honor’s latest foldable is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, and it ships with up to 16GB of RAM, which puts it in-between the latest Samsung and Motorola flip phones on the power scale (the former uses an Exynos chipset and has a lower RAM capacity, while the latter uses the newer Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and the same 16GB of RAM).

The V Flip 2 does, however, boast an amighty 5,500mAh battery, which is the largest ever in a clamshell foldable at the time of writing.

Honor’s latest foldable also boasts some pretty impressive cameras: you’ll get a 200MP main sensor and a 50MP ultra-wide sensor, the first of which is unheard of in the flip foldable category.

So, even if the sparkly Jimmy Choo-ness of the Magic V Flip 2 isn't for you, it's hard to deny the phone's on-paper credentials. Honor has somehow managed to squeeze a class-leading crease, battery, camera, and resistance rating into its latest foldable, and while it’s not available for purchase outside of China, it certainly takes the fight to the best foldable phones on this side of the pond.

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Honor 400: Two-minute review

In the time that I’ve spent with the Honor 400, part of me is stunned to see just how far the mid-range market has come. Usually, when I test phones at this end of the scale, I anticipate there being one area that significantly holds the phone back from true greatness. This is understandable – there needs to be some reason to upgrade to the best phones like the iPhone 16 Pro or the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra – but on the Honor 400, this caveat never really applied.

For starters, with an affordable price tag of £399.99 in the UK, the Honor 400 already undercuts a ton of mid-range contenders like the Pixel 9a, the Samsung Galaxy A56 and the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, which will make it a more tempting buy for those who are tied to a strict budget.

Diving into the phone itself, Honor spoils us with a number of features, the highlight being the 6.55-inch AMOLED display, which can reach a peak brightness of 5000 nits. I’ve tested a lot of phones in my time, but Honor just knows how to make a mid-range display that’s instantly eye-catching. It’s colorful, easy to use outdoors, and great for streaming films and TV shows.

The new 200MP main camera captures some great shots, especially when the sun is out, but the setup really comes into its own when paired with the Harcourt-inspired filters in the phone’s portrait mode. If you prefer taking pictures of friends and family rather than what you had for dinner, then you’ll appreciate what’s available here.

This amounts to a solid experience overall, but in some instances, it’s a slight downgrade compared to the phone’s predecessor. For instance, the Honor 200 has a slightly larger 6.7-inch display as well as an additional telephoto lens. The same Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset has been carried over, so you won’t gain much where performance is concerned.

With that in mind, I wouldn’t recommend the Honor 400 to owners of last year’s Honor mid-range. For those with a device that’s been out for four or five years, though, it’s hard to argue with the value proposition Honor has put together.

Honor 400 review: price and availability

• Starts at £399.99 in the UK
• Released in May 2025

Situated as the middle child of the new Honor 400 series, the Honor 400 has a starting price of £399.99 for the 256GB model, but that price leaps up to £449 if you want the larger 512GB storage option.

At the time of writing, only UK pricing and availability have been confirmed, with the phone releasing in May 2025 both as a SIM-free device and from several UK networks.

Even though their naming conventions are easy to understand, the pricing within the Honor 400 range is a little confusing. At present, the Honor 400 Lite costs £249.99, just £150 less than the Honor 400, whereas the Honor 400 Pro asks for an extra £300 with an RRP of £699.99.

I can only hypothesize that the Honor 400’s entry-level price is a strategic move to make it more affordable than some of the established best mid-range phones, which tend to sit around £499.

• Value score: 4 / 5

Honor 400 review: specs

Honor 400 review: design

• Honor is definitely nipping at Apple’s heels
• The design feels more confident than the Honor 200

The overall design of Honor’s mid-range phones has always felt a little off to my eyes. For example, the Honor 90 from a few years back had a wonderful Emerald Green option that made it stand out, but it was hampered by two distinct camera bumps that felt wildly out of place.

Things weren’t much better with last year’s Honor 200, which featured far too much negative space in its camera module, making the design feel like an afterthought compared to the rest of the device. Thankfully, Honor has finally hit a far more premium, if potentially dull, aesthetic.

As mentioned in the Honor 400 Lite review, it isn’t hard to see where Honor is drawing its inspiration from here. The flat edges around the device, alongside the vertically aligned cameras, give off a whiff of the iPhone 16, which is no bad thing when you consider that the Honor 400 is less than half the price of Apple’s £699/$699 handset.

It does feel premium in the hand, and even with a plastic chassis, I think people would be surprised to learn just how cheap the Honor 400 is at the checkout, based solely on its looks.

I do wish, however, that Honor could have kept some of its signature flair where the colors are concerned. The company has instead opted for safe black, silver and gold variations. Thankfully, there is an official IP rating this time around of IP65, so you won’t have to worry about dust particles or jets of water – always helpful over long-term use.

While it certainly won’t wow anyone, I feel that this is the most confident-looking mid-ranger that Honor has ever put out, and I have to admire it for that.

• Design score: 4 / 5

Honor 400 review: display

• It’s a smaller display at 6.55 inches
• The curves have been swapped out for a flat panel

If there’s one area where this company has easily outpaced the mid-range competition, it’s in the quality of its displays, and the Honor 400 is no exception, although there is one tweak that might put off some folks from upgrading.

Starting with the good, this 6.55-inch AMOLED display is just drop-dead gorgeous to look at. It gets impressively bright at up to 5000 nits, and when using it outdoors against direct sunlight, I haven’t found myself squinting to make out what’s on the screen.

The crisp 2736 x 1264 resolution also makes the phone great for catching up on Netflix or whichever streaming service takes your fancy. Using the Honor 400 at the gym, I was quite immersed in a few episodes of Prime Video's Invincible while on the treadmill, with the phone doing the show’s vivid color palette justice.

If you don’t mind sacrificing a little more battery life, you can toggle Super Dynamic Display alongside Vivid Display, two modes that use AI to analyze what you're watching and respond with improved colors and realism in real time. I can’t say that I saw an immediate difference, but the screen already looked great, so I can’t really complain.

While the phone’s refresh rate can be set to 120Hz at all times, by default it’s placed in an adaptive mode that allows it to change depending on the task at hand, saving battery life in the process. Even though this has long been a feature among the best Android phones, it blows my mind that it’s now something we get as standard in the mid-range/budget market.

Making a return is all of Honor’s dimming and eye-health features. That sounds impressive on paper, with ‘3840Hz RiskFree Dimming’, but what does it actually mean? In practice, this tech limits the amount of refreshes that take place at a speed imperceptible to the human eye, reducing the risk of eye fatigue over time.

Of course, something like this is difficult to quantify. However, I will say that out of all the phones I’ve used, the Honor 400 is one of the few that doesn’t leave me with noticeable eye-strain if I do a quick bit of scrolling before bed, particularly if the fantastic ‘eBook mode’ is activated.

All of this amounts to a wonderful display, but if you currently own an Honor 90 or an Honor 200, it’s worth bearing in mind that both of those phones have a larger 6.7-inch display, so you are getting a slight downgrade where size is concerned. Personally, I don’t mind, particularly as it makes the Honor 400 easier to use one-handed, but it’s still something to consider.

• Display score: 4.5 / 5

Honor 400 review: cameras

• Just like the display, the cameras have also been downgraded/upgraded
• The new 200MP main sensor is the star of the show

There’s a definite pattern of give and take with the Honor 400. I’ve already mentioned the differences in the display tech, and unfortunately, it also extends to the new camera setup.

On paper, you’ve got a 200MP (f/1.9, 1/1.4'', OIS) main sensor, flanked by a 12MP (f/2.2, FOV 112°) ultrawide that also serves as a macro lens. That might sound fairly decent given the £399.99 price tag, but eagle-eyed readers might have already noticed that while the main sensor has had a bump from 50MP to 200MP, the phone is missing the additional 50MP telephoto lens from the Honor 200.

While it’s nice to have a dedicated telephoto lens, having the upgraded megapixel count on the main lens does open up more opportunities for cropping and zooming that don't completely wreck the quality of the photo.

Enjoying the wonderful sights of Surrey’s Box Hill, I was able to snap some fantastic shots that really did the trail justice, helped in large part by the brilliantly sunny weather. When I felt the need to crop in on certain photos for social media after the fact, I didn’t feel hard done by in the final results.

The same can be said for the ultra-wide shots, which, despite that 12MP ceiling, still packed an impressive degree of detail and color. In a pinch, that same ultra-wide lens can be used for macro shots if, like me, you enjoy getting the odd picture of fauna up close (although I can’t imagine using it for much else).

You’ve got 4x digital zoom for picking up subjects in the distance, but for something really far out, you can lean on Honor’s 30x AI Superzoom. Just like it operates on other Honor phones, this feature uses AI to recreate the picture you’ve taken. This means the end result isn’t technically a photo at all, but something AI has constructed from a real photo. As you might imagine, its success rate can be mixed, and there’s a general ‘watercolour’ look that plagues all of these images after the fact.

Speaking of AI, there’s an ‘image to video’ feature that lets you make short AI-driven animations out of shots you’ve taken. I’ll admit, one video it derived from a selfie felt so realistic that I didn’t like the idea of seeing what else it could do. Thankfully, these videos don’t go beyond five seconds, so there isn’t a huge use case for them.

When it comes to more traditional AI features in the phone’s editing suite, like AI cutout or AI outpainting (the latter of which extends the picture with generative AI), it all works rather well.

Last year, Honor made a big splash by partnering with photography studio Harcourt to add more pizazz to the portrait photography of the 200 series; now those signature Harcourt filters are back on the Honor 400, looking better than ever.

If you’re the type of person whose Instagram uploads are filled with model-style shots, you’ll appreciate what’s on offer here. Although there are just three Harcourt filters (Vibrant, Color and Classic), they all look great and pump out truly eye-catching shots.

While the 50MP selfie camera doesn’t utilize Harcourt’s prowess, it still managed to capture self-portraits that I was more than happy to share with the world, which doesn’t often happen. There’s a wonderfully soft bokeh here that pairs well with the camera’s autofocus.

The dedicated night mode also does a respectable job, so you should be in luck with most low-light situations if you do want to take a quick snap.

• Camera score: 4 / 5

Honor 400 review: camera samples

Honor 400 review: performance

• Same chipset as last year
• Respectable performance in its price range

The best thing I can say about the Honor 400 from a performance perspective is just how little it’s been on my mind over the course of testing the device. Of course, I’m not saying that it exceeds the best iPhones – far from it – but even though it uses the same Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset as last year, it goes to show how far the mid-range market has come, where you can now expect solid day-to-day performance without breaking the bank.

In the time that I spent with the Honor 400, I didn't have an app fail to load or crash mid-use, and I could jump from one app to another without any significant delay. Even when using the phone as a hotspot to watch a video on my iPad, I could still scroll through Google Chrome on the Honor 400 without any noticeable slowdown.

When it came to games, the phone handled booting up a race in Asphalt Legends Unite and the game’s frenetic energy with ease. Graphics look bold and exciting on the display, and any visual stuttering was very brief and infrequent.

I found the performance within Call of Duty Mobile to be even better, so if you like to get in a few rounds of Nuketown on your lunch break, you won’t have any issues doing so here.

I will say that for both games (and at times when I was really pushing the device), I felt some heat radiating off the Honor 400. It was never enough to make holding the device uncomfortable, but it did give me pause to make sure that I didn’t overstretch the phone’s limitations.

I do, however, want to give a brief nod to the speakers, which performed surprisingly well in testing. I almost always anticipate a mono-speaker system at this end of the market, but there's a stereo set-up on the Honor 400, and it can get impressively loud and immersive when you're diving into a spot of gaming.

• Performance score: 4 / 5

Honor 400 review: software

• Honor has gone all in on AI
• MagicOS is better, but there’s still room for improvement

Just like almost every other company on the block right now, Honor has gone all-in on AI.

As with AI implementation on other devices, I found the overall experience to be a mixed bag. I don’t think the situation is quite as dire as what I’ve come across using Apple Intelligence on my iPhone 16 Plus, but there are definitely areas where Honor has plenty of room for improvement.

On the better side of that equation is Honor’s Magic Portal, which operates similarly to Google’s Circle to Search (which already exists on the Honor 400), only this time requiring that you highlight an object using your knuckle. I found the feature to be incredibly responsive, and once you’ve selected your desired image or piece of text, you can quickly share it to a list of apps that appear on the side, as chosen by AI. It’s genuinely a great example of AI being used intelligently, and I did find myself using it a few times to save text quickly.

Features like AI Subtitles and AI Translate have their moments, but there’s still work to be done. For the former, it can generate speech to text with decent speed and accuracy, but when I tried to get it to make subtitles from a YouTube video, the whole experience fell apart with nonsensical text. AI Translate fares a bit better with a quick response time for translations, but it doesn’t boast quite as many available languages as Live Translate on Galaxy AI-toting Samsung phones, so you’ll find a more robust experience elsewhere.

At the lower end of the scale, AI Suggestions pretty much does what it says on the tin by offering up quick access to apps it thinks you need at certain times of day, but this is a feature Apple’s had for years so I don’t understand why Honor has drawn so much attention to it here as if it’s something brand new. There’s also AI Deepfake Detection, although this only works with video calls and doesn’t let you know if you’re seeing a video or image online that’s fake, which is really where it should be targeted.

All of this sits on top of MagicOS 9.0, Honor’s Android 15 overlay, which in itself is something of a head-scratcher. I will say that compared to when I last used MagicOS on the Honor 90, the operating system has come quite a long way, and it feels less cumbersome to use than I remember.

It’s not quite as slick as stock Android, which can be found on the best Pixel phones, but it does have a nice aesthetic. And as someone who mostly uses an iPhone, I did appreciate the nods to iOS, including Honor’s take on the Dynamic Island, which shows music playback at the top of the display, as well as the need to swipe down from different sections to access the notification tray or the control center (even if I did find myself in the latter a few times when it wasn’t my intention).

What holds MagicOS back is the unfortunate amount of bloatware that comes preinstalled on the Honor 400. When setting the phone up, I needed to get rid of several apps, including TikTok and Temu, not to mention Honor’s own-brand apps, which include the company’s Google Play Store competitor, the Honor App Market. It’s not a deal-breaker, by any means, but it doesn’t help the phone against fierce competition.

On a better note, the Honor 400 now comes with a promised six years of updates, providing official support until at least 2031. Compared to the paltry support that Honor provided for previous devices, this is a huge shift that makes the Honor 400 a better option as a phone to last you well into the future.

• Software score: 3 / 5

Honor 400 review: battery life

• Slightly larger 5,300mAh cell
• Easily gets you through a full day of use comfortably

Despite its smaller stature, the Honor 400 features a slightly increased battery capacity compared to the Honor 200, jumping from 5,200mAh to 5,300mAh. Honor hasn't been too specific where longevity is concerned, other than claiming an “all-day battery life” for the phone, which, thankfully, is an assessment that’s more on the conservative side.

I put the Honor 400 through a heavy day of use, starting at 8:30am, getting just over four hours of screen time, including 40 minutes of Instagram and 25 minutes of Prime Video, alongside 33 minutes of Spotify in the background and 1 hour and 39 minutes of using the phone as a hotspot for my iPad. With all that in mind, the phone still had 30% left in the tank by 10:30pm, 14 hours later.

For my money, that’s more than enough to alleviate any major battery anxiety. You also toggle one of two power-saving modes, which halt a lot of background processing to extend the longevity as much as possible. On most days, however, I didn’t need to charge the Honor 400 until about halfway through the following day.

When you do need to top up, you won’t have to wait long as the Honor 400 boasts 66W fast charging, although there isn’t a compatible fast charger included in the box. When charging at a slightly slower 60W rate on an adapter I had to hand, it took about 30 minutes to get from 20% to 69%, and a total of 54 minutes to get back to a full tank.

Unfortunately, there’s no wireless charging available, which does feel like a sticking point when that feature is creeping into the mid-range conversation.

• Battery score: 4 / 5

Should I buy the Honor 400?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Honor 400 review: also consider

If you're not completely sold on the Honor 400's set of features, then these alternatives might be a better fit.

How I tested the Honor 400

• Tested over a single week
• Used as the reviewer's main handset
• Battery tested against intensive and typical days of use

For the purposes of this review, I used the Honor 400 as my main handset for a total of seven days as it carried my SIM card. Due to this being a pre-release model, certain features like Google Wallet wouldn't work with the device, so I relied on a paired TicWatch Pro 5 Enduro smartwatch for payments.

While the phone does feature 66W fast charging, I used a 65W adapter during the charging test, which automatically downgrades to 60W in the process. The phone I used prior to the Honor 400 was the iPhone 16 Plus, which served as a mental reference over the testing period.

First reviewed: May 2025

For all the acronyms and developer jargon thrown around at Google I/O 2025, it quickly became clear that artificial intelligence (AI) is – or soon will be – even more deeply embedded into the experience of Google-using consumers all over the world.

If you aren’t yet a believer in the promise of AI, now is the time to board the hype train. From AI-powered search engines to bespoke online shopping tools, AI feels genuinely useful in 2025 in a way that it didn’t even 12 months ago. And it’s only going to get more popular as public sentiment towards the phenomenon eases.

Honor, for its part, has been a believer for some time, so much so that it was willing to rebrand itself as an “AI device ecosystem company” earlier this year. But where other smartphone companies are doubling down on AI’s potential as a personal assistant, Honor is committed to using AI to revolutionize mobile photography, particularly at the more affordable end of the smartphone spectrum.

To find out what that means, exactly, and to talk more about the price-defying camera capabilities of the new Honor 400 and Honor 400 Pro, I sat down with Honor’s Chief Imaging Architect, Luo Wei, who is utterly convinced that AI is – and has always been – a force for good when it comes to photography.

“If we look at the history of photography, it went from film-based to digital, and now we’re in the age of algorithm-empowered photography,” Wei explains. “So, the very definition of photography is changing all the time. Even in film photography, films were developed in different ways with different effects. In the digital era, ISP (image signal processing) was processed in a different way by different companies, which alters the output.

“The introduction of AI into photography actually began in 2016 with CNN (convolutional neural network)’s large-scale application of AI in processing images. At that time, the process was limited by traditional image system processing. Now, thanks to generative AI, the image processing goes beyond the limitations of traditional image sampling.

“We [Honor] believe generative AI is very effective in improving image restoration and enhancement. Of course, in some scenarios, the algorithms deliver different [results] to what the naked eye sees. But looking forwards, we believe the output will grow closer and closer to what we see in the real world. We don’t want to set any restrictions on the introduction of generative AI technologies.”

When Wei says “different results to what the naked eye sees,” he’s referring to the occasionally janky solutions churned out by software-based photography features like AI Super Zoom, which uses generative AI to ‘fill in’ details at 30x zoom and above on the best Honor phones.

Having debuted on the flagship Honor Magic 7 Pro in January, AI Super Zoom returns on the mid-range Honor 400 and Honor 400 Pro – it works at up to 30x zoom on the former and 100x on the latter – but Wei is keen to stress that the feature is being improved every day.

“I agree that if you look at the current algorithms, they can generate some unrealistic details,” he admits. “That’s why we have some limitations as to what kind of scenarios users can activate in AI Super Zoom. Users are recommended to use AI Super Zoom when it comes to landscape and urban scenes, but not when it comes to faces and text, which our algorithm does not currently support. But the cloud-based algorithm is [being] updated every two weeks, so you can see that AI Super Zoom has significantly improved since it was first launched.

“We identified that users mainly want to use telephoto photography during their travels to capture famous attractions, so we are updating our algorithms based on Lora and RAG technology. But what I would like to emphasize is that we have been upgrading our algorithm quickly to make the images more and more real, in order to better meet the needs of our consumers. [...] Also, it’s hard to say that any one company can define the real world; there is no definition of the real world.”

Photographers might disagree with that sentiment, but Honor isn’t here to kick the hornet's nest. Instead, it hopes features like AI Super Zoom will empower users to embrace photography in more situations, especially those which previously required expensive camera hardware.

“With AI, we want to democratize photography, especially for users who are not skilled but want to express themselves,” explains Wei. “For more advanced or professional photographers, AI can ease their burden and do some of the heavy lifting around editing. We believe that when taking pictures becomes more convenient through AI, more users will fall in love with photography, and fewer husbands or boyfriends will be scolded by their partners for being lousy photographers. Photography skills are here to stay, but for average users, we can raise the bar using AI.”

Head in the clouds

To bring AI-based photography features to lower-spec devices, Honor – like many other smartphone manufacturers – leans heavily on the cloud (specifically Google Cloud), which shoulders much of the processing burden for intensive generative tasks like AI Super Zoom and Image to Video.

The trade-off is that the cloud can only be accessed via an internet connection, meaning Honor’s best AI software features won’t work in certain situations. For Wei, the pros of this arrangement outweigh the cons: “The computing power in the cloud is much greater than what’s [available] on devices. In the cloud, our parameter size is about 12.5 billion for the telephoto enhancement [feature], while it’s already difficult to run a model with just 3 billion parameters on-device.

“We’d like to use AI to democratize photography, so by using AI we bring a great experience to mid-range and low-end mobile users. The cloud-based algorithm is decoupled from the device, so we can make continuous improvements. [...] And regarding privacy, Honor will always get consent from users for any data stored in the cloud, and we don’t store any pictures uploaded by our users. They are deleted after processing.”

A better deal for buyers?

At £699.99, the Honor 400 Pro arrives as a competitor to the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE and iPhone 16, but its camera hardware – specifically a 200MP wide lens, a 12MP ultra-wide lens, and a 50MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom – is objectively more capable than the equivalent hardware on both of those big-name devices (heck, the cheapest iPhone with a telephoto camera costs $999 / £999 / AU$1,849!). Is that a deliberate strategy on Honor’s part? And does it risk denting the appeal of its highest-end models?

“If I had to single out one difference between Honor and competitors like Apple and Samsung,” Wei says, “we want to use AI to democratize technology and allow all users to take good pictures regardless of price point. [...] We will not deliberately limit the ability of mid-range models just to differentiate between flagship models. We want to deliver the best experience for all users.

“This brings the question of what kind of hardware we should put into our flagship models so they can be really worth their price [tags]. Our idea is to develop flagship models that really stand out when it comes to AI. For example, we’re working on a flagship model with 100x zoom. Going forwards, we want to wow you with our flagship cameras.”

It’s clear, then, that Honor still believes true camera fans will be best served by the best camera phones on the market. But it’s also true that casual mobile photographers no longer need to spend three figures on accessing flagship-level features.

For our full verdict on the newly launched Honor 400 Pro, check out our Honor 400 Pro review.

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Honor 400 Pro: Two-minute review

‘Flagship killer’ would perhaps be too strident a term to apply to the Honor 400 Pro. Rather, it seeks to subtly undermine the premium crowd with competitive specifications and a slightly lower asking price.

This is a well-built phone made of flagship-grade materials, with the kind of IP68/IP69 dust and water resistance rating that puts many a full-priced handset to shame. Its 6.67-inch OLED display, too, is about as bright, sharp, and accurate as you could reasonably expect.

While you won’t be getting the absolute best performance the smartphone market has to offer, you simply won’t notice that Honor has opted for last year’s top processor unless you take a glance at the spec sheet. The 400 Pro performs very smoothly indeed.

The headline feature here is an all-new 200MP main camera, which captures good photos in a range of lighting conditions. You also get a decent dedicated 3x telephoto camera, which can be further boosted through the use of AI.

Another impressive AI camera trick is Image to video, though its ability to turn stills into brief videos is a party trick that probably won’t see much practical use beyond showcasing the latest artificial intelligence gimmick.

No matter – the Honor 400 Pro is a thoughtfully balanced phone built on solid specifications, which includes a larger-than-average 5,300mAh battery and speedy 100W wired charging support. You also get 50W wireless charging, though both speeds are reliant on you having the necessary charger to hand.

Honor’s Magic OS 9.0 continues the brand's slightly tiresome obsession with iOS, and it remains a somewhat busy UI. However, it’s also fast and flexible, and Honor’s new six-year update promise is one of the best in the business.

All in all, the Honor 400 Pro is part of a compelling group of in-betweener smartphones, offering less compromise than even the best mid-range smartphones while still costing much less money than your average flagship.

It’s not unique, nor is it without its flaws, but it’s a very accomplished option for those willing to leave the usual suspects behind in pursuit of a bargain.

Honor 400 Pro review: price and availability

• Costs £699.99 in the UK
• Released May 2025
• No availability in the US or Australia

The Honor 400 Pro was launched globally, alongside its brother, the Honor 400, on May 22, 2025. It won’t be receiving a launch in the US, as is customary from the brand, and there are no plans for Australia at the time of writing.

Pricing for the sole Honor 400 Pro model stands at £699.99 (around $930 / AU$1,450), which isn’t a figure we see all that often. This pitches it well above the Google Pixel 9a and the Samsung Galaxy A56 (both £499), and just short of the Google Pixel 9 and Samsung Galaxy S25 (both £799).

This isn’t quite a full-on flagship phone, then, but it’s also far too expensive to be classed as a mid-ranger. It’s one of those ‘affordable flagship’ phones like the OnePlus 13R, the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE, or the Nubia Z70 Ultra.

Incidentally, an even cheaper version of the Honor 400, the Honor 400 Lite, launched on April 22 at a cost of £249.99.

• Value score: 4 / 5

Honor 400 Pro review: specs

Honor 400 Pro review: design

• Silky matte glass back
• Unusual curved-trapeze camera module
• IP68 & IP69 dust and water resistance

With the Honor 400 Pro, Honor has dropped the distinctive Casa Milá-inspired camera module of the Honor 200 Pro in favor of a kind of rounded trapezium shape (a trapercle?). It’s a little wonky-looking, though I quite like the unorthodox camera configuration.

Otherwise, Honor has retained the basic look of its affordable flagship range – unlike the regular Honor 400, which has contracted a serious case of the iPhones.

This means that the Honor 400 Pro retains its gently rounded look, with 2.5D glass to the front and back – the latter in a pleasingly silky-to-the-touch finish. The aluminum frame, too, curves around gently, resulting in a phone that sits comfortably in the hand.

These curves also serve to disguise the fact that the Honor 400 is a fairly big phone, with a thickness of 8.1mm (the Honor 400 is 7.3mm) and a relatively heavy weight of 205g (vs 184g).

This time around, Honor has fitted its almost-flagship with both IP68 and IP69 certification. That’s quite an advance on the Honor 200 Pro, which only managed an IP65 rating.

The Honor 400 Pro is available in just two colors: Lunar Grey and Midnight Black. Not the most inspiring selection, it has to be said, but they do look nice and professional, which is kind of the name of the game here.

• Design score: 4 / 5

Honor 400 Pro review: display

• 6.7-inch quad-curved 120Hz OLED display
• 3,840Hz PWM dimming
• 5,000 nits peak brightness

Honor has really knocked it out of the park with the displays in the Honor 400 range this year. In the Honor 400, you’re getting a 6.7-inch OLED with a just-so 2800 x 1280 resolution and a 120Hz peak refresh rate.

That’s fractionally smaller than last year’s 6.78-inch screen, but I defy anyone to portray this as meaningful. Not when the peak brightness has been boosted from an already-excellent 4,000 nits in the Honor 200 Pro to 5,000 nits here.

This top-end figure applies to limited HDR scenarios, of course. With autobrightness switched off, I recorded a maximum brightness of around 600 nits. That’s decent enough, though it’s about half what the Pixel 9 can manage.

Color accuracy is superb, at least when you drop the slightly over-the-top Vivid color mode and select Normal instead.

The Honor 400 Pro display also supports an elevated PWM dimming rate of 3840Hz, just like the Honor 200 Pro before it. This helps reduce eye strain by lowering flicker at lower brightness levels. That's something Samsung and Google continue to overlook.

The main differences between this screen and the Honor 400’s relate to small aesthetic choices. The Pro Display curves away at the edges, though this didn’t interfere with content in any way, nor did it lead to any unintended presses.

Slightly more bothersome is the longer display notch, which crams in depth-sensing capabilities at the expense of a little real estate. If you like to take your video content full screen, you’re more likely to be bothered by this, but it didn’t trouble me too much.

• Display score: 4 / 5

Honor 400 Pro review: cameras

• 200MP main (f/1.9)
• 50MP 3x telephoto (f/2.4)
• 12MP ultra-wide macro (f/2.2)

Honor has really ramped up its camera offering with the Honor 400 series this year. The headline event for the Honor 400 Pro is a new 200MP AI Main Camera, which packs a large 1/1.4-inch sensor, an f/1.9 aperture, and OIS.

We’ll get into the ‘AI’ part of that main camera soon enough, but at a basic level this camera takes sharp, contrasty shots in most situations. You can choose from three basic looks depending on whether you want your shots to look natural, punched up for social media, or to take on a certain artful film camera aesthetic.

Shots from this main sensor are slightly less impressive here on a £700 phone than they are on the £400 Honor 400, which shares the same component. There’s simply a lot more competition at this level. With that said, they’re still more than serviceable.

Unlike the Honor 400, this main sensor isn’t pulling double duty to provide all of your zoomed shots. There's major assistance on that front from a dedicated 50MP telephoto camera, utilizing a Sony IMX856 sensor and aided by OIS, which grabs nice, sharp shots at its natural 3x zoom length and usable shots at 6x or even 10x.

Beyond that, you’ll find too much noise for this to be a viable option, though Honor’s AI image enhancement technology is one of the most impressive around. Stray beyond 30x, and the phone should offer you the chance to activate AI assistance. Head back into the picture after shooting and, after a minute or so of processing time, you’ll be given a much clearer shot.

The results here can vary wildly in effectiveness, and it certainly does no favors to the human face, while it can really miss the target with some fine details, particularly at the 50x maximum range. However, there’s no denying that this can turn out much improved hybrid zoom shots given the right subject and shooting conditions.

What I will say is that this 3x telephoto camera does change the tone of the shots from the main sensor. Moving from 2x (which crops in on the main sensor) to 3x sees a slightly jarring shift from a more natural look to a more vivid, dare I say exaggerated one. It's not ruinous, but you don't get the seamless transition of the truly top-level flagship phone cameras here.

The 12MP ultra-wide is the weakest camera of the three, bringing with it a marked drop-off in detail and contrast. Still, it remains a viable camera.

Going back to the matter of AI, perhaps the most attention-grabbing – if not exactly useful – feature of the Honor 400 Pro’s camera is Image to video. The Honor 400 series is the first to utilize this Google AI-driven feature, which essentially turns any normal still photo (it doesn’t even need to have been taken on the phone) into a five-second mini-video.

As with so many AI-driven features these days, the results aren’t universally brilliant, but some prove to be alarmingly convincing.

Using one shot that was sent to me of a chicken and a cat facing off under a table, this AI tool caused the chicken to strut forward while the cat casually twitched its ears. Another chicken scuttled in from off camera, while a second cat was revealed to be lying down behind that original chicken. Neither of those last two creatures even existed in the original shot.

It’s undeniably impressive, and even a little scary. But I have to ask myself when I’d use this feature beyond showing off the power of AI to my friends and family. So far, I’ve got nothing.

The 50MP front camera takes decent selfie shots, aided by an additional depth sensor for better portraits with nicely blurred, clearly delineated backgrounds.

Video capture extends to 4K and 60fps, which is another way in which the Pro stands out from the Honor 400 (which only hits 4K/30fps).

• Camera score: 4 / 5

Honor 400 Pro review: camera samples

Honor 400 Pro review: performance

• Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset
• 12GB RAM and 512GB storage

Performance has ostensibly taken an incremental bump over last year’s Honor 200 Pro. Out goes the stripped-back Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, in comes Qualcomm’s full-fat Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

However, that Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chip turned out to be much less capable than its name initially suggested, dropping behind Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in graphical terms.

What we have here, then, is a phone that performs as well as the 2024 flagship crowd. That works out to be a pretty good level for a £700 phone, and indeed, this is the same component that runs the excellent OnePlus 13R. It also means that the Honor 400 Pro comfortably outperforms the entire Pixel 9 range.

Benchmark results are precisely what we’ve come to expect from this well-established chip, as is gaming performance. Genshin Impact will run fluidly on high settings, while demanding console racer GRID Legends speeds by at an appreciable lick.

The existence of the Nubia Z70 Ultra and the Poco F7 Ultra means that the Honor 400 Pro isn’t top of its weight class. Both of those rivals run on the superior Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, and only charge £649 for the privilege. However, Honor's phone remains a very capable runner, backed by 12GB of RAM and a generous 512GB of internal storage.

• Performance score: 4 / 5

Honor 400 Pro review: software

• Magic OS 9.0, based on Android 15
• Six years of OS updates and security patches

The Honor 400 Pro runs Magic OS 9.0, which is the company’s bespoke Android 15 skin. It’s the same basic software provision as that of the Honor Magic 7 Pro.

I think I can speak for the extended TechRadar family when I say that Honor’s UI isn’t our favorite. Bloatware continues to blight it, with unwanted preinstallations of Booking.com, Temu, ReelShort, and much more besides. Honor itself gives you duplicate App Store and email apps, and a stack of its own tool apps.

While this is a take on Google’s Android, Honor seems to be far more inclined towards Apple’s iOS. Everything from the split notification pane to the Settings menu and the lack of a dedicated app tray (by default) speaks to a fondness for Apple’s mobile operating system. Even the icons and the Settings menu are designed in a way that will be familiar to anyone who’s used an iPhone recently.

You even get a version of Apple’s Dynamic Island, here called Magic Capsule, which offers little widget-like bubbles of information around the extended selfie notch. With that said, it’s an undeniably useful way of surfacing media controls, timers, and the like, and Honor is far from the only Android manufacturer to follow Apple’s lead in this way.

Indeed, Magic OS, for all its clutter and bloat, remains a very functional and extremely snappy UI. Magic Portal is a power user’s dream, providing an easy way to drag text and images between apps. The knuckle gesture shortcut for circling text in this way isn’t 100% reliable, but you can get used to it.

Topping off Honor's somewhat mixed software provision is a commendably strong commitment to six years of OS updates and security patches. Only Google and Samsung do this better with their respective seven-year promises.

What's more, Honor has committed to providing an Android 16 update before the end of 2025, which isn't something you see too often.

• Software score: 3.5 / 5

Honor 400 Pro review: battery life

• 5,300mAh silicon-carbon battery
• 100W wired charging
• 50W wireless charging

Honor seems intent on pushing battery and charging technology in its phones. The Honor 400 Pro gets a meaty 5,300mAh battery, which falls comfortably north of the 5,000mAh average – if not quite as far north as the OnePlus 13R and the Nubia Z70 Ultra, both of which hit the giddy heights of 6,000mAh.

It’s sufficient to get the Honor through a full day of heavy use with remaining charge to spare. Indeed, a moderate day with around four hours of screen-on time left me with more than 60% left in the tank. Average use in a fairly consistent network environment will get you two days on a single charge, no problem.

Talking of charging, Honor goes harder than it probably needs to here. There’s 100W wired charging support that’s seemingly able to get you from empty to 51% in just 15 minutes.

I say ‘seemingly’ because Honor, like most modern manufacturers, no longer bundles in a charger. Without one of Honor’s SuperCharge chargers to hand, I was unable to put those claims to the test.

Ditto for the claim of 50W wireless charging support. It’s good to see, but you’ll need one of the brand’s own SuperCharge wireless chargers to hit that maximum speed.

• Battery score: 4 / 5

Should I buy the Honor 400 Pro?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Honor 400 Pro review: also consider

The Honor 400 Pro isn't the only affordable flagship phone on the market. Here are some of the better alternatives to consider.

How I tested the Honor 400 Pro

• Review test period = 1 week
• Testing included = Everyday usage, including web browsing, social media, photography, gaming, streaming video, music playback
• Tools used = Geekbench 6, GFXBench, 3DMark, native Android stats, Samsung 65W power adapter

First reviewed: May 2025

• Honor has referenced Samsung in a new promotional image for the Honor 400 series
• The Honor 400 Pro is expected to rival the Samsung Galaxy A56
• The Honor 400 series will be announced on May 22

It’s always fun to see smartphone manufacturers taking playful jabs at one another, and the latest put-down from Honor targets its longtime rival Samsung.

In a promotional image announcing the May 22 release date for the Honor 400 series, Honor has included a suite of clues to excite fans about the phones’ most exciting features. Among these hidden pointers is a message reading “Not the same,” with ‘sam’ appearing in bold blue letters – clearly a reference to Honor’s competitor.

This is the same typeface Honor used to poke fun at Samsung for the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s supposed lack of innovation back in January, so the brand clearly has a bee in its bonnet with Samsung, specifically. The Honor 400 is expected to rival the midrange Samsung Galaxy A56, so “not the same” could be a reference to the uniqueness of Honor’s phone, or indeed an outright jab at the perceived recent sameness of Samsung’s affordable smartphone lineup.

Sure, that’s big talk for a company of Honor’s size, but the brand’s confidence in its own product could be well-founded. In a separate teaser image (below), Honor has confirmed that both the Honor 400 and Honor 400 Pro will boast a 200MP “ultra-clear AI camera”, which sounds like more than a match for the 50MP main camera on the Galaxy A56.

The Honor 400 Pro could also have a dedicated telephoto lens, with rumors hinting at a 50MP sensor paired with the zoom – the Galaxy A56, meanwhile, has a 12MP ultra-wide lens and a 5MP macro lens.

We haven’t heard much else about Honor’s next mid-rangers, but the aforementioned teaser image does strongly suggest that one or both phones will feature some unique AI software and impressive water resistance.

The May 22 release date for the Honor 400 and Honor 400 Pro will come a month after the Honor 400 Lite hit shelves. We described that budget-friendly model as a “solid handset with some appealing features” in our Honor 400 Lite review, but Honor’s upcoming phones will have their work cut out if they hope to compete with Galaxy A56, which we praised for being an “impressive jack-of-all-trades” and one of the best cheap phones around.

You might also like

• Honor Magic 7 Pro review: the Android endurance king
• Honor matches Apple, Samsung, and Google with new update promise for its flagship phones
• ‘You deserve better’: Honor apologizes to Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 owners who feel ‘let down’ by their ‘chunky’ folding phone

Honor 400 Lite: Two-minute review

Squint, and you could mistake the Honor 400 Lite for an iPhone 16 Pro Max. Honor is clearly enamored with Apple's whole approach to smartphones, or more likely the enduring popularity of the very best iPhones, and it's evidently not afraid to wear that admiration on its sleeve.

The prospect of a £250 phone with a Dynamic Island (or 'Magic Capsule') and Camera Control (or 'AI Camera Button') is an undeniably enticing one. Honor has executed those two elements well, delivering a budget Android phone that feels slightly different from its rivals. That's hard to achieve in a staid smartphone market.

However, in the process of seeking to offer an iPhone-style experience on the cheap, Honor appears to have taken its eye off the ball in some fundamental areas. The Honor 400 Lite doesn't perform as well as many of its peers, while its camera system feels undercooked.

Meanwhile, Honor's MagicOS feels as cluttered and unappealing as ever, emulating the basic look of iOS without achieving the same level of refinement. It's good to see a six-year update promise, though, which is among the very best in its class.

Solid battery life and a good 6.7-inch OLED display also help the Honor 400 Lite's cause, though its 35W charging speeds are nothing to write home about, and that sizeable notch probably won't appeal to those who watch a lot of movies and TV shows on the go.

Ultimately, the Honor 400 Lite is a budget phone designed to appeal to those who equate 'iPhone' with 'smartphone', but who lack either the resources or inclination to spend upwards of £600 on their next handset.

It'll serve such people reasonably well, but those same people should know that they won't be getting the most from their money. There are faster, more robust, and just plain better phones in the sub-£300 bracket.

Honor 400 Lite review: price and availability

• Released on April 22, 2024
• On sale in the UK and Europe for £249.99 / €269
• Only one variant (8GB RAM / 256GB storage)
• No US or Australia availability

The Honor 400 Lite was announced in April 2025 and is due to go on sale in the UK and Europe on May 22. Honor smartphones aren't sold in the US, while an Australian launch for the Honor 400 Lite is also off the cards at the time of writing.

It'll be available in just one variant in these territories: 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. This sole model will cost £249.99 / €269 (about $330 / AU$520).

At this price, the Honor 400 Lite is competing with a whole host of affordable phones, including the Samsung Galaxy A26, the Poco X7, and the Motorola Moto G75 5G. All of these rivals have superior water resistance, while the Moto G75 5G also has MIL-STD-810H durability.

Samsung's phone has wider availability and that familiar One UI software, while the Poco X7 has a clear performance edge.

• Value score: 4 / 5

Honor 400 Lite review: specs

Honor 400 Lite review: design

• Clearly iPhone-influenced design
• Magic Capsule notch supplies widgets and selfie light
• Skinny, lightweight all-plastic build
• Dedicated camera shutter button

Honor wouldn't be the first company to take a page out of Apple design playbook, but the Honor 400 Lite takes it to the next level. It looks more like an iPhone (specifically the iPhone 16 Pro Max) than pretty much any other phone I've seen.

Yes, you have the flat-edged look with the curved corners, just like the Google Pixel 9a and Samsung Galaxy S25. But the similarity runs to the smaller details, too. The camera module looks extremely similar to that of the iPhone 16 Pro, with only a triangular motif marking it out.

Flip the Honor 400 Lite onto its front, and there's an extended floating notch that looks a lot like Apple's Dynamic Island. Honor calls it the 'Magic Capsule', but it serves a similar function.

Honor's psychedelic-sounding notch facilitates tiny heads-up widgets when doing things like playing music or running a timer. Tap one of those widgets, and it'll expand slightly to a larger, width-spanning version.

One thing the Honor 400 Lite's Magic Capsule doesn't copy from Apple is a truly secure Face ID system, with no 3D Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensor to capture the required depth information. That's doubtless a cost issue, as the flagship Honor Magic 7 Pro does include such a feature.

Instead, the Honor 400 Lite's extended notch gives you a dedicated selfie light, though it has fairly limited utility. It'll technically allow you to record videos and take video calls in very low lighting, provided you really want to convey that mid-noughties webcam vibe.

A more consequential addition is the AI Camera Button, situated a little way below the volume and power buttons on the right-hand edge. It's another direct lift from Apple, with a similar look and somewhat unsatisfactory positioning to the iPhone 16's Camera Control.

It too serves as a dedicated camera shutter button, complete with two-stage operation for locking focus and a swipe-to-zoom facility that might actually be better than Apple's. It also serves as a two-tap camera shortcut, while a long press will bring up Google Lens, much as it brings up Visual Intelligence on an iPhone.

Hold the Honor 400 Lite in your hand, and all the iPhone comparisons flake away. This is an all-plastic affair, despite the metal-effect frame. It's well-built, with no creaks and a subtle pearlescent finish to the rear.

It's also very light, given its large 161 x 74.6mm footprint, at just 171g, while it's only 7.3mm thick.

You'll also notice the uneven bezel, which gets thicker at the corners and across the chin. That's a sure sign that we're shopping in the £250 category here, though a 93.7% screen-to-body ratio is still pretty decent for a budget phone.

• Design score: 3.5 / 5

Honor 400 Lite review: display

• Solid 6.7-inch FHD+ OLED
• Gets nice and bright
• Only a mono speaker

Honor has equipped the 400 Lite with an accomplished 6.7-inch OLED display, with an FHD+ (1080 x 2412) resolution and a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz.

These are all specifications that we've come to expect in the £250 category, and they see the Honor 400 Lite matching the likes of the Poco X7 and the Samsung Galaxy A26.

Not many budget phones can boast a 3500-nit peak brightness, however. PWM dimming of 3840Hz, meanwhile, cuts perceptible flickering and potential eye strain.

In general use, I found this to be a really pleasant display to use, at least once I'd switched away from the ramped-up 'Vivid' color mode to the more muted and natural 'Normal'. It's big, sharp, color-accurate, and responsive, while its brightness scales evenly from very dark (great for low-light viewing) to quite bright.

It's a shame the Always On Display function doesn't meet the description, however, requiring a screen tap to activate.

Also a shame is Honor's enduring insistence on packing its affordable phone with a single downward-firing speaker. It doesn't feel like too much to ask for a solid set of stereo speakers, even at this price.

• Display score: 4 / 5

Honor 400 Lite review: cameras

• 108MP main camera struggles with HDR and night shots
• Poor 5MP ultra-wide
• Only 1080p/30fps video

Honor has simplified the camera setup from last year's Honor 200 Lite, with the pointless 2MP macro camera dropping out altogether.

This leaves you with what appears to be the same pair of cameras, specifically a 108MP 1/1.67" f/1.8 main sensor and a 5MP f/2.2 ultra-wide.

The main camera is a competent shooter under ideal conditions, capturing plenty of detail. It's even good enough to produce fairly convincing 2x and 3x crops in the absence of a dedicated telephoto.

There are issues with this main camera, however. It seems to struggle with HDR scenarios, either failing to lift very dark shady areas or otherwise blowing out background highlights.

I also noticed some odd processing effects, including a strange halo effect around distant birds in front of a blue sky.

Night shots, too, aren't very good, with poor detail and bags of noise. The lack of OIS here is quite evident.

The ultra-wide, meanwhile, is of a pretty substandard quality, lacking in detail and failing to match the tone of the main sensor.

The selfie camera has also changed since the Honor 200 Lite, dropping from a 50MP f/2.1 unit to a 16MP f/2.5. It captures adequate shots with reasonably rich colors, but again struggles with blown-out highlights.

The provision of an LED light is an interesting one. It definitely improved the clarity of my low-light selfie shots and videos when I activated it manually, but is it strictly necessary when most phones simply use a white screen for the job? I'm not so sure.

Talking of video, the main camera maxes out at a weedy 1080p at 30fps. That's a pretty poor effort when rivals such as the Galaxy A26, Moto G75 5G, and Poco X7 can all record at 4K.

• Camera score: 3 / 5

Honor 400 Lite review: camera samples

Honor 400 Lite review: performance

• MediaTek Dimensity 7025 Ultra is merely adequate
• Solid 8GB of RAM
• 256GB of storage

The Honor 400 Lite is equipped with a MediaTek Dimensity 7025 Ultra chipset, which isn't a very strong performer even within the budget phone category.

I've used a phone with this chip before in the Redmi Note 14 5G (which didn't ship in the UK), and I was left pretty unimpressed. Suffice it to say, the Honor 400 Lite did nothing to change my mind on this component.

Across CPU and GPU benchmark tests, it's outgunned by the Moto G75 5G, the Samsung Galaxy A26, and the Poco X7.

I'd like to say that this doesn't matter in practical terms, but that's not the case. There's a generally wallowy feel to everything from unlocking the phone to app startup and even basic animations.

It would be unfair to call this performance halting or stuttery, but everything seems to take a beat longer than it should. I'd be tempted to let it off the hook given the price, but the Poco X7 (to use one example) feels nice and snappy by comparison.

Indeed, while the Poco X7 is capable of running Genshin Impact quite well on Medium settings, the Honor 400 Lite needs to run it at Low or even Lowest if you're to maintain a decent frame rate.

The solitary model available in the UK gives you a solid 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which is most welcome.

• Performance score: 3 / 5

Honor 400 Lite review: software

• Android 15 with MagicOS 9
• Six years of OS updates and security patches

With the Honor 400 Lite, you're getting Android 15 fresh out of the box, coated in Honor's latest MagicOS 9 UI. It's not my favorite Android skin by any stretch of the imagination.

Honor evidently doesn't think much of the flowing, vibrant UI design that Google baked into the latest version of Android, preferring instead the square icons and split notification menu of Apple's iOS.

The two UIs really look uncannily alike in places, right down to the look of the Settings menu and the lock screen. The aforementioned Magic Capsule drives this familiar sensation home with its Dynamic Island-style mini-widgets.

Sadly, such an admiration for Apple's work doesn't extend to the company's no-nonsense approach to bloatware. You'll find Facebook, Booking.com, TikTok, Amazon Shopping, ReelShort, LinkedIn, and the Temu shopping app all sitting on the second home screen straight from first boot-up.

There's also a Top Apps folder with four more third-party apps. It's a little excessive, if far from unusual, on Android.

Elsewhere, there's a whopping great themed 'Essentials' folder on the main home screen containing nine of the company's own apps, and another large folder filled with AI-suggested apps that I never found remotely useful.

Honor also provides its own App Market, which feels completely pointless with the Google Play Store present and accounted for (Honor is no longer part of Huawei, so it isn't hampered by the same sanctions).

There's a smattering of AI features here, including some Google-affiliated ones such as Smart Vision (essentially Google Lens), Google Gemini, and Circle to Search.

Honor has implemented a feature called Magic Portal that somewhat overlaps the latter Google provision, permitting you to draw around text and images before opening up a shortcut menu for sharing the resulting snippets to other apps. It's nowhere near as smart as Circle to Search, but it can actually be quite useful in this more localized on-device application. Or it would be, if the knuckle-based input system wasn't so flaky.

Favourite Space is a folder to quickly stash these hastily scrawled-out snippets. However, given the large number of superfluous preinstalled apps, I'm not sure why there isn't a standard Favourite Space app. I encountered numerous references to it and saved several snippets before it offered to create a shortcut (in the shape of an app icon) on the home screen.

When it comes to image editing, Honor offers a reasonably effective AI Eraser for deleting unwanted objects and people. AI Outpainting is a bizarre but technically impressive feature that essentially turns your regular shots into ultra-wides, using AI to infer what might be just out of frame. It kind of works in terms of creating convincing (though not accurate) images, but I'm not sure why you'd ever want to make use of such fakery beyond a tech demo.

Perhaps the most positive aspect of Honor's software provision on the 400 Lite is the promise of six years of OS and security updates. That's right up there with the Samsung Galaxy A26 in this budget class.

• Software score: 3 / 5

Honor 400 Lite review: battery life

• 5,230mAh battery
• 35W wired charging
• No charger in the box

Honor has supplied a larger-than-average 5,230mAh battery with the 400 Lite, which is significantly larger than the 4,500mAh battery of the Honor 200 Lite.

It results in predictably strong stamina. I found that I was able to go through a day of moderate to heavy usage, with 4 hours 40 minutes of screen on time, and be left with 58%.

You could conceivably go through a full two days here, though more intensive applications and mixed network use will, of course, drain that battery much faster.

In an increasingly common move, there's no charger supplied in the box. Honor claims that if you buy the dedicated 35W Honor Wired SuperCharge charger, the phone can power up to 100% in 75 minutes.

In my experience, you don't necessarily need to go out of your way to secure the official brick. While a Xiaomi 120W Hypercharge brick trickled along at a glacial pace, a Samsung 65W Super Fast charger got the job done in just 72 minutes.

As charging rates go, that's not especially quick. The Poco X7, with its 45W charging support, can get its similarly sized battery up to 100% in 50 minutes. The Moto G75 5G only supports 30W charging, but that budget rival also includes wireless charging, which the Honor 400 Lite does not.

• Battery score: 4 / 5

Should I buy the Honor 400 Lite?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Honor 400 Lite review: also consider

The Honor 400 Lite isn't the only classy affordable phone on the market. Here are some of the better alternatives to consider.

How I tested the Honor 400 Lite

• Review test period = 1 week
• Testing included = Everyday usage, including web browsing, social media, photography, gaming, streaming video, music playback
• Tools used = Geekbench 6, GFXBench, 3DMark, native Android stats, Samsung 65W power adapter

First reviewed: April 2025

You don't need me, or HMD (Human Mobile Devices), to tell you that there's a screen time epidemic among young people, but the latter's new research into the subject does highlight just how badly smartphones (and specifically social media) are actively harming an entire generation.

Of 12,000 teens surveyed by the Nokia phone maker for a recent study, over half said they’re worried that they may be addicted to their phone, and 52% said they've been approached by a stranger online. 53% said they’ve seen something they wish they hadn’t – which for most respondents was sexual or violent content – and 56% said they’ve seen instances of bullying. The bleak stats go on.

Parents, too, know that these issues exist, but existing smartphone safeguards like screen time apps are easily circumvented by any curious teenager with access to YouTube or Reddit. To address this, HMD has partnered with smartwatch manufacturer Xplora to develop the ‘first smartphone for teens’ – a seemingly regular-looking handset that gives parents greater control over their child’s (potentially first) smartphone experience.

Launching in May for £229 (international pricing is yet to be confirmed), the HMD Fusion X1 – when purchased alongside an Xplora subscription – will allow parents to remotely enable, disable, or limit access to apps of their choosing. This subscription also includes continuous location tracking at 20-second intervals, emergency SOS calling for the smartphone-owning teen, as well as low battery alerts and remote device access for parents.

Additionally, a dedicated School Mode function will minimize distractions during school hours by locking specific apps and features as desired, and HMD has also confirmed that its SafeToNet software – which uses AI to detect and block harmful content before it reaches the user – will begin rolling out to compatible devices (the Fusion X1 included) later this year.

I know what you’re thinking: no teenager would willingly give their parents this level of control over their smartphone. And that may have been true a few years ago. But young people are absolutely becoming more aware of the dangers of social media addiction (HMD’s findings are by no means anomalous) and if the draw of ‘just one more scroll’ is too strong to resist, perhaps teenagers are now more willing to give someone else the keys (after all, ‘brain rot’ was named the 2024 Oxford Word of the Year for a reason).

Indeed, as HMD Founder Jean-Francois Baril put it at MWC, the Fusion X1 is “the phone teens want, with the safety parents desire.” As you can see above, it doesn't have an infantilizing design, either, with the company showcasing a conventional-looking, industrial-style handset at the Barcelona expo.

HMD also has two new feature phones on the way: the HMD Barca 3210 and the HMD Barca Fusion. The first is a rebranded version of the Nokia 3210, featuring exclusive, Barcelona-themed notes and easter eggs like an engraved logo, hidden messages from players, custom wallpapers, and, yes, even a Barcelona-themed version of Snake.

HMD Barca Fusion, meanwhile, is a custom version of HMD’s Fusion handset with 11, glow-in-the-dark player signatures engraved into its rear panel. Like the 3210, the Fusion is also designed with TikTok doom-scrollers in mind, so it features a detox mode to keep users focused on the things that matter.

Drew Barrymore also appeared on stage at HMD’s MWC keynote to tease ‘Project Wildflower,’ an upcoming collaboration between the actor and HMD to tackle the aforementioned screen time epidemic. We don’t have the details just yet, but the involvement of one of Hollywood’s biggest names will no doubt bring much-needed attention to an issue that HMD is clearly intent on addressing.

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Honor has announced a commitment to providing seven years of Android OS and security updates to its latest Magic series devices, including the Honor Magic 7 Pro.

The move brings the burgeoning smartphone manufacturer in line with Apple, Samsung, and Google, all of which provide seven years of software and security updates to their respective flagship smartphones (Apple promises at least five years of updates, but the company regularly tends to previous-generation iPhones beyond that period).

Previously, Honor handsets were typically supported with five years of updates. The best honor phones from 2024 – namely the Honor Magic 6 Pro, Honor Magic V3, and Honor 200 Pro – will remain subject to this original commitment, with the recently released Magic 7 Pro becoming the first beneficiary of the company’s new stance.

“By guaranteeing long-term software and security updates, Honor provides Magic Series owners with the confidence that their devices will remain up-to-date, secure, and feature-rich – maximizing the value of their investment and extending the lifespan of the devices,” Honor said in statement accompanying the announcement, which was made at MWC 2025.

It’s clear, then, that the move is as much a display of Honor’s faith in the longevity of its smartphone hardware as it is a commitment to sustainability (it aligns the brand with the EU's Circular Economy and Ecodesign regulations).

Do smartphones need seven years of updates?

The answer to that question has, I think, changed since Apple began offering seven years of updates to its iPhones (Google and Samsung started doing so more recently) – though I suspect that OnePlus would disagree.

In contrast to those brands (and now Honor), OnePlus has committed to offering four years of OS updates and six years of security patches to its latest flagship device, the OnePlus 13, with OnePlus COO Kinder Liu saying in a 2024 interview that longer update policies “miss the point” if the hardware they apply to becomes outdated. Sure, that reads like a self-own (i.e. an admission that OnePlus phones won’t last as long as rival models) but Liu’s point holds water for a certain generation of phones: a six-year-old iPhone XR, for instance, can technically run iOS 18, but that doesn’t mean it’ll do so smoothly.

Of course, an Honor Magic 7 Pro is not an iPhone XR; its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and 12GB RAM will undoubtedly give it longevity that phones from yesteryear simply don’t have. That said, I don’t think Honor is expecting anyone to actually hold on to the same phone for seven years – this is more a case of the company aligning itself with the big boys so it can’t be criticized for not doing so.

Still, the more updates, the merrier. Offering as-long-as-possible update support can only be a good thing for consumers, provided that the hardware in question can indeed live up to the billing in seven years' time. Come back to us in 2032.

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Honor has overhauled its smartphone strategy to become an “AI device ecosystem company,” and is working on a new type of an intelligent smartphone that will feature “purpose-built, human-centric AI designed to maximize human potential.”

The company’s new CEO, James Li, announced the move – dubbed the Honor Alpha Plan – at MWC 2025, calling on the smartphone industry to “co-create an open, value-sharing AI ecosystem that maximizes human potential, ultimately benefiting all mankind.” Talk about ambition.

This Alpha plan consists of three steps, each catering to a different ‘era’ of AI: namely the Agentic AI era, the Physical AI era, and the AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) era. The first, Honor says, concerns the development of a “super intelligent” smartphone, which the company will create in collaboration with various partners including Qualcomm and Google.

Honor teased various new software tools as part of its presentation – including AI Upscale and a cross-OS file-sharing technology (yes, the ability to share files between iOS and Android devices) – that will feature on its upcoming devices. Some, like AI Upscale, will come to the recently released Honor Magic 7 Pro, too.

For the so-called Physical AI era, Honor hopes “the industry” can collaborate on a shared AI ecosystem to help get the very best out of this potentially paradigm-shifting technology.

“I call on the industry to be truly open so that we can fully embrace this exciting AI future. Let’s do it together,” Li said on stage at MWC. Sure, that’s more than a little vague (does ‘the industry’ mean rival smartphone manufacturers?) but Honor is supposedly investing more than $10 billion into this cross-collaboration idea, so the company is certainly committed to the cause.

Finally, the AGI era will welcome “the co-existence between carbon-based life and silicon-based intelligence,” according to Li. AGI refers to Artificial General Intelligence, an as-yet-unrealized type of AI that matches human cognitive abilities. AGI follows ANI (Artificial Narrow Intelligence), which refers to AI designed to perform specific tasks, and precedes ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence), which refers to AI that’s, ahem, smarter than humans (think Skynet and HAL 9000 – those famously non-threatening systems).

Jokes aside, Honor’s cross-collaboration ambitions are well-founded. The last few years has seen differently-sized smartphone manufacturers and software companies develop genuinely experience-enhancing AI tools (consider Samsung’s Live Translate tool and Honor’s own Deepfake Detection feature), but they’re scattered across the industry and between devices.

Pigs might fly before Apple and Samsung talk to one another, but Honor’s call to action will no doubt attract the attention of smaller companies with the expertise to accelerate the AI revolution.

In a display of confidence in its existing hardware, Honor also announced a commitment to providing seven years of Android OS and security updates to its latest Magic series devices, including the Magic 7 Pro, at MWC 2025.

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Flagship smartphones are becoming more homogenous with every passing year, but Honor’s latest special edition device, the Porsche Design Honor Magic 7 RSR, stands out like a neon-colored sports car in a public library parking lot.

The third collaboration between Honor and the German design studio after last year’s Magic 6 RSR and the foldable Magic V2 RSR, the Magic 7 RSR is essentially a souped-up version of the Honor Magic 7 Pro, which we described in our review as “an outstanding phone that impresses in almost every area.”

Not content to rest on its laurels, Honor has worked with Porsche Design to sportify the design of the Magic 7 Pro, but it’s also thrown in some important spec upgrades to justify the RSR’s £1,549 (around $1,950 / AU$3,050) price tag – one of which blows the iPhone 16 Pro Max, Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, and more of the best phones out of the water.

On the aesthetic front, the Magic 7 RSR features a sleek design that’s inspired, of course, by Porsche cars, specifically the Taycan Turbo S. The phone’s distinctive hexagonal camera module resembles Porsche’s iconic headlight design, and a streamlined Peak Line makes the RSR look like it’s been built for a wind tunnel.

As for colors, the Magic 7 RSR is available in Agate Grey and Provence, and we were sent the second of those two shades for the unboxing video above.

Away from the phone’s design, the Honor Magic 7 RSR improves on the standard Magic 7 Pro by offering a massive 24GB of RAM (yes, 24GB of RAM) and 1TB of storage. For context, that’s double the amount of RAM you’ll find in the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and equal to the max storage capacities available for both the Ultra and the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

In fact, if you were to combine the respective RAM capacities of the Galaxy S25 Ultra (12GB) and iPhone 16 Pro Max (8GB), the Magic 7 RSR would still offer 4GB more. Admittedly, there are almost no smartphone tasks that require 24GB of RAM (here’s an explanation of what RAM is used for in smartphones), but kudos to Honor for future-proofing the Magic 7 RSR to such an absurd degree.

The Chinese mobile maker has boosted the Magic 7 RSR’s camera system, too. Compared to its standard sibling, the new phone gets a larger telephoto aperture – which Honor says is the largest in the whole smartphone industry – and an upgraded LiDAR Matrix Autofocus System for improved focusing accuracy and tracking range.

The brand also says the RSR features “additional dual electromagnetic focus actuators for precision,” which sounds like something out of a James Bond movie.

All told, then, the Porsche Design Honor Magic 7 RSR is an absolute beast of a smartphone. Sure, it’s expensive, but no more so than the 1TB version of the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and it’s actually cheaper than the 1TB version of the iPhone 16 Pro Max, despite offering significantly more RAM. Heck, by that metric, it’s basically a bargain!

The Honor Magic 7 RSR is available now in the UK and Europe.

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There’s nothing like a bit of comparative advertising to spice up Flagship Android Launch Season, and Chinese mobile maker Honor seems determined to play chief mischief-maker.

After apologizing to Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 owners who may have felt “let down” by their “chunky” folding phone last year, the company has again taken aim at Samsung by highlighting five key hardware and software features supposedly missing from the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

The jab comes as part of a new social campaign that sees Samsung – or ‘Sam’ – gifted with accessories designed to “enhance” the Galaxy S25 Ultra. These include a zoom lens, a power bank, and a ring light. The implication here is that Honor’s new flagship phone, the Honor Magic 7 Pro, boasts better zoom capabilities, battery life, portrait capture technology, and other key features versus Samsung’s latest device. Meow.

In a press release accompanying the new campaign, Honor details these supposedly superior features in writing:

• Magic Portal for Seamless App Access: Magic Portal enables quick access to over 150+ third-party apps with a simple circle gesture, streamlining tasks across search, transportation, entertainment, shopping, and office tools.
• AI Super Zoom for Richer Details: Leveraging cloud AI, Honor's AI Super Zoom delivers superior image quality for long-distance shots beyond 30x, capturing far clearer and more detailed photos compared to Samsung’s Space Zoom.
• Stunning Portraits and Fast Capture: Featuring the industry’s first on-device portrait large model, the Magic 7 Pro delivers striking portrait details with AI Enhanced Portrait and Harcourt Portrait. Its HD Super Burst and AI Motion Sensing further solidify Honor's leadership in fast capture technology.
• Unmatched Durability and Charging: The Magic 7 Pro boasts IP68 and IP69 water and dust resistance, 100W wired SuperCharge, and 80W wireless SuperCharge. It also features the industry’s first dual 3D biometric security system with 3D Ultrasonic Fingerprint Unlocking and 3D To Face Locking.

Jeez, talk about confidence.

Seeing as the Galaxy S25 Ultra only launched a matter of days ago, we haven’t yet put the phone through its paces, and as such, we’re not in a position to say whether Honor is being too big for its boots here.

We do, however, know that features like AI Super Zoom, Harcourt Portrait, and Magic Portal are unique to the Magic 7 Pro and more of the best Honor phones, so we can understand Honor’s eagerness to highlight them in some playful marketing.

Indeed, we described Honor’s latest flagship as “an outstanding phone that impresses in almost every area” in our Honor Magic 7 Pro review, and it’s true that Honor’s proprietary smartphone software has come on leaps and bounds in recent years (see its Deepfake Detection feature).

That said, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is certainly no slouch – and we don’t need to have completed our full review process to tell you that.

In our hands-on Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review, we described Samsung’s latest flagship as potentially “the most complete AI-ready mobile package on the market,” so we look forward to pitting the Galaxy S25 Ultra against the Honor Magic 7 Pro and more of the best Android phones very soon.

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Depending on who you ask, AI and photography are a match made in heaven or inherently incompatible subjects.

When used behind the scenes to supplement smartphone hardware, AI can help us better capture the reality of a given scenario (consider Apple’s Smart HDR feature), but more explicit software-based photography features – those that work simply to beautify (read: falsify) images that would otherwise appear mundane – are becoming more powerful with every new smartphone generation.

Honor is among several mobile brands investing heavily in the potential of AI, and the company's latest flagship smartphone, the Honor Magic 7 Pro, introduces a first-of-its-kind AI tool that occupies a strange new middle ground between enhancement and falsification.

AI Super Zoom is a cloud-based feature that promises to capture “crystal-clear images” of “natural and urban architecture landscapes” at extreme distances. The optional tool, which requires an internet connection to function, kicks in at 30x digital zoom and uses generative AI to ‘fill in’ details that can’t be captured by the Magic 7 Pro’s hardware.

The promise, then, is impressive; when your phone’s 200MP 3x telephoto camera isn’t cutting the mustard, simply toggle AI Super Zoom to turn the Magic 7 Pro into a range-defying photography powerhouse.

The reality, of course, is a little different.

To test AI Super Zoom, Honor flew me out to the (absolutely beautiful) Julian Alps in Slovenia, where the benefits and limitations of this undoubtedly innovative new technology were laid bare.

The first thing to note, before diving into the photos, is that AI Super Zoom will always, without fail, add things that aren’t there. This is particularly true of shots that feature buildings, but AI Super Zoom will generate extra trees, rocks, and shadows in shots of natural landscapes, too. Of course, this happens because the AI is essentially guessing what the phone’s hardware has failed to capture – it's generative, after all – but this also means that Honor’s promise of “crystal-clear images” can’t ever truly be fulfilled.

If you can accept this fact – that you’ll always end up with a slightly different rendering of reality – then AI Super Zoom is a seriously impressive tool in the right situations. Take a look at the below examples to see what I mean (the first images are the originals, followed by AI Super Zoom versions):

In each case, AI Super Zoom has managed to replicate, in exquisite detail, what those scenes might look like up close. Considering that each subject is several kilometers away, that’s an impressive feat – though again, given that the software has artificially generated certain elements, these images make for better wallpapers or screensavers than they do accurate representations of reality.

That sentiment is particularly true for these next examples, which have a pleasantly artistic, but decidedly unreal, quality about them:

See what I mean? The AI Super Zoom results are oddly captivating, but they're almost digital in appearance.

And then we come to the shots of urban architecture landscapes, which are the most peculiar of the bunch. In some cases, the buildings look impressively sharp (see the first example), while in others, they look like they’ve been painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder:

Honor is aware of the limits of AI Super Zoom. In a reviewer's guide for the Magic 7 Pro, the company notes: “AI Super Zoom won’t be activated in nighttime environments. Please [also] do not use AI Super Zoom to capture people.” The difficulties of those two scenarios are obvious. At night, there’s simply not enough light for the software to work with, and, for obvious reasons, you can’t use generative AI to generate people (in fact, Honor itself has developed an innovative Deepfake Detection feature to defend against scammers doing just that).

As you've seen, AI Super Zoom doesn’t work universally well in optimal conditions, either, but once you’ve sussed out and accepted its limits, the feature is an undeniably fascinating addition to a phone we described as “superb” in our Honor Magic 7 Pro review.

Crucially, it's also optional – you don't have to activate it if you don't want to. In that sense, AI Super Zoom is harmless, experimental fun.

A sign of things to come?

That said, I think AI Super Zoom is a sign of things to come in the smartphone world. The line between enhancement and falsification is becoming increasingly blurred – “It’s not as simple as real image and fake image,” Honor’s chipset supplier Qualcomm told me last year – and mobile manufacturers are aware that different users want different things from their smartphones.

Samsung, for instance, recognizes the need for nuance when discussing the subject of AI and photography. In an interview with TechRadar in January 2024, Samsung executive Patrick Chomet explained: “Questions around authenticity are very important and we [Samsung] go about this by recognizing two consumer needs; two different customer intentions. Neither of them are new, but generative AI will accelerate one of them.

“One intention is wanting to capture the moment – wanting to take a picture that’s as accurate and complete as possible. To do that, we use a lot of AI filtering, modification, and optimization [on our phones] to erase shadows, reflections, and so on. But we are true to the user's intention, which was to capture that moment.

“Then there is another intention,” Chomet continued, “which is wanting to make something. When people go on Instagram, they add a bunch of funky black-and-white stuff – they create a new reality. Their intention isn’t to recreate reality, it’s to make something new.”

Ironically, Honor’s AI Super Zoom feature tries to satisfy the first intention by leaning into the second – to capture the moment by making something new. That’s a tricky tightrope to walk, but Honor and other smartphone manufacturers will continue to do so if it means being able to offer customers something they can’t get anywhere else.

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Honor Magic 7 Pro review: Two-minute review

Honor's Magic 6 Pro made a splash last year, debuting at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) expo in February with a massive battery, a unique camera system, and some novel software features. Now, the brand is back with its flagship offering for 2025, and it's hoping to one-up itself in every department.

The Honor Magic 7 Pro has adopted a more boxy design for 2025, as is the trend, and it now has flat side rails and subtle symmetrical ‘micro curves’ at the edge of its display. The camera bump is less outlandish, too, and the ‘squircle’ bezel has been toned down to make less of a statement. Overall, I think it's an improvement.

The camera hardware is mostly the same, but the telephoto has a few more megapixels and can now get you even closer to distant subjects. These cameras can take fantastic photos, but the image processing is a little inconsistent, and I got more blurry images than usual. Hopefully, this will be tweaked in future firmware updates. The Studio Harcourt portrait mode, developed in collaboration with the legendary Paris photography studio, never failed to impress, at least.

Due to new EU regulations, the battery on this model is slightly smaller than the one in the Magic 6 Pro (5,270mAh vs 5,600mAh), but this is still easily one of the longest-lasting flagship phones I’ve tested. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the Magic 7 Pro has better battery life than its predecessor, despite that smaller capacity (for reference, the Chinese version of the Magic 7 Pro uses a larger 5,850mAh battery). You can get two days on a full charge without trying particularly hard, and when it's time to charge you can get topped up in a flash, with the Magic 7 Pro supporting up to 100W charging with a cable and 80W with the right wireless charger.

Performance is exceptional. You get the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, plus a suite of software enhancements and an NPU (neural processing unit) co-processor to keep games running smoothly. Honor's Magic OS 9 adds some useful features like Magic Portal, as well as relatively new AI features that have already become familiar favorites, like Circle to Search and Google Gemini.

Overall, this is a superb phone, with a great balance of specs and features that make it a pleasure to use. The software won't be to everyone's taste, and the camera could use some tweaking, but otherwise, this is easily one of the finest flagship phones available today.

Honor Magic 7 Pro review: Price and availability

• Costs £1,099.99
• Available in the UK and Europe, but not the US or Australia

The Honor Magic 7 Pro is available to order now in most regions. As usual, though, the list excludes the US and Australia, so our stateside readers will need to import if they want to get in on the action.

The Magic 7 Pro costs £1,099 in the UK, the exact same price as its predecessor. This means it's more expensive than the Oppo Find X8 Pro and Apple iPhone 16 Pro, but a little cheaper than the Pro Max or Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. That said, the latter phone can currently be purchased for the same price, as it’s been on the market for a while.

Given such premium pricing, Honor will need to impress on all fronts if it’s to remain competitive, and thanks to a pretty stacked spec sheet it could well justify that lofty sum. Plus, Honor always has bundle offers on its devices, so nabbing a few freebies could make the price more palatable.

• Value score: 3 / 5

Honor Magic 7 Pro review: Specs

Here's a look at the Honor Magic 7 Pro's key specs:

Honor Magic 7 Pro review: Design

• Velvety-feeling matte glass back
• Breeze Blue, Black, and Lunar Shadow Grey options
• IP68/IP69 dust- and water-resistant

The Honor Magic 7 Pro follows the recent design trend that we've seen with devices like the Vivo X200 Pro and Oppo Find X8 Pro. It ditches the lateral curves of its predecessor in favor of a boxier design. The side rails are completely flat, with beveled edges, while the front and back are mostly flat, with symmetrical ‘micro curves’ on all sides.

The result is a phone that feels a little thicker than Magic 6 Pro, but at the same time it feels premium and confidence-inspiring. It's a similar size to its predecessor, just less curvy, and if you've used any other recent Android flagship, you'll feel right at home.

The global version is available in three colorways: Breeze Blue, Black and Lunar Shadow Grey. There are no vegan leather variants this time around, with all options featuring a velvety-feeling matte glass rear. The Lunar Shadow Grey option is the most striking in my opinion, with a marble-like texture running across the back panel that becomes more visible as the light catches it.

There's still a large circular and centrally-placed camera island, and it's still surrounded by a ‘squircle’-shaped bezel. However, this time the bezel is decidedly more circular, and it looks a little less outlandish than the Magic 6 Pro did.

The Honor Magic 7 Pro is rated IP68/IP69 for dust and water resistance, which means that as well as being able to handle submersion in freshwater, it can also withstand jets of hot water up to 176F / 80C. I'm not sure when that would ever come in useful, but hey, if you want to scroll Instagram in the shower, your phone should survive it.

• Design score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic 7 Pro review: Display

• 6.8-inch quad-curved 120Hz OLED display
• 4320Hz PWM dimming
• 5000 nits peak brightness

The Honor Magic 7 Pro has a 6.8-inch display with a dynamic refresh rate that can shift from 1Hz to 120Hz as needed. It's a mostly flat panel, and the curves only start around the bezels of the display. The result is a screen that resembles an over-filled glass of water.

I’ve never been a huge fan of curved screens – they can invite accidental touches, and cause odd reflections and color shifts at the edges. There's no denying that they feel nice under your fingertips when using gesture controls, though. These new ‘micro curve’ displays offer the best of both worlds, as you get the smooth feel of a curved display without the usual drawbacks. I'm a convert.

The display is covered with Honor's NanoCrystal Shield glass, and after spending months with the Honor Magic 6 RSR (that’s the Porsche Design version of the Magic 6 Pro) last year, I'm confident in saying it's one of the most scratch-resistant coatings in the business. It's also supposedly 10 times more drop-resistant than traditional glass screens, and while I haven't tested that, it's good to know, especially as there's no case included in the box.

A new addition to this model is a layer of circular polarization, which makes the screen slightly less reflective and is easier on the eyes. In theory, according to Honor, it can reduce eye fatigue by up to 16%.

When it comes to brightness, the Honor Magic 7 Pro has lumens to spare. It can peak at a whopping 5000 nits in certain conditions, which means HDR content looks exceptional, and you'll never have trouble seeing it.

As usual, the brand has put plenty of effort into eye-care features. The PWM (pulse-width modulation) dimming rate is one of the highest I've ever seen, topping out at 4320Hz. You'll never have to worry about flicker on this panel, and if that's not enough you can activate eye comfort and low-blue-light modes to keep your peepers feeling fresh.

There's a 3D ultrasonic fingerprint sensor under the display, and a pill-shaped camera cutout housing a 3D face unlock camera. Apparently, this is the first phone to come with both, and it's very convenient. I especially like being able to log into banking apps using my face, and for me that's worth the slightly larger camera cutout.

• Display score: 5 / 5

Honor Magic 7 Pro review: Cameras

• 50MP main (f/1.4-2.0)
• 200MP 3x telephoto (f/2.6)
• 50MP ultra-wide (f/2.0)

Most of the cameras on the Magic 7 Pro share their specifications with its predecessors’. The main camera still has a 50MP 1/1.3-inch sensor, and a mechanically adjustable aperture that shifts between f/1.4 and f/2. The ultra-wide and selfie cameras seem to be unchanged, too. Both have a 50MP resolution and a f/2 lens.

The telephoto, however, has changed more significantly. The Magic 6 Pro had a 180MP 2.5x optical zoom telephoto snapper, while the Magic 7 Pro upgrades that to a 200MP unit with a 3x lens. It's one of the largest telephoto sensors on the market at 1/1.4-inch, and it's also one of the fastest telephoto cameras, with an f/2.6 aperture.

These days I find myself using the telephoto camera on my smartphone as often, if not more, than the main camera, so I'm pleased to see telephoto specs that come close to matching those of the primary snapper.

I'm still not fully convinced that we need so many megapixels, though. The idea is that you can digitally zoom further with less of a drop in quality, as the high pixel count makes up the difference. In reality, though, it doesn't seem to work so well.

I said the same thing about the Honor Magic 6 Pro, and while this model is an improvement (due to the longer optical focal length) zooming past 10x or so delivers middling and inconsistent results.

Honor's solution to this is something called AI SuperZoom, and it kicks in beyond 30x zoom to clean up your images. At times the results can be quite impressive, but the downsides are plain to see. Images tend to have that watercolor-like effect to them, and sometimes details that don't exist in reality are added in.

I've recently been shooting with the Oppo Find X8 Pro, which has an almost identical feature, but it seems to work a little better than Honor's attempt. In fairness, Honor says this feature is in its infancy, and it will mature and improve over time. It's also worth noting that it requires an internet connection to function, while Oppo's equivalent is processed on-device.

Another new feature in the camera department is the addition of the Studio Harcourt portrait styles that we first saw on the Honor 200 Pro. If you like taking portraits, this is a serious upgrade. The color tuning and blur effects are just as stunning here, and they're only enhanced further by the higher-fidelity optics. The only downside is that, as on the 200 Pro, the feature is restricted to the main and telephoto cameras, so you can't use these effects on your selfies.

All in all, this is a very capable camera system, and it can deliver outstanding shots in all lighting conditions. When it hits, it's among the best camera systems on the market, but it's not the most consistent.

Maybe it's just the pre-release software on the phone I’ve been testing, but I got a lot more blurry shots than I'm used to, and the image processing often pushed the sharpening too far, while blues and greens became over-exaggerated, even when using the Natural picture style.

These problems are all fixable, and I hope we see them addressed in future firmware updates. As it stands, the hardware is impeccable, but the inconsistent processing sometimes leaves you guessing as to how your photos will turn out.

• Cameras score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic 7 Pro review: Camera samples

Honor Magic 7 Pro review: Performance and software

• Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset
• 12GB RAM and 512GB storage
• Magic OS 9, based on Android 15

The Honor Magic 7 Pro is powered by Qualcomm's most powerful chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Elite, so you would expect impressive performance. There's only one configuration available on the global market, which comes with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, which should be more than enough to satisfy most users.

Honor has taken things a step further with this phone by utilizing the power of its onboard NPU to further improve performance. The phone has something called an AI Predictive Scheduling Engine, and exactly what that does is a little above my comprehension level, but I think it's a bit like DLSS on a gaming PC.

All you need to know is that, with the aid of some new features in the game overlay, you can achieve better image fidelity and higher framerates without adding additional load to the GPU. This means that you can game at higher settings, with less battery drain and lower temperatures.

In practice, it seems to work exactly as advertised. I played Genshin Impact at maximum settings for a couple of hours, and the phone had no trouble maintaining a solid 60fps. It remained shockingly cool under the pressure – cooler to the touch than even the gaming-specific ROG Phone 9 Pro, in fact.

The gaming experience is also enhanced by a very capable set of speakers. They might be the most bassy speakers ever to grace a smartphone, thanks to an integrated subwoofer and ultra-large sound cavity design, and they really add some oomph to in-game sound effects.

The Magic 7 Pro runs Magic OS 9, a highly customized version of Android 15, and it's a bit divisive. Personally, I've become quite fond of Magic OS, but it's a very different experience from stock Android. The notifications shade and quick settings menu are split, like they are on iOS, and navigating the system can be a little challenging if you're coming from a phone that offers a more traditional Android experience, like a Google Pixel.

Aside from the layout changes, Honor has heaped on plenty of extra functionality. My personal favorite is Magic Portal, which allows you to select text or an image on your screen and drag it into another app for quick sharing or searching. This feature is now even easier to access, as you can circle things with your knuckle to quickly select them.

You also get plenty of AI-powered features, of course. There's nothing too novel here, but it's all pretty useful. There's an AI translator, the ability to format and transcribe notes with AI, and an array of AI-powered image editing tools. At some point soon the phone will also use AI to automatically protect you from deepfake video chats – I can't say I've ever received one, but the extra peace of mind is always nice.

Also new this year is the inclusion of Circle to Search and Google Gemini as the default voice assistant. It's getting to the point where most Android phones come with these features, but they’re still worth mentioning because they're great, and I very much miss them when they're not there.

As for the Magic 7 Pro's software longevity, Honor has committed to supporting the phone with a whopping seven years of Android OS and security updates, which matches the update commitments made by Apple, Samsung, and Google to their respective flagship devices.

• Performance score: 5 / 5

• Software score: 3 / 5

Honor Magic 7 Pro review: Battery

• 5,270mAh silicon-carbon battery (5,850mAh in China)
• 100W wired charging
• 80W wireless charging

There's a lot to love about the Honor Magic 7 Pro, but for me, the best thing might be the battery life. I tested this phone after spending lots of time with the Vivo X200 Pro, which has a mammoth 6,000mAh battery, so I wasn't expecting to be amazed by this comparatively small 5,270mAh unit – but I absolutely was.

Honor has clearly optimized its software very well, and I was able to manage two days on a full charge without even trying. And I managed that more than once, and that's with lots of screen time, navigating maps, shooting lots of photos, and streaming content. It’s just brilliant.

We’ve seen some Chinese manufacturers dial back their charging speeds for this generation, but not Honor. Here you get an impressive 100W wired charging rate, and a staggering 80W with Honor's Wireless SuperCharger.

Unfortunately, there's no charger in the box, but I happened to have the right kit to charge at max speed, and it makes living with this phone extremely convenient. If you have the requisite charger, a wired charge from flat to full takes less than 35 minutes, while a wireless charge can be achieved in less than 45 minutes.

• Battery score: 5 / 5

Should you buy the Honor Magic 7 Pro?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Honor Magic 7 Pro review: Also consider

The Honor Magic 7 Pro is an excellent all-rounder with a brilliant camera, but the competition is fierce. If you're not sure this is the handset for you, it's worth checking out these competitors.

How I tested the Honor Magic 7 Pro

• Review test period: two weeks
• Testing included: everyday use including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback
• Tools used: Geekbench 6, 3DMark, GFXBench, native Android stats, Honor 100W charger, and wireless SuperCharge stand

I put my SIM card into the Honor Magic 7 Pro and lived with it as my main phone for around two weeks before reaching any conclusions. I used it exactly as I would any other phone, taking lots of photos, gaming, messaging, working, streaming video, and navigating with Google Maps and Waze.

I also compared the experience of playing graphically challenging games like Zenless Zone Zero, Genshin Impact, and PUBG Mobile to my experience with other Android flagships like the Oppo Find X8 Pro, Vivo X200 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. I also ran multiple benchmarks on the handset using 3DMark, GFXbench, and Geekbench.

I assessed the battery performance based on my real-world usage and charging times were measured using an official Honor 100W wall adapter and cable. I also tested the wireless charging capabilities with Honor’s Wireless 100W SuperCharge stand.

Read more about how we test

First tested December 2024

Christmas has been and gone, but January is once again proving to be the most wonderful time of the year for Android phone fans. Following the launch of the OnePlus 13 series last week, Honor has debuted its own flagship offering for 2025 – the Honor Magic 7 Pro – on the international stage.

Boasting a powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, a supersized 5,270mAh silicon-carbon battery, and an eye-friendly 6.8-inch display, the Magic 7 Pro sports hardware specs to rival the best Android phones on the market right now (OnePlus 13 included). However, as promised, it's Honor’s suite of decidedly unique software features that really catch the eye this year.

Among the most interesting is Deepfake Detection, an on-device security tool that uses AI to scan for facial trickery during video calls. Honor teased the innovative new feature last year, and it finally ships with the Magic 7 Pro alongside numerous other “human-centric” AI tools, including AI Translation, Real-time Transcript, and Magic Portal 2.0.

The Magic 7 Pro’s cameras have been decked out with some neat AI wizardry, too. The snappers themselves comprise a 50MP wide lens (f/1.4-2.0, 23mm), a 50MP ultra-wide lens (f/2.0, 12mm), and a 200MP periscope telephoto lens (f/2.6, 69mm), but Honor’s proprietary AI Image Engine brings various AI-powered tricks to each one.

The brand’s Harcourt Portrait mode – which promises to deliver studio-quality portraits in everyday lighting scenarios – has been pulled over from the Honor 200 Pro and Honor Magic V3 to work with Magic 7 Pro’s wide and telephoto lenses. The new flagship also introduces three new software-based photography features: AI Motion Sensing Capture, HD Super Burst, and AI Super Zoom.

The first two of that number allow you to capture high-speed movements or sequences in optimal clarity. AI Super Zoom, meanwhile, aims to enhance the detail of natural landscape shots taken at 30x or more using generative AI.

We’re currently testing the latter tool and look forward to sharing our impressions in an upcoming report.

Other key features of the Magic 7 Pro include its industry-leading durability credentials – specifically IP68 water resistance and IP69 temperature resistance – and pre-installed integration with the Google Gemini app. As for color options, you've got two to choose from: Lunar Shadow Grey and Black.

Honor’s latest flagship launches today (January 15) in the UK for £1,099.99, the same launch price as last year’s Honor Magic 6 Pro. Given Honor's recent release strategies, availability in the US and Australia seems unlikely.

The Magic 7 Pro also releases alongside a cheaper, lower-spec variant – the Honor Magic 7 Lite – which is now available in the UK for £399.99. Stay tuned for our review of its big brother in the coming days.

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• Honor’s Magic Portal 2.0 brings game-changing updates to one of the best Android software features
• Honor’s new AI-powered portrait mode made me feel like a movie star
• ‘No VR product satisfies my requirements, not even Apple Vision Pro,’ says Honor CEO

Even after 12 months of unprecedented innovation, you’d be forgiven for thinking that smartphone AI is still a superfluous gimmick. The biggest industry players seem intent on spending their entire marketing budgets on showing off their silliest software – how many ads for Google’s Best Take feature or Apple’s Genmoji tool did you see last year? – but the wider toolsets in which these features sit are (I promise you!) becoming increasingly more useful.

Honor, for its part, has always maintained that AI should provide human-centric solutions to human-centric problems (read: make our everyday lives easier), and with MagicOS 8.0, the brand launched its intent-based user interface (IUI), which aimed to reduce the number of steps needed to move between apps by predicting (and responding to) your intentions.

A key feature of this interface was Magic Portal – a shortcut tool that lets you switch between apps and services with a single swipe – and in MagicOS 9.0 for the upcoming Honor Magic 7 Pro, Magic Portal gets a serious facelift.

Let's start with the big functionality upgrade. In its current state, Magic Portal lets you select and drag blocks of text, images, and files into a contextually aware sidebar for interaction with relevant apps. That alone has been enough to make the best Honor phones stand out among Android competitors – indeed, we described Magic Portal as a “standout feature” in our Honor Magic V3 review – but in MagicOS 9.0, the tool gets upgraded with a neat new feature called Portal to Anywhere.

With Portal to Anywhere, you can use your knuckle (yes, your knuckle) to draw around anything of interest on-screen – be it an address, image, or product – and Honor’s AI brain will serve up apps (in the Magic Portal sidebar) that it deems most relevant to that piece of content. For instance, if you circle the front cover of a book with your knuckle, Magic Portal 2.0 will let you drag that book straight into relevant e-commerce apps to buy it. Or, if your friend mentions the name of a must-visit café in a text message, you can circle and drag the name of that café into Google Maps or another compatible navigation app.

Especially for images, knuckle-circling is a much more effective method of highlighting content than the pressing, holding, and dragging required in Magic Portal 1.0. But I know what you’re thinking: “Isn’t Portal to Anywhere just Circle to Search with a different name?”

Well, not really. For starters, Circle to Search is already available on select Honor phones, but crucially, that feature is a Google Search shortcut, rather than a shortcut to multiple apps. You can, of course, still use Portal to Anywhere to access Google Search if you wish, but you can also pull your chosen content into any number of different apps. It’s Honor’s intent-based UI in action.

Honor says Magic Portal 2.0 boasts an improved semantic understanding of landmarks and movie IPs too, so, in theory, it shouldn’t have trouble identifying everything from the Sagrada Familia to Timothée Chalamet in full Dune gear.

The apps are coming

The second big news for Magic Portal 2.0 concerns its level of app support. Since its launch early last year, Honor has steadily increased the number of Magic Portal-compatible apps available outside of China – the software now supports the likes of WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Google Maps – but Magic Portal has remained a much more useful tool for users on the other side of the world, not least because the pool of compatible ride-hailing apps available to Westerners is still disappointingly small.

Mercifully, that changes with Magic Portal 2.0, which introduces – in Honor’s own words – support for “a wider array of applications encompassing entertainment, transportation, productivity, and shopping needs.”

That’s not just marketing speak, either. Uber, YouTube, TikTok, Outlook, Google Translate, X, and Dropbox are among the new apps now attachable to the Magic Portal sidebar, making what was already one of the best Android software features in China now one of the best Android software features, well, everywhere else.

Back when Honor announced Magic Portal, I wrote that Honor’s new ‘intent-based UI’ could let you order food and taxis with just one swipe. Now, a year later, that utopian vision will become a reality for a lot more people.

Magic Portal 2.0 will launch with MagicOS 9.0 on the Honor Magic 7 Pro, which is expected to debut in European markets soon.

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• Honor Magic 6 Pro review: bold, bright and beautiful
• ‘No VR product satisfies my requirements, not even Apple Vision Pro,’ says Honor CEO

Honor has confirmed that Circle to Search will begin rolling out to two of its most popular smartphones, the Honor Magic V3 and Honor 200 Pro, in the coming months, signaling an end to the feature’s exclusivity for Samsung and Google Pixel phones.

The AI-powered Google tool – which allows users to search the web for anything they see on their phone screen with a simple circle, scribble, or tap – debuted on the Samsung Galaxy S24 series in January, before trickling down to the Google Pixel 8 line in February. Google then expanded Circle to Search to mid-range Samsung and Galaxy phones in August.

The feature is available now on the Honor Magic V3 foldable, though Honor 200 Pro owners will have to wait until “later in the year” for access. A recent tip hinted that Circle to Search could be coming to the Tecno Phantom V Fold 2 soon, too, so it’s safe to expect that flagship devices from all manner of manufacturers – think OnePlus, Xiaomi, Motorola, and so on – could likewise benefit from Google’s innovative search tool in the near future.

For Honor, this is a big deal. The best Honor phones are among the best phones money can buy in the UK and Europe, but despite their market-leading hardware, the company’s flagship devices have arguably lagged behind their flagship Android counterparts in the software department.

That’s not to say Honor’s mobile software is downright bad – the company’s AI-powered camera modes are some of the most interesting on the market, and its Magic Portal feature is similarly impressive – but Honor’s Magic OS operating system has certainly proven a quirkier beast than, say, the stock Android interface you’ll find on the best Pixel phones.

The addition of Circle to Search to Magic OS brings a reassuring dose of familiarity to the best Honor phones, and with Honor’s Magic Capsule tool already mimicking Apple’s Dynamic Island, devices like the Honor Magic V3 now offer a potent mix of Android and iOS-like features; arguably the best of both worlds.

As for Google, this latest expansion of Circle to Search brings the company one step closer to fulfilling its internal goal of adding the feature to 200 million phones by the end of 2024. iPhones next, Google? Pigs might fly.

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Honor Magic V3: two-minute review

Honor already offered the world’s slimmest folding phone with its impressively sleek Honor Magic V2, but rather than resting on its laurels, the brand is back with an even skinnier book-style foldable: the Honor Magic V3.

It's hard to overstate just how slim this phone is – the rear section barely has enough room for its USB-C port. You could easily mistake the Magic V3 for a non-foldable device, and plenty of candy bar phones are actually thicker than Honor’s latest foldable (indeed, the Magic V3 is almost as thin as the iPhone 15 Pro Max).

Of course, dimensions are only one part of the puzzle, and with premium pricing, you want performance to match. On that front, Honor has stuffed the latest and greatest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor into the Magic V3, along with 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a sizable 5,150mAh battery.

The cameras look to impress, too, with large sensors, wide apertures, and high resolutions across the board. The amazing Studio Harcourt portrait effects that debuted on the Honor 200 Pro are also available on this phone. It's a serious contender for the best foldable camera phone.

Of course, in 2024, there's more competition than ever in the foldable space. Google, Samsung, OnePlus, and Vivo all offer very compelling options, but the Honor Magic V3 still has one of the most stacked spec sheets around, as well as wider availability than much of its Chinese competition.

However, it's not perfect. Despite having a large battery pack, the Magic V3's longevity failed to impress. It's serviceable, but even with all the extra milliamp hours, it doesn't seem to last any longer than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. On the flip side, it charges a lot quicker, which makes it easier to live with.

Then there's the software, which takes a very different approach to Android with many iOS-inspired choices. It definitely won't be for everyone, and multitasking could use some work, but there are a lot of cool features built-in, and I have grown quite fond of it.

On the whole, I've loved living with the Honor Magic V3. If you're keen on a big screen foldable, but find their typical size and weight off-putting, this is the device for you. It's a real feat of engineering that feels premium through and through.

Honor Magic V3 review: price and availability

• Costs £1,699
• Available in the UK and Europe; no release for the US or Australia

Honor Magic V3 was originally launched in China on July 12, 2024, before being released globally at IFA 2024 on September 5. It's now available to pre-order in most regions across the world, but as usual, that list excludes the United States.

In the UK, it costs £1,699 and is available in Tundra Green, Velvet Black and Red color options. There's also a Snow (white) version with a unique textured rear panel, but that one's only available in China.

Honor Magic V3 review: specs

 Here’s a look at the Honor Magic V3’s key specs:

Honor Magic V3 review: design

• The slimmest foldable so far
• Velvety-feeling matte glass back
• IPX8 water resistant

The most striking thing about the Honor Magic V3's design is how slim it is. The phone measures just 9.2mm thick when folded, which is almost 3mm slimmer than the Galaxy Z Fold 6 – Samsung's slimmest foldable to date. It's also one of the lightest large-format foldables around, tipping the scales at just 226g. For reference, that's a couple of grams lighter than Honor's own non-folding flagship, the Honor Magic 6 Pro.

Combine these dimensions with some smooth curved edges, and you have a device that feels impossibly thin. It's especially apparent when unfolded, as there's barely room for the USB-C port on the phone's 4.35mm frame.

Unlike some of the competition, the Magic V3's cover display has fairly typical smartphone dimensions, and this makes it feel very natural to use folded down. It's one of the only foldables that I’ve repeatedly mistaken for one of my non-folding phones; the dimensions are so similar that it's easy to get confused at a glance.

While the phone remains slim elsewhere, there's a very sizable centrally-placed camera bump on the rear. It effectively doubles the thickness of the phone in that specific area. However, it does so for good reason, as there are some serious sensors on this device. 

The camera island is a circular number finished with black glass, and it has a smooth octagonal aluminum bezel around its perimeter. I'm a big fan of the positioning, as it gives me a nice shelf to rest more of my forefinger on when I'm holding the phone one-handed.

The volume rocker and power button are placed on opposite sides of the phone when unfolded, and this means that they're staggered by a few millimeters when the phone is shut. It didn't bother me when I was using the cover display, but it takes some getting used to when it's unfolded, as most other foldables place these buttons on the same side. It's easy enough to adapt to, and if you're coming from the Honor Magic V2, you're all set, as they're in the exact same place.

The global version of the V3 comes in three color options, and I've had hands-on time with the black and green variants. Both of these versions have a similar velvety-feeling matte finish on the rear glass and dark gray metallic accents around the camera and frame. If you opt for the red model, you'll get a faux leather rear and golden accents; it's easily the flashiest of the bunch.

There's a very nice vegan leather case included in the box, and it comes in a matching hue. It's the kind of case you'd expect to pay a premium for; it feels luxurious, and it's well-designed. This case is more protective than most, too. There's a section that protects the hinge, a thick metal ring to keep the lenses safe and even an adhesive bumper to protect the front section.

The metal ring that surrounds the cameras can be folded out and doubles up as a kickstand; it's a very smart design. It's not always the most sturdy stand, depending on the angle you choose, but the subtlety makes up for it and it's certainly better than having no kickstand. I also found myself flicking it out and using it like a pop socket on occasion – I'm not sure if that's an intended use, but it works fairly well for one-handed use of the Magic V3’s main display.

• Design score: 5 / 5

Honor Magic V3 review: display

• 6.43-inch 120Hz OLED cover display
• 7.92-inch 120Hz foldable main display
• 5000-nit cover display, 1800-nit main display

If you're looking at foldable phones, then you obviously care about displays, and Honor aims to impress with both of the panels on the Magic V3.

On the outside, there's a 6.43-inch OLED display with a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate and an ample 1060 x 2376 resolution. It's an extremely bright display, able to output up to 5000 nits at peak, and it's protected by Honor's super tough NanoCrystal 2.0 glass tech. I've been daily driving the Honor Magic 6 Pro for a while now, which has a similar coating, and I've been impressed by the lack of scratches despite using it without a protector. Hopefully, the Magic V3 fares just as well in the long term. 

Honor reckons its glass is up to 40 times more impact-resistant than the glass on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. I didn't fancy whacking it with a hammer, though, so I'll just have to take the company’s word for it. 

The glass has symmetrical, subtly curved edges on three sides, and slightly less of a curve on the hinge side. The curves are small enough to avoid creating distracting reflections, but they still make gesture controls feel super smooth; it's a great middle ground.

Opening the device up, you're greeted with a spacious 7.92-inch foldable display and one of the shallowest creases I've seen on a phone like this. It's still present, of course, but it's miles ahead of the groove that runs through the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6’s display, and the far less glossy screen protector serves to hide it even more. This protector is supposedly tougher, too – Honor says it's up to five times more scratch-resistant than previous versions.

The foldable display also boasts a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate and has a resolution of 2156 x 2344 pixels. It's not as bright as the outer display, maxing out at just 1800 nits, but I never had trouble seeing it, even outside on bright sunny days.

The only thing that I don't love about the main display on the Magic V3 is the positioning of the selfie camera cutout. It matches the outer screen and is centrally placed on the right-hand side of the display. This means that when you're watching letterboxed 16:9 content, the selfie camera will often cut into the image. I still prefer it over Samsung's distracting under-display unit, but I wish it was positioned in the corner, as on the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold.

Both screens look excellent in use with vibrant, accurate colors and smooth motion. Watching HDR content on Netflix and YouTube really lets the panels show what they're made of, with dazzling highlights and tons of shadow detail.

If you're concerned about eye health, Honor has arguably done more in this department than any other brand. For starters, this phone has some of the highest PWM dimming rates of any foldable phone, with 3840Hz supported on the inside and 4320Hz on the outside. Then, there are all the usual low blue light and adaptive brightness features, plus a brand new feature called AI Defocus Display.

To be completely honest, this feature is a little beyond my understanding, but it uses AI to simulate a myopic defocus lens. The goal is to reduce eye strain when using the display for long periods. As someone who stares at screens all day anyway, I didn't notice a huge difference, but it's probably a good thing in the long term.

• Display score: 5 / 5

Honor Magic V3 review: cameras

• 50MP main (f/1.6)
• 50MP 3.5x telephoto (f/3.0)
• 40MP ultra-wide with PDAF (f/2.2)

As the chunky camera bump suggests, the Honor Magic V3 has some impressive imaging hardware on the inside. There's a 50MP main snapper with a wide f/1.6 aperture and a 1/1.56-inch sensor, a 50MP 3.5x telephoto, and a 40MP ultrawide with macro capabilities.

Each screen gets its own 20MP f/2.2 punch-hole selfie camera, but since this is a foldable phone, you can easily use the rear trio for selfie snaps as well.

The Honor Magic V3 produces poppy sharp images with vibrant colors and excellent dynamic range. It finds focus quickly, and just like the Magic 6 Pro, it's great at freezing motion for action shots in the daytime. At night, the phone continues to impress with its sharp visuals and wide dynamic range, but motion blur and noise become more of an issue, particularly when using the ultra-wide.

The main camera produces the cleanest shots, especially in the dark, but I found myself using the 3.5x telephoto just as much, if not more. It's roughly equivalent to a 90mm lens on a full-frame camera, and it's a great focal length for portraiture and street photography.

You can digitally zoom all the way up to 100x in the camera app, but you shouldn't, as your images will look like an AI-generated mess if you do. Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised by the results up to around 15-20x zoom, where you can capture very usable images.

The ultra-wide isn't quite as sharp as the other lenses, but it's a useful focal length for architecture, landscapes, and group shots. I was pleased to see that it has autofocus, as well as macro shooting capabilities, which makes it all the more useful – take notes, Samsung.

The selfie cameras are decent but unremarkable. You get an identical unit on both displays and they're great for video calls and casual snaps, but if you're looking to impress, it's well worth flipping the phone around and using one of the rear lenses.

That becomes even more true when you activate the new Studio Harcourt portrait mode, which only works on the rear lenses. This is a feature that was introduced with the Honor 200 Pro recently, and the results are just as impressive here. The big difference is that it's easy to use these effects for selfies, thanks to the folding form factor.

Honor has also added a new AI eraser to the suite of editing tools, so you can easily remove unwanted items or people from your photos. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it works well. 

When it comes to video, you can shoot at up to 4K 60fps on every rear camera, and up to 4K 30fps on the selfie cameras. The stabilization is solid and the microphones sound decent but the videos are a little more contrasty than I'd like as standard. Thankfully, this is easily remedied by applying one of the built-in filters, and if you switch to Pro Video mode, you can even add your own LUT.

• Camera score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic V3 camera samples

Honor Magic V3 review: performance and software

• Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset
• 16GB RAM and 512GB storage
• Magic OS 8.0, based on Android 14

The Honor Magic V3 is powered by Qualcomm’s top-performing chip in 2024, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and it's paired with a generous 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

Unsurprisingly, this results in zippy performance in all situations and it games like a champ, too. I put a few hours into my current favorite timesink, the graphically challenging Zenless Zone Zero, and it happily ran at max settings with very few frame drops.

After a while, the phone does get pretty hot to the touch, but that’s to be expected with such a powerful chip in a slim chassis. On the plus side, it never became concerningly warm, and performance didn't seem to take too much of a hit, either.

The Magic V3 runs the same software as Honor’s other recent devices, MagicOS 8.0. It's a heavily modified version of Android 14 that takes a lot of inspiration from iOS, and it's guaranteed to divide opinion.

I’ve spent a lot of time using Honor phones lately, and though it took a while to adapt, I have grown quite fond of MagicOS. I particularly like Honor's Dynamic Island clone, Magic Capsule, as it gives you quick access to timers and playback controls no matter what you have running in the foreground.

Another standout feature is Magic Portal, which lets you drag images and text from one app to another, as a contextually aware menu pops up at the side of the display. I mainly use it to quickly reverse image search with Google and drag addresses into Google Maps, but it can do a lot more than that, as there are now over 150 apps that support Magic Portal.

Honor is continually adding more AI-powered features to Magic OS, too. It can now reduce background noise on your voice calls in both directions, live translate text and audio using Google's Cloud AI, and soon, it'll be able to detect deepfakes in video calls to protect you from scammers.

Since this is a large-screen foldable, multitasking is quite important, and I feel like Honor could have done more with the Magic V3. You get a quick-access taskbar, and you can split the display or use floating windows, but there's not a whole lot added compared to default Android options. 

Comparatively, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold has a much more intuitive layout, while the OnePlus Open stands out with its awesome Open Canvas mode. The Magic V3 is perfectly capable of multitasking, but it could be so much better. 

• Performance & software score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic V3 review: battery

• 5,150mAh silicon-carbon battery
• 66W wired charging
• 50W wireless charging

The Honor Magic V3 uses silicon-carbon tech to cram a sizable 5,150 mAh battery into its tiny chassis, and it also uses AI-based battery enhancements to increase efficiency. These two factors gave me high hopes about this device's stamina, but the reality was slightly more underwhelming.

The phone never failed to make it to the end of the day, but it would often cut it fine. Generally speaking, I found the battery performance to be quite similar to that of the Galaxy Z Fold 6, with its comparatively small 4,400 mAh pack. In fairness, the majority of my testing was done on pre-release firmware; there's every chance battery life could improve as updates roll out.

Where this phone does have the edge, though, is with its charging speed. The Magic V3 charges at up to 66W with a wire or 50W using Honor's Wireless SuperCharger. Yep, that's double the Galaxy Z Fold 6's wired charging speed without needing to plug in – impressive stuff. 

I found I was able to go from flat to fully charged in under an hour, which makes keeping this device topped up very convenient. What's more, the 66W wall adapter comes included in the box, so you can enjoy the top speeds from day one. Nice work, Honor.

• Battery score: 3 / 5

Should you buy the Honor Magic V3?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Honor Magic V3 review: Also consider

The Honor Magic V3 is a powerful large-format foldable with speedy performance and impressive displays, but there's plenty to be said for its competition, too.

How I tested the Honor Magic V3

• Review test period: Two weeks
• Testing included: everyday use including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback
• Tools used: Geekbench 6, 3DMark, GFXBench, native Android stats, included charger and Honor Wireless SuperCharge stand

I used the Honor Magic V3 as my main handset for around two weeks before reaching any conclusions. I used it exactly as I would use any other phone, taking lots of pictures, gaming, messaging, working, streaming video and navigating with Google Maps. It even accompanied me on an international flight.

I also compared my experience of playing graphically demanding games like Zenless Zone Zero, Genshin Impact, and PUBG Mobile to my experience with other Android foldables like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Vivo X Fold 3 Pro. To confirm my findings, I ran a suite of benchmarks on the handset including 3DMark, GFXbench and Geekbench to compare stats across models.

Battery performance was assessed based on my real-world usage and charging times were measured using the included wall adapter and cable. I also tested the wireless charging using Honor’s Wireless 100W SuperCharge stand.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed September 2024

Brand-on-brand jibes are not uncommon in the mobile industry, and Samsung – which routinely pokes fun at Apple for its missteps – has been given a taste of its own medicine in the run-up to this year’s IFA showcase.

As part of a marketing stunt for the upcoming Honor Magic V3 foldable – aka the world’s thinnest inward-folding foldable phone – Chinese mobile maker Honor has apologized to Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 owners who may feel "let down" by their new foldable purchase.

The Honor Magic V3 – which is set for a global unveiling at IFA 2024 – measures just 4.35mm when unfolded and 9.2mm when folded. The Galaxy Z Fold 6, by contrast, measures 5.6mm when unfolded and a comparatively huge 12.1mm when folded. Honor’s upcoming foldable is significantly lighter, too, at 226g versus 239g.

To hammer home these (admittedly stark) differences, Honor commissioned micro-artist Graham Short to engrave “the world’s smallest apology” on the hinge of a special edition version of the Honor Magic V3.

The full message reads as follows:

Dear Samsung Galaxy Z Fold owners, we’re sorry. We know you were excited to buy a phone that folds in half and fits in your pocket, awkwardly. You were promised the future, a technical marvel, a world of boundless multitasking and performance.

And now, you're probably looking at the new HONOR Magic V3 and feeling a little... betrayed. Size matters, and we feel your pain. Like being tipped for a gold medal and then coming last in the race, the knowledge that a thinner, lighter, and more durable foldable exists is enough to make anyone question their choices.

We get it. You were an early adopter, a pioneer bravely venturing into the uncharted territory of foldable screens with questionable durability. You deserve better. In fact, you deserve a gold medal.

In all seriousness, we at Honor are committed to pushing the boundaries of technology and bringing you the best possible foldable experience. We're just saying... it's okay to feel let down. We'd feel the same way.

Jeez, talk about cojones. In fairness to Honor, the company is right to toot its own horn – at least in terms of the physical design of the Magic V3. The upcoming device is objectively “thinner, lighter, and more durable” than the Galaxy Z Fold 6, with Honor describing Samsung’s latest foldable as the “chunkier alternative” in a press release accompanying its aforementioned apology.

Heck, even last year’s Honor Magic V2 is “thinner and lighter” than the newly released Galaxy Z Fold 6 – these are just the facts, people.

Of course, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is not a bad phone, by any means. In fact, it’s an exceptionally powerful and versatile handset that we described as “a bold reimagining of Samsung’s flagship foldable” in our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 review.

Its AI-powered software is the best of its kind, too, and we doubt that Honor’s upcoming foldable – despite coming equipped with impressive AI features including Face to Face Translation and AI Eraser – will boast the software bite to match its design bark. That said, if sleek aesthetics are what you value most in a folding phone, then the Magic V3 is the clear winner.

As mentioned, the Honor Magic V3 is slated to launch globally at Honor’s IFA 2024 keynote, which is due to kick off at 5am PT / 8am ET / 1pm BST on Thursday, September 5. The new phone won’t be launching in the US, but US folks curious about whether Honor’s supreme confidence is justified should nonetheless check out our imminent Honor Magic V3 review.

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For professional fraudsters, the rapid development of deepfake technology must feel like Christmas. Deepfake phishing attempts reportedly rose by 3,000% in 2023, and the ever-increasing accessibility of generative AI tools like Midjourney and OpenAI will do little to reduce that figure in 2024.

If you’ve ever encountered a deepfake video – whether of Tom Cruise dancing in his backyard or the CFO who tricked his employees into handing over $25 million (neither, of course, were the real deal) – then you’ve likely done so on your smartphone. So what are smartphone companies doing to defend against the threat of face-stealing fraudsters?

Honor, for its part, is fighting fire with fire. The company has announced plans to equip the best Honor phones with a new AI-powered Deepfake Detection feature that can identify and warn users against digitally manipulated content. The on-device tool will examine frame-by-frame information such as eye contact, lighting, image clarity and video playback to detect flaws that are imperceptible to the human eye. 

If inconsistencies are identified, the Deepfake Detection feature will trigger a popup that reads: “Honor scam alert. It looks like the other person could be using AI to swap their face.”

This tool will be limited to video calls at launch – it’s intended as a defense against scammers, after all – but there’s no reason to believe that Honor couldn’t expand its capabilities to deepfake-filled social media platforms like X and Instagram.

A new kind of retina display

Honor is touting its new Deepfake Detection feature as proof of the potential of on-device AI, and the brand has also teased another on-device tool that aims to help reduce the risk of myopia (or nearsightedness).

AI Defocus Eye Protection will essentially transform the best Honor phone displays into defocus glasses, which intentionally induce controlled defocus in the wearer’s peripheral visual field. 

In other words, new and upcoming Honor phones will track users’ eyesight to defocus peripheral areas of the screen, helping them to maintain clear central vision and reducing the risk of nearsightedness.

Honor says its AI Defocus Eye Protection technology can “decrease transient myopia by 13 degrees on average after reading for 25 minutes,” which makes it sound like less of a gimmick and more like a genuinely useful application of on-device AI. 

Both of these new features were announced at MWC Shanghai, and aren’t yet available for widespread use. As with Honor’s eye-tracking technology, we expect both Deepfake Detection and Defocus Eye Protection to be exclusive to the brand’s current top-end smartphones, though there’s also a chance that Honor could reserve these tools for future models.

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Three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and Honor partnering with a luxury brand to promote its latest mobile innovation. Having already teamed up with Burberry, British Vogue and Porsche Design on a slew of high-end mobile products throughout the past year, the Chinese electronics brand has now joined forces with legendary French photography studio Studio Harcourt on a cutting-edge portrait mode for its latest phone, the Honor 200 Pro.

Famous for its black-and-white portraits of movie stars and celebrities, Studio Harcourt has immortalized the likes of Ingrid Bergman, Salvador Dalí, Cate Blanchett and Roger Federer at various points in its 91-year history, and the Honor 200 Pro aims to put the studio’s secret sauce in the hands of everyday smartphone users by combining high-end hardware with AI software. 

Honor has used the latter to condense the four key components of a Studio Harcourt portrait – professional make-up, complex lighting, advanced hardware and expert post-production – into a seamless on-device photography process. You’re essentially getting a glorified filter (or rather three glorified filters: Harcourt Classic, Harcourt Vibrant and Harcourt Colour), but the Honor 200 Pro nonetheless delivers portraits that feel truly distinct from those you can snap using even the very best camera phones. 

I was given a tour of Studio Harcourt in Paris to see for myself how the Honor 200 Pro recreates the Harcourt method of photography. And as you can see from the below images, the phone did a pretty great job of making me look decidedly more important than I am in real life (mind you, I doubt I’ll be getting a call about the vacant James Bond job any time soon).

Of course, these portraits were captured in optimal lighting conditions at Studio Harcourt itself, but the Honor 200 Pro proved capable of taking great portraits in everyday scenarios, too. We wrote in our Honor 200 Pro review: “The results [using the phone’s Studio Harcourt mode] can be stunning. It’s most effective with portraits – that’s what the feature is designed for, after all – but we also got great results with animals.

“Harcourt Color is a similar effect, but in color, as the name suggests. It creates images with a lovely warm color palette. Both modes add an artificial bokeh effect, and they seem to accentuate lens flares from light sources, too. Honor’s edge detection is second to none, and we were really impressed with how well it managed to cut out wisps of hair and other difficult scenes.”

In other words, the Honor 200 Pro is a portrait photography powerhouse, and thanks to its Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset, 6.8-inch OLED screen and supersized 5,200mAh battery, it’s a pretty great all-rounder, too.

The Honor 200 Pro costs £699.99 in the UK and comes in one storage configuration: 512GB with 12GB RAM. It’s available to pre-order now from Honor directly, though like all other Honor phones, it won't be going on sale in the US or Australia.

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Honor 200 Pro: Two-minute review

Honor’s 'number-series' phones have a reputation for delivering flagship-level specs at mid-range prices. We saw this in 2023 with the impressive Honor 90, and the Honor 70 before that. However, while the range has, in the past, included Pro variants in China, they’ve never made their way to Europe, until now.

The Honor 200 Pro is a different class of device to last year’s Honor 90. Rather than targeting the upper mid-range market, it’s aimed at the lower-tier of flagship devices. Think the Samsung Galaxy S24, rather than A55. At this level, you need top-notch cameras, blazing-fast performance and cutting-edge features to compete, and thankfully, the Honor 200 Pro delivers on all fronts.

The most exciting feature is, surprisingly, a new set of portrait effects developed in collaboration with the world-famous Studio Harcourt. They work just like filters, with some AI secret sauce on top, but the results speak for themselves. You can take some truly stunning portraits with this phone.

Elsewhere, the device is solid on across the board. The phone's Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset allows for smooth and snappy daily operations and a great gaming experience, the mammoth 5,200mAh battery keeps things ticking over for a long time, and its charging is among the fastest in its class, either wired or wirelessly.

The competition is fierce, though, and devices like the Samsung Galaxy S24 and Google Pixel 8 are sure to be more appealing to some buyers. In either case, you get more advanced AI features and a longer window of support, but you’ll miss out on the impressive battery life and portrait prowess of the Honor 200 Pro. Whether it’s right for you depends on your priorities.

Honor 200 Pro review: Price and availability

• Costs £699.99 in the UK
• Released May 2024 – China only, June, 2024 – internationally
• No availability in US and Australia

The Honor 200 Pro launched alongside its non-Pro sibling, the Honor 200, in China on May 31, 2024. Then, less than a month later, both devices made their global debut in Paris on June 12. Both phones are now available to pre-order in Europe, but as usual, there’s no US or Australian launch on the cards.

The Honor 200 Pro costs £699.99 in the UK and comes in one storage configuration: 512GB with 12GB RAM. For context, the comparable Samsung Galaxy S24 starts at $799 / £799 / AU$1,399, so £699.99 is a reasonable price for the Honor 200 Pro.

• Value score: 5 / 5

Honor 200 Pro review: Specs

Honor 200 Pro review: Design

• Velvety-feeling matte glass back
• Casa Milá-inspired camera surround
• IP65 dust and water resistant

The Honor 200 Pro stands out from the crowd with its unique elongated circular camera surround. Apparently, this design is inspired by the shape of Barcelona’s Casa Milá, but it also looks a bit like an airplane window, or a turret from Portal.

I found the notch a little off-putting at first, but it has grown on me somewhat, and it definitely helps to differentiate this model from the sea of circular and square-shaped camera bumps. The silver bezel surrounding the camera glass looks super-premium, too.

Elsewhere, things are a little more traditional. The phone has curved edges on the front and rear that make it feel slim and comfortable in the hand, and there’s a high-gloss metal frame around the edges.

The rear is made from glass and it has a velvety-feeling matte texture, similar to recent Vivo flagships like the X100 Pro. It feels lovely and is completely immune to fingerprints, but it’s slippery, so you’ll need to be very careful if you use it without a case. Thankfully, a transparent TPU number is included in the box, so you can keep it protected easily.

The Honor 200 Pro is available in three colors: Moonlight White, Black and Ocean Cyan. I have the white version in for testing, which has a marble-like pattern across the rear, and it reminds me of a fancy kitchen countertop. The black version has a more understated uniform finish, for those that prefer a more professional look. Meanwhile, the cyan model is the loudest; it has a dual-texture rear with a sweeping S-shaped curve down the back. 

• Design score: 4 / 5

Honor 200 Pro review: Display

• 6.78-inch quad-curved 120Hz OLED display
• 3840Hz PWM dimming
• 4000 nits peak brightness

The Honor 200 Pro has a bright, vivid display that’s curved on all sides, and an adaptive refresh rate that can dynamically shift between 60Hz and 120Hz, depending on what you’re viewing. It’s not quite as impressive as an LTPO panel, which can go all the way down to 1Hz, but it still means you can expect longer battery life without sacrificing smooth scrolling and high-refresh-rate gaming.

Usually, I prefer flat displays, but the Honor Magic 6 Pro won me over with its relatively tight curves – effectively delivering the best of both worlds. I was hoping for more of the same here, but that’s unfortunately not the case. The Honor 200 Pro has a more typical curved display.

Some people are sure to love it, and it definitely helps to make the device feel slim in the hand and pocket, but it’s more prone to accidental touches than I’d like. 

Elsewhere, I have zero complaints. The panel is sharp and high-resolution, the color rendition looks fantastic, and it’s more than bright enough to compete with the springtime sunshine. There are plenty of eye health features included here, too.

The display can deliver an astonishing PWM dimming rate of 3840Hz, besting some of the priciest flagships on the market. The Samsung S24 Ultra only supports 480Hz PWM dimming, for example. If you’re not familiar, this tech essentially ensures low flicker at all brightness levels, to reduce eye strain for those who are sensitive to such things.

• Display score: 4 / 5

Honor 200 Pro review: Cameras

• 50MP main (f/1.9)
• 50MP 2.5x telephoto (f/2.4)
• 12MP ultra-wide macro (f/2.2)

Honor describes the 200 Pro as “the portrait master”, so clearly it believes in the phone’s photographic capabilities. And indeed, this phone packs some serious hardware to support that claim.

Around the back, you’ll find a 50MP main camera with a 1/1.3-inch sensor and OIS, a 50MP 2.5x telephoto with OIS and a 12MP ultra-wide with macro focusing capabilities. On the front, there’s a pill-shaped cutout housing a 50MP wide-angle selfie camera.

As usual, the main camera delivers the most impressive results, especially in low light, where the larger sensor comes into play. The camera app gives you a 2x button for digitally cropping in with this camera, and there’s almost no loss of quality when the lighting is sufficient.

The 2.5x telephoto is very impressive, too. Personally, I would have liked a longer focal length, but this 70mm-ish equivalent is still very useful. You can get good results pushing it to about 5x or so before the image starts to break down, but if you go above 10x with the digital zoom, prepare for disappointment.

The ultra-wide is decent, but with a 16mm equivalent field of view, it’s not quite as wide as some of the competition. It does have autofocus, though, and it can focus extremely close for some unique macro shots. It’s lower resolution than the other sensors, but it still captures a good amount of detail. It’s not great in low light, but that’s usually the case with ultra-wides.

The selfie camera has an ample 50MP resolution and a wide FOV that makes it suitable for group shots. Of course, you can also digitally crop into a more typical focal length. It doesn't seem to have autofocus, which is a bit disappointing, so you’ll need to ensure that you’re standing in the sweet spot for the best results.

The most impressive thing about this camera isn’t the hardware, though, but a new portrait mode developed in collaboration with legendary Parisian portrait studio Studio Harcourt. And yes, it does amount to just a few AI-enhanced filters, but they’re really, really good ones.

Harcourt Classic aims to recreate the studio’s signature black and white headshots, and the results can be stunning. It’s most effective with portraits – that’s what the feature is designed for, after all – but I got great results with animals, too.

Harcourt Color is a similar effect, but in color, as the name suggests. It creates images with a lovely warm color palette. Both modes add an artificial bokeh effect, and they seem to accentuate lens flares from light sources, too. Honor’s edge detection is second to none, and I was really impressed with how well it managed to cut out wisps of hair and other difficult scenes.

Finally, there’s a Harcourt Vibrant, and I found this a little less impressive. It processes color similarly to the normal camera modes, and it loses some of that vintage allure that the other modes provide. Still, it might be useful to have if you prefer a poppy vibrant shot.

I was a little disappointed to learn that these effects only work on the main and telephoto rear cameras, so you can’t use them for snapping selfies. I’d love to see support for that added, but maybe this selfie camera didn’t quite get the Harcourt stamp of approval.

When it comes to video shooting, the Honor 200 Pro supports capture at up to 4K 60fps on the main and telephoto cameras, while the ultra-wide and selfie camera max out at 4K 30fps. The resulting videos have great stabilization, and as usual, Honor’s software has tons of features packed in, including full manual controls.

• Cameras score: 4 / 5

Honor 200 Pro camera samples

Honor 200 Pro review: Performance

• Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset
• 12GB RAM and 512GB storage

The Honor 200 Pro is powered by the new Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset, which is supposed to bring some of the flagship Gen 3 experience to more affordable price points. In day-to-day use, I’d say it achieves that goal; the phone feels snappy and apps open quickly with no stuttering or hesitation.

In benchmarks, the difference becomes more apparent. The Honor 200 Pro finds itself lagging behind last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-powered phones in graphical performance, and occasionally beating them in computational workloads. So, it’s not quite top-of-the-line, but it’s still a more capable gaming machine than the Exynos-powered Galaxy S24 or Pixel 8, for example.

I had no issues playing graphically demanding games like Wuthering Waves at maximum settings, so in the real world, the 8s Gen 3 provides more than enough horsepower for most people. The phone does heat up a bit when you give it such a demanding workload, but it always remained comfortable to hold. Honor’s new super-sized vapor chamber is clearly working as it should.

• Performance score: 4 / 5

Honor 200 Pro review: Software

• Magic OS 8.0, based on Android 14

The Honor 200 Pro runs Magic OS 8.0, a heavily customized skin that’s built on top of Android 14. This is the same software that we tested on the Honor Magic 6 Pro, and it’s a pretty significant departure from the stock Android experience.

Honor takes some inspiration from Apple for Magic OS. The notification shade and quick settings menu are separated, the app drawer is disabled by default, and there’s even a Dynamic Island-like feature that Honor calls Magic Capsule.

If you’re used to a more traditional Android experience, Magic OS will take some getting used to. On the flip side, if you’re coming from an iPhone, you might have an easier time. As an Android user, I found it jarring at first, but it has grown on me. I especially like the Magic Capsule, as it gives me quick access to my media controls and timers no matter which app I have running in the foreground. 

Another great feature is Honor’s Magic Portal. This allows you to drag text or images to the side of your display, and a selection of recommended apps will pop up. Then you can quickly share or search for your selection in the relevant app. I love being able to drag an address into Google Maps for speedy directions, and it’s a really fast way to reverse image search, too.

It’s not all perfect, though. There’s a little bit of bloatware to clean up when you first set up the phone (mostly just Honor’s own apps), and the Magic Capsule had a couple of hiccups during my use. Again, nothing horrific, but it wouldn’t let me tap the media controls at some points, and then it randomly started working again. I am using pre-release software, mind, so in all likelihood, these issues will be ironed out.

• Software score: 3 / 5

Honor 200 Pro review: Battery

• 5,200mAh silicon-carbon battery
• 100W wired charging
• 66W wireless charging

The Honor 200 Pro uses the same cutting-edge battery tech as the Honor Magic 6 Pro to squeeze a 5,200mAh battery pack into a very svelte shell. This means it’ll easily get you through a day of very heavy use, a day and a half poses no issue, and you might even get two days out of a charge if you use it sparingly.

What’s more, the Honor 200 Pro charges up very quickly with the included 100W wall adapter. By my count, it took just 50 minutes to go from completely dead to fully charged. Half an hour on the charger will get you up to around 70%.

It also boasts the same lightning-fast 66W wireless charging speed as the pricier Magic 6 Pro. You’ll need Honor’s SuperCharge stand to get the full power output, but I happen to own one, and it’s impressively quick. It’s well worth the investment to be able just to slap your phone down and have it fully topped up in about an hour.

• Battery score: 4 / 5

Should you buy the Honor 200 Pro?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Honor 200 Pro review: Also consider

The Honor 200 Pro delivers impressive specifications and features at a competitive price point, but the competition has plenty to offer, too.

How I tested the Honor 200 Pro

• Review test period: Two weeks
• Testing included: everyday use including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback
• Tools used: Geekbench 6, 3DMark, GFXBench, native Android stats, Honor 100W charger and wireless SuperCharge stand

I popped my SIM card into the Honor 200 Pro and lived with it as my main device for around two weeks before reaching any conclusions. I used it exactly as I would use any other phone, taking tons of pictures, gaming, messaging, working, streaming video and navigating with Google Maps.

I also compared the experience of playing graphically demanding games like Wuthering Waves, Genshin Impact and PUBG Mobile to my experiences with other Android flagships like the Honor Magic 6 Pro, Vivo X100 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. In addition, I ran several benchmarks on the handset including 3DMark, GFXbench and Geekbench.

Battery performance was assessed based on my real-world usage and charging times were measured using the included 100W wall adapter and cable. I also tested the wireless charging capabilities with Honor’s Wireless 100W SuperCharge stand. 

Read more about how we test

First reviewed June 2024

Given the sheer number of headlines relating to ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Galaxy AI, and other astronaut-adjacent terms in recent months, you’d be forgiven for believing that artificial intelligence (AI) is the best thing since sliced bread. Of course, those headlines have often see-sawed between slack-jawed wonder (see OpenAI) and brutal skepticism (see the Humane AI Pin), but it’s abundantly clear that a major shift is underway in the smartphone landscape.

Honor is the latest mobile brand to commit its future to the AI revolution, with the company unveiling its ambitious “four-layer AI architecture” at VivaTech 2024. What does that mean, exactly? We’ll spare you the yawn-inducing complexity, but the name behind the world’s thinnest foldable phone has essentially outlined its plans to take on the likes of Samsung and Apple with a suite of “cutting-edge” generative AI features powered by Google Cloud.

Honor is keeping the full extent of those features under wraps for now, but the company has teased an innovative new AI-powered portrait shooting mode for its upcoming Honor 200 series smartphones that aims to recreate the iconic Studio Harcourt method of photography.

If you’re unfamiliar with Studio Harcourt, the 91-year-old French photography studio is famous for its black-and-white portraits of movie stars and celebrities. Ingrid Bergman, Marlene Dietrich, Edith Piaf, Salvador Dalí, Roger Federer, and Monica Bellucci have all passed through the doors of the Parisian studio at various points since 1934. Now, through a new creative partnership, Honor plans to leverage Studio Harcourt’s photographic expertise in its upcoming mobile products, beginning with the Honor 200 series in June.

The ‘Harcourt method’ of portrait photography is characterized by dark, smoky glamor and carefully orchestrated shadows, and Honor says its AI-based software has “learned from a vast dataset” of Studio Harcourt portraits to replicate this process on a smartphone camera.

TechRadar was given a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpse at this supposedly “revolutionary” portrait mode during Honor’s VivaTech presentation, and it looks certain to help the Honor 200 challenge for a spot on our list of the best camera phones. But as with the rest of Honor’s upcoming AI features, further details on the brand’s Studio Harcourt partnership are being kept behind closed doors until later this year.

Taking the fight to Samsung 

As for how Honor’s approach to AI differs from, say, Samsung’s approach, Honor CEO George Zhao told TechRadar that his company’s four-layer AI architecture – which comprises cross-device AI, platform-level AI, app-level AI, and Interface to Cloud-based AI – aims to deliver a more intent-based user experience than is currently offered by Galaxy AI. 

Of course, we’ll have to wait until Honor actually unveils its new generative AI features to know whether the company’s mobile-based AI solution can hold a candle to Samsung’s increasingly popular Galaxy AI suite, but the recent expansion of the former’s Magic Portal shortcut feature hints at promising progress.

In essence, Magic Portal is an Honor-exclusive shortcut feature that lets you switch between apps and services with a single swipe. For instance, if a friend sends you some location information and you want to get there in a hurry, Magic Portal lets you drag those details – in one fell swoop – from the messages app across into a compatible ride-hailing or navigation app, saving you several clicks in the process.

Honor confirmed at VivaTech that Magic Portal now supports over 100 apps across a wide range of categories, including travel, entertainment, shopping, and social media, so owners of compatible devices like the Honor Magic 6 Pro can rest assured that Galaxy AI users aren’t having all the AI fun. 

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It’s a well-known cliché that men of a certain age turn to the excitement of a Porsche 911 when their youthful mojo begins to fade, and while not everyone can afford to splash the cash on a six-figure sports car, Honor’s newly released (and equally good-looking) Porsche Design smartphone could deliver comparable thrills for a fraction of the price. 

Designed in collaboration with the eponymous design studio, the Porsche Design Honor Magic 6 RSR is essentially a souped-up version of the Honor Magic 6 Pro, and the second Porsche Design collaboration to emerge from Honor’s R&D labs after the Porsche Design Honor Magic V2 RSR (check out TechRadar's TikTok channel for a look at that device).

Specs-wise, the Magic 6 RSR is almost the same phone as the Magic 6 Pro, but there are some key distinctions between the two. Both devices share an identical Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and 5,600mAh battery, but the 6.8-inch OLED display on the Magic 6 RSR is actually made up of two, stacked OLED panels, rather than one (which supposedly minimizes brightness degradation). The Magic 6 RSR also gets the same three rear cameras as the Magic 6 Pro, though the former benefits from a neat new LiDAR autofocus system, which makes it sound suitably futuristic.

Under the hood, the Magic 6 RSR’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset is aided by a whopping 24GB of RAM and an even-more-whopping 1TB of storage (where its standard sibling ships with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage), which puts even the most specced-up versions of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max to shame (more on these phones later).

German engineering for your phone

The biggest differences between the Magic 6 RSR and the Magic 6 Pro, though, come on the design front. Being a Porsche Design phone, it’s no surprise that the rear panel of the Magic 6 RSR looks a lot sportier than its standard sibling; in truth, the Agate Grey model wouldn't look out of place on Batman’s utility belt (the phone also ships in Frozen Berry: a pinkish color that doesn’t scream ‘Caped Crusader’ in quite the same way).

As on the Magic V2 foldable, Honor says this rear panel design is a nod to the iconic flyline of Porsche cars – this time the all-electric Porsche Taycan (mid-life crisis alert!) – and the Magic 6 RSR’s camera module has also been jazzed up with a neat-looking hexagonal module. I’m a big fan of the Magic 6 Pro’s unique design, but I have to admit that the raised contour on the Magic 6 RSR feels ever better in the hand.

On the front, the Magic 6 RSR boasts a thin layer of Honor’s super durable NanoCrystal Shield, which is made using silicon nitride. In other words, this phone’s display is a lot tougher than that of the standard Magic 6 Pro, which is handy given how expensive it is.

And now for the price: the Porsche Design Honor Magic 6 RSR costs £1,599, and is available to buy from Honor’s website or Porsche Design directly. The phone is unlikely to ship in the US or Australia, but will go on-sale in other European regions soon.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “£1,599 for a phone? You must be joking!”. And sure, that’s a lot of money for a 6.8-inch pocket computer. But wait! The Magic 6 RSR is actually no more expensive than the 1TB variants of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (£1,549) and iPhone Pro Max (£1,599), and neither of those phones offer anywhere near as much RAM.

You also get a smart-looking, Porsche-branded leather case included in the box with the Magic 6 RSR, as well as Honor’s 100W SuperCharge fast charger. Neither Samsung nor Apple offer such luxuries with their respective latest flagships.

So, while I wouldn’t exactly describe the Magic 6 RSR as good value for money, it’s certainly not the worst-value proposition on the mobile market right now. It’s essentially an even better version of the best Honor phone, so if you’re looking to invest in a head-turning smartphone that makes you feel like you own a Porsche, the Honor Magic 6 RSR could be for you.

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Honor Magic 6 Pro review: Two-minute review

Honor was once a brand whose name adorned the shelves of the budget mobile aisle, but with the launch of the Honor Magic 5 Pro in 2023, the former Huawei subsidiary proved itself capable of competing with the likes of Apple and Samsung in the premium hardware department. 

Honor has since rocked the boat with a truly unique foldable phone (see the Honor Magic V2), while maintaining a strong presence in the mid-range category (see the Honor 90), but it’s clear that the Chinese company has its sights set firmly on the luxury electronics market.

The Honor Magic 6 Pro is the latest feature-packed flagship to emerge from Honor’s R&D labs, and it marks another leap forward for this fast-growing mobile manufacturer. In essence, the Magic 6 Pro is the Magic 5 Pro with an even more adventurous rear design, a slightly better camera system and all-new AI smarts, which seems to be the usual upgrade recipe for today’s best phones.

That camera upgrade comes by way of an almighty 180MP periscope telephoto lens, which sits alongside a 50MP wide lens and a 50MP ultra-wide lens in Honor’s ‘Star Wheel’ camera notch. The internal hardware is powered by Qualcomm’s top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, and the phone's gorgeous 6.8-inch curved OLED display is made even better by Honor's proprietary eye-friendly screen tech.

The Magic 6 Pro’s battery is 10% larger than that of its predecessor – 5,600mAh versus 5,100mAh – but the increased processing power required by those aforementioned AI features means that you won’t see much, if any, improvements in overall battery life. That said, the Magic 6 Pro still boasts endurance to match or exceed the latest handsets from Apple, Samsung and Google – it charges faster than all of them, too.

Honor’s Magic OS software still doesn’t hold a candle to Apple’s iOS software or Samsung’s One UI interface, and despite the seamless integration of Magic Portal and the future-facing potential of Magic Capsule (more on both of these features later), you don’t get any generative photo editing features with the Magic 6 Pro.

Its price isn’t exactly attractive, either – at £1,099.99, it's £150 more expensive than the Magic 5 Pro. However, accounting for the phone’s singular storage configuration (512GB with 12GB RAM), the Magic 6 Pro costs the same as the equivalent Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus model (£1,099), and it’s actually slightly cheaper than the iPhone 15 Plus (£1,199) and Google Pixel 8 Pro (£1,179) models with the same storage capacity. As with most Honor phones, the Magic 6 Pro isn’t available to buy in the US.

All told, then, the Honor Magic 6 Pro is indisputably one of the best Android phones of 2024, and the best Honor phone that the brand has released thus far. But if you’re already well-accustomed to the simplicity of rival operating systems, you should think carefully about forking out the £1,099.99 needed to buy one.

Honor Magic 6 Pro review: Price and availability

• Costs £1,099.99 / €1299.90
• Available in the UK and Europe, but not the US or Australia

Honor’s latest flagship was announced in China on February 25, 2024, and went on sale in the UK and Europe on March 8, 2024. In the latter two regions, the Magic 6 Pro is available in a single storage configuration – 512GB with 12GB RAM – for £1,099.99 / €1299.90.

For reference, the Honor Magic 5 Pro launched for £949.99 / €1,199 in 2023, so Honor has hiked the price of its successor by a not-insubstantial £150 in the UK, and €100 in Europe. However, as mentioned above, that £949.99 price puts the Magic 6 Pro on a par with the equivalent storage variant of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus – in the UK, at least – and also makes the phone slightly cheaper than equivalent variants of the iPhone 15 Plus (£1,199) and Google Pixel 8 Pro (£1,179). 

At the time of writing, the Magic 6 Pro is not available to purchase in the US or Australia. 

• Value score: 3 / 5

Honor Magic 6 Pro review: Specs

Here's a look at the Honor Magic 6 Pro's key specs:

Honor Magic 6 Pro review: Design

• Luxury watch-inspired camera module
• IP68 water and dust resistance

The Magic 6 Pro measures 162.5 x 75.8 x 8.9mm and has a 6.8-inch display, so this isn’t a handset for those who prefer smaller phones. But despite its enormous screen – which is actually a touch bigger than the iPhone 15 Pro Max – Honor’s latest flagship isn’t especially heavy. In fact, at 221g, it’s a whole 11g lighter than the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (232g), which also has a 6.8-inch display.

From a design standpoint, the phone innovates upon the Magic 5 Pro, which introduced Honor’s ‘Star Wheel’ camera module. The design of the Magic 6 Pro’s Star Wheel is a nod to “cushion-shaped watches, jade congs, and baroque diamonds,” according to Honor, and given that the former were popularized by luxury watchmaker Panerai in the 1940s, it’s easy to see why the company has embraced this unique ‘squircle’ shape on the Magic 6 Pro

What’s more, this year’s Star Wheel module is more practical. I liked the look of the Magic 5 Pro’s rear camera module but didn’t love the way it felt in the hand (I found that my index finger rubbed against its edge). Due to its wider shape, the Magic 6 Pro’s Star Wheel is more comfortable to the touch, and even more eye-catching than its predecessor, so kudos to Honor’s design team for this small-but-important change.

There’s no titanium in sight on the Magic 6 Pro, but since this is a cheaper phone than the 512GB variants of the iPhone 15 Pro Max (£1,399) and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (£1,349) – two phones that do boast titanium designs – I think Honor was right to make the compromise. You still get IP68 water and dust resistance with the Magic 6 Pro, which brings Honor’s latest flagship in line with those competitors.

In the UK and Europe, the Magic 6 Pro is available in Black or Epi Green. The black features “velvet matte glass”, while the green features “ripple classic leather”, and both design touches make the Magic 6 Pro feel undeniably premium. The ripples on the Epi Green variant are pleasantly grippy, so I recommend that option.

• Design score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic 6 Pro review: Display

• 6.8-inch OLED display
• Eye-friendly screen technology 
• 5,000-nit peak HDR brightness

The Magic 6 Pro has a 6.8-inch OLED display with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate. That’s the standard for the best Android phones these days (take note, Apple), but the screen on Honor’s latest flagship stands out from the crowd for two reasons. 

First is how it sits on the phone itself. The Magic 6 Pro’s 6.8-inch display is curved – or rather, its edges ‘spill over’ the side of the device. Most of today’s best phones use flat-edged displays, and while I have no particular preference for one approach or the other, Honor’s decision to go with a curved display on the Magic 6 Pro will inevitably appeal to some, and deter others. It's unique, at least.

The second distinguishing feature of the Magic 6 Pro’s display is the technology behind it. As with the Magic 5 Pro (and indeed the Magic V2 and Honor 90), the Magic 6 Pro boasts Honor’s proprietary Circadian Night Display technology, which filters blue light to improve the quality of your sleep. This particular phone is also aided by an impressive 4,320Hz PWM dimming cycle rate that works to minimize strain on the eyes, so if you’re someone who regularly scrolls through social media in the small hours (and let’s face it, who isn’t these days?), the Magic 6 Pro will at least try to reduce the physical impact of that behavior.

The Magic 6 Pro boasts an almighty peak HDR brightness of 5,000 nits (in very specialized situations) though you’re likely to experience around 1,600 nits in day-to-day use (which is more than respectable). 

On the durability front, the phone’s display is protected by Honor’s NanoCrystal Shield, which is supposedly 10 times stronger than regular glass. Naturally, I wasn’t able to put that claim to the test, but I can say that my Magic 6 Pro review unit regularly emerged from my key-filled pocket unscathed.

• Display score: 5 / 5

Honor Magic 6 Pro review: Cameras

• 50MP wide lens (f/1.4-2.0)
• 50MP ultra-wide lens (f/2.0)
• 180MP periscope telephoto lens (f/2.6)

As with most premium Android phones, the Honor Magic 6 Pro goes big on mobile photography, but this particular device has a few distinguishing tricks up its sleeve.

For starters, the Magic 6 Pro’s 50MP wide lens uses an adjustable aperture (f/1.4-2.0), a feature we haven’t seen on a smartphone for years. When taking shots in normal lightning conditions, the phone uses a standard f/2.0 aperture, but it’ll automatically switch to the wider f/1.4 aperture when shooting in low-light environments. Neat! 

Also unique is the Magic 6 Pro’s astounding 180MP periscope telephoto lens (f/2.6), which is the largest sensor on a zoom lens I’ve ever seen on a smartphone. This supersized lens is only capable of 2.5x optical zoom, mind – which is a downgrade from the 3.5x-capable Magic 5 Pro – but the phone can still achieve 5x lossless zoom by cropping shots from the 180MP lens.

An unchanged 50MP ultra-wide lens (f/2.0) rounds out the Magic 6 Pro’s rear camera array, and you get an impressively large 50MP front-facing camera, too.

Let’s start with the performance of the telephoto lens, which is the headline feature of the Magic 6 Pro. On a sunny day in London, shots taken with this lens were rich in detail and exceptionally vivid. At 1x, 2.5x and 5x magnification, colors were realistic and the subject(s) kept in focus, though I’d advise against zooming any further than 10x, where things take a turn for the Dali-esque (the Magic 6 Pro will technically let you zoom digitally up to 100x, but don’t bother). 

The performance of the variable wide lens was similarly consistent. Shots taken with this lens were crisp, and the depth of field impressive, with shadows appearing particularly life-like. 

My main gripe with Honor’s assistive camera software continues to be its overcompensation of certain colors – specifically lighter shades of green and blue. As with the Magic V2, the Magic 6 Pro occasionally over-eggs the appearance of the sky or the trees, while at night, artificial blue light presents a particular challenge.

This isn’t a deal-breaker, by any means, but the Magic 6 Pro doesn’t balance colors perfectly every time. I suspect this has something to do with the way the phone uses AI to identify certain environmental features and adjust the composition of the shot accordingly (see the image in below).

I found the Magic 6 Pro’s portrait mode performance to be better than most, while the phone’s 50MP front-facing camera is also solid, if nothing groundbreaking. On the video front, you can record video in 4K at up to 60 frames per second with any of the three rear camera lenses, while the 4K-compatible selfie camera tops out at 30 fps.

All this adds up to an indisputably strong camera phone that ranks alongside best camera phones for versatility, but not necessarily consistency. There’s also no AI-powered photo editing, the likes of which you will find on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and Google Pixel 8 Pro. 

• Cameras score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic 6 Pro review: Performance and software

• Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset
• 12GB RAM and 512GB storage
• Neat Magic Capsule and Magic Portal features

Under the hood, the Magic 6 Pro is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset – that’s the same chipset you’ll find inside the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, OnePlus 12 and Xiaomi 14.

Working in tandem with the Magic 6 Pro’s 12GB RAM and 512GB storage, Qualcomm’s latest chipset delivers consistently brilliant performance, regardless of the task. Web browsing, messaging, mobile gaming and high-quality video streaming are child’s play for this phone, and while we’ve come to expect as much from devices in this price range – you’d be hard-pressed to find a flagship phone in 2024 that isn’t lightning fast – you needn’t worry about the Magic 6 Pro’s heavy lifting ability.

The phone sets itself apart, for better or worse, through its software. The Magic 6 Pro runs Honor’s Magic OS 8 skin atop Android 14, which differs from the stock version of Android in several interesting – if not always successful – ways.

The first distinguishing feature is Magic Capsule, which is an unashamed copy of Apple’s Dynamic Island in both functionality and appearance. 

Personally, I don’t have a problem with the similarity – both Magic Capsule and the Dynamic Island are useful tools for quickly controlling music, timers, notifications and incoming calls – but it’s hard to give kudos to Honor for adding this feature given the obvious lack of originality. 

One interesting – and undeniably unique – feature of Magic Capsule is its ability to let you control parts of the Magic 6 Pro’s UI using nothing but your eyes. Or rather, this feature would be interesting if it was actually available to use. At the time of writing, Honor’s eye-tracking tech – which is currently compatible with Magic Capsule apps like Timer, Alarm and Call – is limited to the Chinese market, though the company has assured TechRadar that the feature will be added to international versions of the device in the near future. 

The headline feature of the Magic 6 Pro’s AI offering is Magic Portal, which forms a key part of what Honor describes as the “world’s first intent-based UI.” What does that mean, exactly? Well, instead of acting upon request, Magic OS 8 uses Magic Portal to render services according to user intentions. 

In essence, it’s a shortcut feature that lets you switch between apps and services with a single swipe. For instance, if you’re sent some location information by a friend and want to get to that location in a hurry, Magic Portal will let you drag those details – in one fell swoop – from the messages app across into a compatible ride-hailing or navigation app, saving you clicks in the process.

In my experience, Magic Portal delivered accurate results and worked pretty seamlessly. I particularly like the way text lifts off the page without creating another white box behind it. I also liked the strong haptic feedback when tapping images, and the way the page 'tilts' in order to share the screen with other apps. 

One big miss with the Magic 6 Pro is its lack of generative AI tools. I’m no particular fan of artificially recomposing images, but given that the latest flagships from Samsung and Google boast a veritable smorgasbord of AI-powered editing features, it’s an omission that I suspect will become more noticeable as the quality and quantity of AI features becomes the standard by which new flagship phones are measured. 

On the longevity front, Honor is committing to four years of Android updates and five years of security updates for the Magic 6 Pro. That’s less than the seven-year commitments made by Samsung and Google, but equal to OnePlus’ commitment to the OnePlus 12.

• Performance score: 5 / 5

• Software score: 3 / 5

Honor Magic 6 Pro review: Battery

• Huge 5,600mAh silicon-carbon battery
• 80W wired charging, 66W wireless charging 

The Magic 6 Pro boasts a rival-beating 5,600mAh silicon-carbon battery, which should give you around a day and a half of charge when using the phone casually. For reference, we managed to squeeze two days of charge out of the iPhone 15 Plus, but if we’re talking about the most expensive flagships exclusively, the Magic 6 Pro is the best of the current bunch in the endurance department.

Honor’s latest flagship supports up to 80W wired and 66W wireless charging, but annoyingly, you won’t get any type of charger in the box. The brand claims that a full charge takes 40 minutes, and that turned out to be pretty accurate in a test I conducted using the 100W charger that is provided with the Porsche Design version of this phone (I guess that’s what an extra £1,000 buys you these days).

After 15 minutes from a completely dead state, my Magic 6 Pro device had reached 36% charge, and 70% after 30 minutes. A full charge took 46 minutes, which is faster than every iPhone 15 model and every Samsung Galaxy S24 model we’ve tested, but a tad slower than the Xiaomi 14 and OnePlus 12R. However, if you’re using a lower-wattage charger with the Magic 6 Pro, charging speeds will be slower.

• Battery score: 4 / 5

Should you buy the Honor Magic 6 Pro?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Honor Magic 6 Pro review: Also consider

As you'll have read by now, the Honor Magic 6 Pro is a well-designed, highly capable and thoroughly unique device, but there are, of course, alternative phones to consider.

How I tested the Honor Magic 6 Pro

• Review test period: four weeks
• Testing included: everyday use including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback
• Tools used: Geekbench 6, Geekbench ML, GFXBench, native Android stats, Honor 100W charger

I received – and subsequently lived for four weeks with – a review-ready version of the Honor Magic 6 Pro at MWC in March 2024, using it for productivity purposes during my working day and for social media browsing and gaming in the evenings.

I compared the experience of playing power-hungry games like EA Sports FC 24 and Asphalt 9: Legends on the Magic 6 Pro to the experience of playing the same games on the iPhone 15 Pro, which helped me to quantify just how well the device’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset stacks up against Apple's A17 Pro. I also used the phone to stream color-rich documentaries via YouTube, and also logged into Twitter and Instagram to assess the social media browsing experience.

I used Geekbench 6 for CPU testing and Geekbench ML for machine learning and AI benchmarking, while battery life was assessed based on real-world usage. I measured charge time in 15-minute intervals using 100W Honor SuperCharge charger.

Read more about how we test

First tested April 2024

Back in October, I reported on Honor’s Apple Vision Pro-style eye-tracking technology, which had just been teased in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it segment at Qualcomm’s annual Snapdragon Summit. At the time, Honor used a series of animations to demonstrate how and why this eye-tracking tech might be used, but at MWC 2024, I was able to get hands-on (or eyes-on?) with this decidedly Blade Runner-esque smartphone feature.

Billed as an imminent upgrade for the newly announced Honor Magic 6 Pro flagship, this eye-tracking tech is tucked away inside the phone’s Magic Capsule digital pop-up, which is essentially Honor’s take on Apple’s Dynamic Island. 

By leveraging the Magic 6 Pro’s front-facing camera tech and facial recognition smarts, Magic Capsule is able to recognize the users’ eyes and draw navigational information from the direction of their gaze. I took the feature for a spin at MWC 2024, where I was able to answer a phone call using nothing but my eyes. Check it out in the TikTok below:

Pretty neat, right? Honor says this eye-tracking tech has myriad applications – it’s already been used to start and physically move a car, for instance – however its functionality on the Magic 6 Pro is likely to remain limited to more mundane Magic Capsule apps like Timer, Alarm and Call.

Indeed, certain app-based eye-tracking functions have already begun rolling out on Chinese versions of the Honor Magic 6 Pro, with international versions of the device – which are set to begin shipping from March 8 – confirmed to receive eye-tracking “in the future.”

Of course, eye-based UI control isn’t a totally new technology. As alluded to earlier, Apple has implemented an innovative eye and hand-tracking navigation system on its Vision Pro headset, which TechRadar's Lance Ulanoff described in his Apple Vision Pro review as “a control experience unmatched in the mixed-reality space.”

Until now, though, eye tracking hasn't been seen on a smartphone. And while you’ll still need to pay handsomely for the privilege of having this technology in your pocket – the Honor Magic 6 Pro retails for a hefty £1,099.99 in the UK (availability elsewhere looks unlikely) – it’s clear that you don’t need to spend quite as much as the $3,499 that the Vision Pro will set you back to own a piece of the hands-free future.

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When Honor partnered with supermodels, Burberry and British Vogue to unveil its bag-like Honor V Purse at IFA 2023, it became clear that this fast-growing Chinese electronics brand has bold designs on the luxury electronics market.

We recently dubbed its latest foldable effort, the Honor Magic V2, a “benchmark-setting beauty," and Honor’s eye-catching successor to the excellent Honor Magic 5 Pro looks set to further disrupt an increasingly homogeneous (read: samey) mobile industry.

From a design perspective, the Honor Magic 6 Pro – which was just announced for the global market at MWC 2024 – might well be the best-looking phone of the year so far. At the very least, it’s the most distinctive. There’s no titanium in sight, but Honor’s latest flagship refines its predecessor’s ‘Star Wheel’ camera notch by taking inspiration from precious stones and luxury wristwatches.

Honor says this new-and-improved module design is a nod to “cushion-shaped watches, jade congs, and baroque diamonds,” and given that the former were popularized by luxury watchmaker Panerai in the 1940s, it’s easy to see why Honor has embraced this unique ‘squircle’ shape on the Magic 6 Pro.

But aside from its aesthetic bells and whistles, the Honor Magic 6 Pro boasts hardware specs to rival the very best phones of 2024. On the front of the device is a 6.8-inch LTPO OLED display that not only sports an adaptive 1-120Hz refresh rate, but also a peak HDR brightness of 5,000 nits and Honor’s proprietary Circadian Night Display technology. In layman’s terms, the latter filters blue light to improve the quality of your sleep, and it’s aided by an impressive 4,320Hz PWM dimming cycle rate that works to minimize strain on the eyes.

This 6.8-inch display is protected by Honor’s NanoCrystal Shield, which is supposedly 10 times stronger than regular glass. Naturally, we'll have to put that claim to the test, but it’s nice to know that Honor is confident about its new phone’s durability. The Magic 6 Pro has an IP68 water and dust resistance rating, too, which is the same rating boasted by the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Under the hood, Honor’s latest flagship is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset – again, that’s the same chipset you’ll find in the Galaxy S24 Ultra – and a 5,600mAh silicon-carbon battery, which should keep things ticking along nicely for well over a day.

Periscope power

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Honor Magic 6 Pro, however, is the camera technology hidden beneath that aforementioned ‘Star Wheel’ module. The new phone sports a 50MP wide lens, a 50MP ultra-wide lens and an almighty 180MP periscope telephoto lens which, at the time of writing, is the largest telephoto lens we’ve ever seen on a smartphone.

Annoyingly, that telephoto lens is only capable of 2.5x optical zoom (you’ll be able to zoom digitally up to 100x), but we’re still excited to put the Honor Magic 6 Pro through its photography paces in our full Honor Magic 6 Pro review.

As for what else is new on the Magic 6 Pro, Honor has made a big song and dance about the phone’s myriad AI-powered features, which range from a Dynamic Island-style ‘Magic Capsule’ to an intent-based ‘Magic Portal’ navigation system. Again, we’ll be testing out these AI features for ourselves over the coming weeks, but the early signs are promising – Honor clearly has Samsung’s Galaxy AI software in its sights with the Magic 6 Pro.

Honor’s latest flagship will cost £1,099.99 and begin shipping from March 8, 2024. You’ll be able to pre-order the Magic 6 Pro from March 1, 2024, and it’ll be available in two colors: Black and Epi Green. The former features “velvet matte glass”, while the latter features “ripple classic leather.” We’ve handled the Epi Green variant, and it’s a beauty. 

For reference, the Honor Magic 5 Pro launched for £949.99, so Honor has hiked the price of its successor by a not-insubstantial £150. As with most other Honor products, the Magic 6 Pro is unlikely to go on sale in the US and Australia.

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At long last, the Honor Magic V2 is available to pre-order in the UK and Europe – and rival foldable phone manufacturers should sit up and take notice.

Having debuted in China last year, the Honor Magic V2 remains, at the time of writing, the world’s thinnest inward-folding smartphone, measuring just 9.9mm thick when folded and 4.7mm when unfolded. For reference, the Google Pixel Fold, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and OnePlus Open measure 5.8mm, 6.1mm and 5.8 mm at their thinnest points, respectively, so for Honor to undercut the competition by more than a millimeter is seriously impressive. 

The Honor Magic V2 is thinner than its big-name competitors when folded, too, with that 9.9mm figure almost a millimeter smaller than the next-thinnest mobile phone, the OnePlus Open (which measures 11.7mm when closed). For our early thoughts on the V2’s design, head over to our hands-on Honor Magic V2 review, which we’ll be updating with a more comprehensive verdict in due course.

Beyond its impressive thickness (or lack thereof), the Honor Magic V2 boasts a 7.92-inch foldable OLED display (2156 x 2344 pixels), which itself offers a 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+ support and a peak brightness of 1,600 nits. The phone’s second screen is a 6.43-inch, 120Hz OLED cover display (1060 x 2376 pixels), which Honor says is protected by “drop-resistant nanocrystal glass.”

Under the hood, Honor’s latest foldable phone is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset – that’s the same chipset as you’ll find inside the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and the OnePlus 11 – and it ships in a single memory configuration: 512GB (with 16GB RAM). The phone packs a 5,000mAh dual silicon-carbon battery, which enables 66W fast charging via Honor’s included SuperCharge cable.

On the photography front, the Magic V2 boasts three rear lenses: a 50MP (f/1.9) main, a 50MP (f/2.0) ultra-wide, and a 20MP f/2.4 telephoto, with the latter offering 2.5x optical zoom. The main and telephoto cameras also have optical image stabilization (OIS), and there’s a 16MP punch-hole front camera on each screen, too. 

Other specs and features include a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, 5G support, stereo speakers and Android 13 software, overlaid with the company’s MagicOS UI.

All told, the Magic V2 has the makings of a class-leading foldable phone – however, as with other Honor products, it won’t be available in the US. UK shoppers can pre-order the phone now for an eye-watering £1,699.99, but that figure isn’t so shocking when you consider that the Galaxy Z Fold 5 starts at an even higher $1,799.99 / £1,749 / AU$2,599 (the V2 does, however, cost €1,999 in Europe).

Honor is throwing a fair few freebies into the mix, too. If you pre-order the phone via Honor directly, you’ll get a pair of Bang and Olufsen headphones (worth £459) included with your purchase, as well as six months of screen protection and a 66W Honor SuperCharge Power Adapter. An early-bird voucher – which shaves £200 off the phone’s price if activated before March 1 – is also available (use code AV2PR200 at checkout). Similar freebie-based promotions are available at Amazon, Very, Argos and Currys, and the Magic V2 will also be available to purchase from Three on February 2.

In addition to the regular Magic V2, Honor teased a Porsche Design version of the Magic V2 – the Porsche Design Honor Magic V2 RSR – at its Leipzig-based launch event. This special edition model will boast a Porsche 911-style rear design, scratch-resistant glass and a refined palm grip, though Honor is keeping price and release details under wraps for now.

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Update (30/01): Honor has now confirmed the Honor Magic 6 series will debut at MWC 2024 on February 25. The brand's keynote is scheduled to kick off at 1pm GMT / 8am ET / 5am PT, and you can tune in via Honor's website.

Former Huawei subsidiary Honor has officially unveiled its Magic OS 8 update, and with it a suite of new AI-powered features that tease the potential road ahead for rival mobile operating systems.

Based on Android 14 and set to debut with the Honor Magic 6 series in the coming months, Magic OS 8 is built around what Honor describes as the “world’s first intent-based UI.” What does that mean, exactly? Well, instead of acting upon request, Magic OS 8 uses a feature called Magic Portal to render services according to user intentions. 

In essence, it’s a shortcut feature that lets users switch between apps and services with a single swipe. For instance, if you’re sent some location information by a friend and want to get to that location in a hurry, Magic Portal will let you drag those details – in one fell swoop – from the messages app across into a compatible ride-hailing or navigation app, saving you clicks in the process. Still confused? Check out Magic Portal in action via the video below.

At the time of writing, Magic Portal supports over 100 apps in China across categories including travel, productivity, entertainment and shopping. When Honor’s new Magic 6 phones – and thus Magic OS 8 – launch in Europe (more on their potential release date below), this support will presumably expand to popular, app-owning Western brands like Uber and Starbucks.

Honor says its intent-based UI “can interpret language, images, gestures and eye movements to understand a user’s intent and offer services proactively.” This “innovative process,” according to the brand, “streamlines otherwise complex user operations for a more user-friendly, convenient experience.”

We’ve covered the eye-tracking functionality of the Honor Magic 6 already. In layman’s terms, you’ll be able to navigate certain parts of the Honor Magic 6 interface (specifically, a Dynamic Island-like digital cut-out at the top of the phone’s display) using only your eyes, in a similar manner to Apple Vision Pro. 

At Snapdragon Summit 2023, Honor shared a render of this eye-tracking functionality in action. In the short clip (above), a woman can be seen opening the Uber app by changing the direction of her gaze, which is a slightly bonkers extension of the brand’s aforementioned swipe-based Magic Portal feature.

The Honor Magic 6 and its siblings, the Honor Magic 6 Lite and Honor Magic 6 Pro, debuted in China on January 12, but we could see at least two of these new phones released in Europe as soon as February.

Indeed, since the original publication of this article, Honor has confirmed that the Magic 6 series will debut at MWC 2024. As per the promotional image above, the brand's keynote is scheduled to kick off at 1pm GMT / 8am ET / 5am PT, and you can tune in via Honor's website.

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Update (30/01): Honor has now confirmed the Honor Magic 6 series will debut at MWC 2024 on February 25. The brand's keynote is scheduled to kick off at 1pm GMT / 8am ET / 5am PT, and you can tune in via Honor's website.

Earlier this year, former Huawei subsidiary Honor wowed us with its excellent Honor Magic 5 Pro flagship, and the company’s next major phone release – the Honor Magic 6 – has the makings of being equally impressive.

Where innovative display technology was the focus of the Magic 5 Pro, the Honor Magic 6 will (surprise!) place AI at the heart of its offering. By harnessing the power of Qualcomm’s newly announced Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset – which we know has the potential to bring useful AI functionality to smartphone users – Honor says its upcoming device will utilize an on-device large language model (LLM) to “usher in a new era of generative AI.”

What does that mean, exactly? Well, at Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon Summit, Honor gave us a sneak peak at some of the exciting new features made possible by this built-in LLM. And one of them – Magic Capsule – appears to take its cues from Apple’s Vision Pro mixed reality headset.

Honor describes Magic Capsule as an “eye-tracking based multimodal interaction,” which, in layman’s terms, means you’re able to navigate certain parts of the Honor Magic 6 interface using only your eyes (in a similar manner to Apple Vision Pro).

We say ‘certain parts’, because it looks as though Magic Capsule refers to a Dynamic Island-like digital cut-out at the top of the phone’s display. Presumably, this eye-tracking technology will be limited to that cut-out, but it’s still exciting to think that a consumer smartphone may soon offer this type of hands-free functionality.

At Snapdragon Summit 2023, Honor shared a render of Magic Capsule in action. In the short clip (above), a woman can be seen opening the Uber app by changing the direction of her gaze, so it figures that all manner of apps could make use of the feature in the Honor Magic 6.

Beyond Magic Capsule, the Honor Magic 6 will also feature a virtual assistant, YOYO, that utilizes Qualcomm’s on-device AI to respond even when you’re offline. 

Honor says this assistant can answer questions specific to you, as well as “create short videos featuring photos and footage stored on [your] device.” Sure, that all sounds a little creepy, but this seems to be the general direction in which the entire mobile industry is headed at the moment.

Since the original publication of this article, Honor has confirmed that the Magic 6 series will debut at MWC 2024. As per the promotional image above, the brand's keynote is scheduled to kick off at 1pm GMT / 8am ET / 5am PT, and you can tune in via Honor's website.

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Smartphone brand HONOR made waves during year's IFA in Berlin. Fresh from the successful launch of their latest foldable devices, HONOR is on a mission to redefine the boundaries of technology while preserving art and pushing for a culture of sustainability. Their talk, streamed during IFA was a highlight, featuring esteemed speakers such as Anne-Marie Tomchack, a former Vogue editor, Bram van Diepen, Design Director at  Burberry Menswear, Giles Deacon Couture Designer at Giles Deacon Group, and Lola Ogunaike, Time Brand Editor. The brand also chaired a “Fusion of Tech and Art” panel discussion with other speakers, including Jasmin Gong, Klaus Siebenhaar, and HONOR's CMO, Guo Rui, as well as artists including Xiao Hui Wang and Yunuene.

The newly launched HONOR V Purse is also an important thing to take note of —a device that's not just changing the way we use smartphones but also reshaping our perception of them as they start the transition from an accessory that fits in your purse to the accessory.

 HONOR’s artistic ambitions

In a move that marries technology and art, HONOR has teamed up with select artists, including the talented Xiao Hui Wang and Yunuene at their annual HONOR Talents Global Design Awards. This partnership is not just about innovation but also about nurturing young artistic talent, as HONOR takes another step forward in its dedication to social and cultural responsibility. The HONOR Talents Global Design Awards represents HONOR’s commitment to empowering young talent —— fostering an inclusive space where technology, art, innovation, and self-expression meet.This program has, over the last 3 years running, received submissions from more than 165 universities across the world.

The canvas for this year’s collaboration? None other than the Always On Display (AOD), a feature integral to modern smartphones, but one that will take special stage on the HONOR V Purse. These visionary artists are set to transform this digital canvas into a vibrant platform for their creativity, and HONOR's flagship devices will showcase their artwork, making every glance at your smartphone akin to a mini art exhibition. 

Xiao Hui Wang ‘s Breath of Flowers AOD, for one, “expresses the contrasting relationship between yin and yang, blooming and astringent, noisy and quiet, openness and introspection of traditional Chinese culture.”

Yunuene’s, as another example, “turns the uniformity of algae fields into an exploration of uneven textures and seamless transitions.” See how they both complement the design of the Honor V Purse.

Art and technology have always shared an intricate relationship. One needs only look at the popularity of themes, cases, and stickers in the mobile market to see that customers see their mobile phones as yet another tool to express themselves. HONOR is embracing this synergy wholeheartedly and going even further. The AOD is a perfect canvas for artists like the aforementioned Xiao Hui Wang and Yunuene who will also serve as HONOR Talents Global Design Awards Judges. Their art will adorn the screens of HONOR's foldable phones, but the HONOR V Purse will definitely be one to look out for as the brand places the AOD front and center on that product, the perfect fusion of fashion and functionality.

HONOR's decision to collaborate with artists is more than just a creative endeavor, more than a mere partnership. It’s a very clear statement of intent and yet another testament to the company's solid commitment to social responsibility. By investing in young artists and spotlighting emerging talent, HONOR is fostering the growth of the artistic community and providing them with a platform to showcase their work to a global audience.

Through initiatives like this artistic partnership, HONOR continues to make a positive impact on the world, one innovation at a time. So, the next time you glance at your HONOR smartphone's Always On Display, remember it’s not just a screen – it’s a product of passion.

Honor Magic V2: Two-minute review

Despite what Samsung’s TV marketing would have you believe, foldable phones haven’t yet come close to meaningfully disrupting the candy bar-shaped mainstream – but there’s no denying that mobile manufacturers the world over (save for Apple) are committed to investing heavily in the foldable ideal. 

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, Google Pixel Fold and OnePlus Open arrived last year to shake up our list of the best foldable phones, but Chinese smartphone brand Honor – which has fast become a major industry disruptor – also has a new foldable flagship in its shop window: the Honor Magic V2.

We say ‘new’, but this successor to the excellent Honor Magic VS (head over to our hands-on Honor Magic VS review for our full thoughts on that device) has actually been kicking around for over half a year. The Magic V2 was officially unveiled in China back in July 2023, before being unveiled again – this time to the world – at IFA 2023 in September. The phone was then launched for European sale in January 2024 alongside a Porsche-branded version of the Magic V2, which is set for its own follow-up reveal at MWC 2024. 

So, where does that leave the Magic V2’s availability right now? Well, as of February 2, the phone is available to order from Honor directly – as well as from Amazon, Three, Very, Argos and Currys – at a cost of £1,699.99 (or €1,999 in European markets).

And therein lies the first thorn in the side of this handsome foldable phone. Admittedly, £1,699.99 (or €1,999) is not an outrageous amount of money for a dual-screen device in 2024 – the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Google Pixel Fold, for instance, both start at an even higher £1,749. But Honor built a rod for its own back by pricing its previous foldable so competitively.

The original Honor Magic V never made it to the West, but last year’s Magic VS debuted for £1,399 at launch. Relatively speaking, that was an affordable price for a foldable phone – especially one boasting such impressive hardware. By pricing the Magic V2 at a comparatively eye-watering £1,699.99, Honor can no longer hide its new phone’s (admittedly few) shortcomings behind the banner of affordability. 

As such, we’ll be comparing the Magic V2’s key features to those of the Galaxy Z Fold 5, Google Pixel Fold and OnePlus Open throughout this review. 

The good news (for Honor, at least) is that the Magic V2 is thinner, lighter, more attractive, and just as powerful as all three of those devices. The phone packs last year’s top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset – which sounds disappointing, but really isn’t – and a display that borrows heavily from the excellent Honor Magic 5 Pro.

The Magic V2’s camera setup is similarly impressive – though not without its quirks – and the phone’s dual 5,000mAh battery is big (and thin) enough to provide lasting, usable power. The bad news? The Magic V2’s beautiful design is only made possible by the total lack of an IP water-resistance rating. That’s not a deal-breaker for me personally, but it does mean that the Magic V2 is an objectively less durable phone than its big-name competition.

There’s no wireless charging, either, and Honor’s operating system (MagicOS 7.2 at the time of writing) takes some getting used to if you haven’t encountered it before. MagicOS isn’t bad, per se, but it’s not as polished as Samsung’s One UI 6 or Google’s super-streamlined version of Android. MagicOS also interferes with photography a little too much for my liking.

But ultimately, the Magic V2 is all about style. When unfolded, its design is so much slicker than any other foldable design on the market right now, and when folded, the Magic V2 could genuinely pass for a modern-day candy bar handset (it’s that thin!).

So, if you value design over all else, this is the foldable to buy. For almost everything else, the Magic V2 just about keeps pace with its globally-available foldable competition. 

Honor Magic V2 review: Price and availability

• Costs £1,699.99 / €1,999
• Currently unavailable in the US and Australia

As above, the Honor Magic V2 was first unveiled in China on July 12, 2023, before being showcased globally at IFA 2023 on September 1. The phone was then launched for European sale on January 26, 2024, and began shipping on February 2. 

It’s currently available to order from Honor directly – as well as from Amazon, Three, Very, Argos and Currys – at a cost of £1,699.99 (or €1,999 in European markets). Only one storage configuration is available: 512GB (with 16GB RAM).

For reference, the Honor Magic VS started at £1,399 (for the 8GB RAM / 256GB model), while the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 starts at $1,799.99 / £1,749 / AU$2,599 (for the 12GB RAM / 256GB model). In other words, this is a competitively priced – albeit outrageously expensive – handset. It’s still £50 cheaper than its biggest competition, but some £300 more expensive than its predecessor.

As with most Honor devices, the Magic V2 is unlikely to be made available in the US or Australia any time soon.

• Value score: 3 / 5

Honor Magic V2 review: Specs

Check out the Honor Magic V2's full specs below:

Honor Magic V2 review: Design

• 156.7 x 74.1 x 9.9mm when folded
• 156.7 x 145.4 x 4.7mm when unfolded
• Weighs just 231g
• No IP water-resistance rating

It’s fitting that this review should begin with our verdict on the Honor Magic V2’s design, because, quite frankly, that’s the most important aspect of any foldable phone. And what a design this is.

The Magic V2 is a large, book-style foldable that looks similar to the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Pixel Fold, but by measuring just 156.7 x 74.1 x 9.9mm when folded and 156.7 x 145.4 x 4.7mm when unfolded, it’s also the thinnest foldable smartphone available in the world right now.

The Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Pixel Fold measure 6.1mm and 5.8 mm at their thinnest, respectively, so for Honor to undercut both models by more than a millimeter is seriously impressive. To help you visualize just how thin the Magic V2 is when unfolded, imagine two Euro coins stacked on top of each other – you could probably pass this phone underneath your bedroom door.

The Magic V2 trumps the competition at its thickest, too, measuring just 9.9mm when folded (versus 13.4mm for the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and 12.1mm for the Pixel Fold). In candy bar mode, Honor’s latest foldable is just one millimeter thicker than the conventionally-designed Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, and at 231g, it’s also 3g lighter.

So, yes, the Magic V2 is the thinnest and lightest book-style foldable money can buy right now, which likewise makes it the most physically practical device of its kind. Foldable phones – not least the Honor Magic VS – have often been criticized for being heavy, un-pocketable devices, but Honor has gone some way to mitigating that criticism here.

The Chinese manufacturer has used “proprietary steel” and a titanium hinge – one that can supposedly be folded up to 400,000 times – to achieve such impressive design credentials on the Magic V2, with the phone’s dual “silicon-carbon batteries” also measuring just 2.72mm thick (that’s about the thickness of a credit card).

The major downside of all that aesthetic innovation is that the Magic V2 offers no official IP rating – meaning it’s not as water resistant as, say, the Galaxy Z Fold 5. Honor told us that the Magic V2 can comfortably withstand the odd shower sprinkling, but this is definitely not a phone to be taken for an underwater photoshoot.

• Design score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic V2 review: Display

• 7.92-inch OLED foldable display
• 6.43-inch OLED cover display

Being a foldable phone, the Honor Magic V2 has two displays. The first is a 7.92-inch, 2156 x 2344-pixel foldable OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+ support, and a peak brightness of 1,600 nits. The second is a 6.43-inch, 120Hz OLED cover display with a 1060 x 2376 resolution, which uses drop-resistant nanocrystal glass.

Both screens have around 402 pixels per inch, and use Honor’s proprietary dynamic dimming display technology to achieve an impressive 3840Hz PWM dimming cycle rate, which essentially helps to minimize strain on the eyes (PWM refers to the management of screen flicker). You’ll find the same display smarts inside the Honor Magic 5 Pro and Honor 90.

In practice, the Magic V2’s dual displays are big, bright, smooth and more than suitable for gaming and watching movies (thanks in part to that aforementioned HDR10+ support). They’re largely in line with what you’ll get from the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Pixel Fold, though the former has slightly smaller bezels around its edges.

• Display score: 5 / 5

Honor Magic V2 review: Cameras

• 50MP (f/1.9) main lens
• 50MP (f/2.0) ultra-wide lens
• 20MP (f/2.4) telephoto lens, with 2.5x optical zoom
• 16MP front-facing camera

Understandably, foldable phone manufacturers have yet to make cameras the core focus of their dual-screen devices, and that doesn’t change with the Honor Magic V2. That said, Honor has nonetheless equipped the Magic V2 with a respectable trio of rear lenses. 

Specifically, the phone boasts a 50MP (f/1.9) main lens, a 50MP (f/2.0) ultra-wide lens, and a 20MP (f/2.4) telephoto lens, with the latter offering 2.5x optical zoom. The main and telephoto cameras also have optical image stabilization (OIS). There’s a 16MP front camera on each screen, too. On the video front, you can shoot in up to 4K quality at up to 60 frames per second.

The OnePlus Open represents the current standard for foldable phone cameras, with its 48MP (f/1.7) main lens, 48MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide lens and 64MP (f/2.6) telephoto lens offering 3x optical zoom. The Magic V2 can’t match the Open (nor, in truth, the Google Pixel Fold) for photographic versatility, but it's certainly not far behind either phone in terms of overall image quality.

The Magic V2’s rear snappers – particularly that 48MP main lens – deliver consistently detailed, well-lit photos that will no doubt satisfy most users. Nightography is decent, too, though the OnePlus Open and Pixel Fold edge the Magic V2 in this department, owing to their larger sensor and more advanced AI smarts, respectively. 

As we’ve come to expect from Honor phones, colors captured on the Magic V2 are exceptionally vivid. By and large, this is a good thing, but the phone sometimes takes things too far, to a point where the balance looks off. As you can see in the above photos – taken on a bright sunny day – greens can appear really green and blues can appear really blue. I’d rather this be the case than having too little contrast, but the Magic V2’s tendency to overcompensate in the colors department can occasionally make photos look a tad artificial. 

The phone’s telephoto zoom lens is consistently great at 2.5x magnification, maintaining impressive levels of detail in almost all lighting conditions. However, things take a turn for the ugly at 10x magnification, when blur creeps in to soften all that glorious detail. 

As for the Magic V2’s 16MP front cameras, they’ll do a suitable job on video calls, but don’t expect to capture Instagram-breaking selfies with this phone.

• Cameras score: 3 / 5

Honor Magic V2 review: Performance and software

• Runs Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset
• Runs MagicOS 7.2 atop Android 13
• Available in a single storage configuration: 512GB (with 16GB RAM)

Under the hood, the Honor Magic V2 is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, which is the brain you’ll find inside many of last year’s best Android phones.

At the time of the phone’s China release, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 marked the latest and greatest Qualcomm mobile chipset, but the Magic V2’s delayed arrival in Europe means that – in terms of on-paper performance – it now plays second fiddle to newer phones that use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, like those in the Samsung Galaxy S24 line.

That sounds like a bad thing, but in reality, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 remains a phenomenally speedy chipset that can handle browsing, streaming and gaming – or all three simultaneously – with ease (this is 2024, after all). In European markets, the Magic V2 only comes in one configuration – 16GB RAM with 512GB of storage – but that pairing is enough to deliver the level of performance you’d expect from a four-figure Android flagship. 

Other performance specs include a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, 5G support and stereo speakers, and the Magic V2 supports a stylus on both of its screens, too – though, unlike in China, this isn’t included with the phone, which is a little disappointing.

On the software front, the Magic V2 runs MagicOS 7.2 – which is based on the now-year-old Android 13 – and comes pre-equipped with Google apps, meaning the likes of the Play Store, Maps and Gmail are ready and waiting on first boot-up. 

MagicOS 7.2 is well-optimized for dual-screen multitasking, offering support for split and floating windows, and the Magic V2 comes equipped a raft of enhanced smart features – like Parallel Space, which lets you use apps from the its 'Main Space' and 'Parallel Space' at the same time (these two virtual spaces can run apps independently without affecting each other). As such, you could theoretically play two games at the same time on the Magic V2, which, although gimmicky, does at least serve as proof of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2’s enduring power in 2024.

Unfortunately, there’s not much in the way of customization options on Honor’s latest foldable. Lock screen customization, for instance, is incredibly limited, as is the functionality of the phone’s always-on display (AOD). Some apps need to be forcibly blown up to full-screen mode, too, despite clearly being optimized for dual-screen use, and there’s also a dizzying amount of user agreements to get through on first use.

None of these issues are deal-breakers – generally speaking, the software on offer here is perfectly fine. However, MagicOS is certainly less polished than Samsung’s One UI 6 or Google’s proprietary version of Android; which is a shame, given that the Magic V2 boasts objectively superior hardware to both of those phones.

The good news is, Honor is clearly willing to iron out the kinks. The brand has pledged to support the Magic V2 with an impressive five years of security updates and four years of Android updates, which is in line with Samsung’s update commitment to the Galaxy Z Fold 5. Note, though, that the move to Android 14 will swallow up one of those four Android updates.

• Performance and software score: 4 / 5

Honor Magic V2 review: Battery life

• 5,000mAh battery delivers all-day battery life
• 66W SuperCharge charger not included in the box

Like its predecessor, the Honor Magic V2 packs a dual 5,000mAh battery that can be fully recharged using Honor’s 66W SuperCharge tech in under an hour. Annoyingly, Honor won’t include this charger in the box, but I’d recommend picking it up for the extra £24.99 expense if you don't already have a similarly powerful USB-C charging brick.

Using that charger, I was able to reach 48% and 80% charge in 15 minutes and 30 minutes, respectively (from a completely dead state). A full charge of the Magic V2 took just 48 minutes, which is pretty darn impressive for a phone packing a battery of this size.

That 5,000mAh cell is larger than the one you’ll find inside both the Galaxy Z Fold 5 (4,400mAh) and Pixel Fold (4,727mAh), but it’s worth remembering that this increased size doesn’t come at the expense of weight (quite the opposite, in fact). 

On the battery life front, I was able to use Magic V2 all day – or rather, from about 8am to 11pm – without issue, and I’d still have an hour or two of juice left at bedtime. I also found that I’d get around 40 mins of last-ditch charge from the phone while the battery icon was near-totally depleted, which was a welcome surprise.

Unfortunately, the Magic V2 doesn’t offer wireless charging, so the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Pixel Fold win out on that front. However, the phone’s manual charging speeds are far superior to those of its big-name competitors, which I think is the more valuable feature.

• Battery score: 4 / 5

Should you buy the Honor Magic V2?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Honor Magic V2 review: Also consider

As you'll have read by now, the Honor Magic V2 is a great-looking, long-lasting foldable that offers plenty of power. But there are alternatives to consider... 

How I tested the Honor Magic V2

• Review test period: two weeks
• Testing included: everyday use including web browsing, social media, photography, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback
• Tools used: Geekbench 6, Geekbench ML, GFXBench, native Android stats, Honor 66W SuperCharge fast charger

Having initially handled the Honor Magic V2 in August 2023,  I received – and subsequently lived for two weeks with – a review-ready version of the device in January 2024, using it for productivity purposes during my working day and for social media browsing and gaming in the evenings.

I compared the experience of playing power-hungry games on the Honor Magic V2 to newer, candby bar-shaped flagship phones, which helped me to quantify just how impressive the device’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor still remains in 2024. I also used the phone to stream color-rich documentaries via YouTube, and also logged into Twitter and Instagram to assess the social media browsing experience.

I used Geekbench 6 for CPU testing and Geekbench ML for machine learning and AI benchmarking, while battery life was assessed based on real-world usage. I measured charge time in 15-minute intervals, though I used Honor's 66W SuperCharge fast charger – which isn't included in the box – to achieve the charging figures quoted in this review.

Read more about how we test

First tested January 2024

The Honor Magic V2 has finally arrived in markets outside of China, bringing even more competition to the likes of Samsung and Google in the European foldable market.

We considered the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, Google Pixel Fold and OnePlus Open to be the best foldable phones of 2023, but Honor's latest offering – which succeeds the capable-but-not-groundbreaking Honor Magic VS – looks impressive enough to give prospective foldable buyers another option to think about.

You can read our full thoughts on the new phone in our Honor Magic V2 review, but in this guide, you'll find everything you need to know about the Honor Magic V2's price, release date, specs and features.

What you need to know

• What is it? Currently the world's thinnest inward-folding smartphone
• Where is it available? China, Europe and the UK 
• When is it out? Available to pre-order now, ships on February 2
• How much does it cost? £1,699.99 / €1,999

Honor Magic V2: Release date and price

• Announced in China on July 12, 2023
• Launched globally on January 26, 2024
• Costs £1,699.99 / €1,999
• Begins shipping on February 2, 2024

The Honor Magic V2 was first unveiled on July 12, 2023,  but that was just for China. The foldable flagship then received a further European unveiling at IFA 2023 on September 1, 2023, before being officially announced again – and launched for European sale – on January 26, 2024 in Leipzig.

The Honor Magic V2 is available to pre-order now from Honor directly – as well as from Amazon, Very, Argos and Currys – at a cost of £1,699.99 in the UK. That sounds like a lot of money – and it is! – but the blow is softened somewhat when you consider that that Galaxy Z Fold 5 starts at an even higher £1,749 (or $1,799.99 / AU$2,599). The European price of the Magic V2 is €1,999.

Honor will also bundle some pretty neat freebies into your Magic V2 pre-order. For starters, you’ll get a pair of Bang and Olufsen headphones (worth £459) included with your purchase, as well as six months of screen protection and a 66W HONOR SuperCharge Power Adapter. An early-bird voucher – which shaves £200 off the phone’s price if activated before March 1 – is also available (use code AV2PR200 at checkout). So, at the time of writing, you can pre-order the Honor Magic V2 for as little as £1,499.99 in the UK.

The phone will begin shipping from February 2, 2024, at which point it'll also be available to purchase from Three.

As with most Honor devices, future availability in the US and Australia is unlikely.

Honor Magic V2: design

• Very slim at just 4.7mm thick when unfolded
• Light at 231g
• No IP rating

The Honor Magic V2 is a large, book-style foldable with a design similar to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Google Pixel Fold.

However, it stands out through being thinner than either of them, at just 4.7mm thick when unfolded, and 9.9mm thick when folded shut. It’s also lighter than those rivals at just 231g. This is achieved, at least in part, through Honor's "state-of-the-art Super-light Titanium Hinge," which will allegedly see the Magic V2 through more than 400,000 folds.

The full dimensions of the Honor Magic V2 are 156.7 x 145.4 x 4.7mm when unfolded and 156.7 x 74.1 x 9.9mm when folded, not including the camera bump, which adds a negligible amount to the thickness.

In China, the phone comes in a choice of Silk Black, Black, Silk Purple, and Gold shades, with some having a glass back and others being clad in "eco-friendly leather." Elsewhere, however, those color options are limited to Black Vegan Leather and Phantom Purple.

One point against the phone is its lack of official IP rating, so don’t count on it being water resistant. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Google Pixel Fold, by contrast, do boast an IPX8 water resistance rating.

Honor Magic V2: display

• 7.92-inch foldable OLED display
• 6.43-inch secondary outer screen

The Honor Magic V2 has a 7.92-inch, 2156 x 2344-pixel foldable OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+ support, and a peak brightness of 1,600 nits.

It also has a 6.43-inch, 120Hz OLED cover display with a 1060 x 2376 resolution, which uses drop-resistant nanocrystal glass. Both screens have around 402 pixels per inch.

These are competitive specs that, in the case of both screens, are largely in line with what you’ll get from key rivals. The Honor Magic V2 also has smaller bezels around its foldable display than the Pixel Fold, but slightly bigger ones than you'll find on the Galaxy Z Fold 5.

Honor Magic V2: cameras and battery

• 50MP + 50MP + 20MP rear cameras
• Two 16MP selfie cameras
• A 5,000mAh battery with 66W charging

The Honor Magic V2 has three rear cameras: a 50MP f/1.9 main lens, a 50MP f/2.0 ultra-wide lens, and a 20MP f/2.4 telephoto lens offering 2.5x optical zoom. The main and telephoto cameras also have optical image stabilization (OIS).

There’s also a 16MP front camera on each screen in a punch-hole cut-out (though, of course, the foldable design means you can use the rear cameras with the cover screen anyway). When it comes to video, you can shoot in up to 4K quality at up to 60fps.

The battery in the Honor Magic V2 is a 5,000mAh cell, which means it’s larger than the batteries in most foldable phones. It also charges faster than most, at 66W. Honor claims that this wattage allows you to fully charge the phone in around 45 minutes, which, if true, is impressive.

However, there's no wireless charging, so the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Pixel Fold win out on that front.

Honor Magic V2: specs and features

• Powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset
• 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage

The Honor Magic V2 is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, just like most of the best Android phones of last year, including models in the Samsung Galaxy S23 line and the OnePlus 11.