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HONOR Magic8 Pro review – fantastic, but not too different from the previous one
And here we are again at the beginning. HONOR is the first to present its best phone for this year in Europe. Immediately behind it is Samsung, which is expected to present its own in February and not in January as usual. At the end of February at the MWC fair, Xiaomi will complete the phone trio, which will launch the Xiaomi 17 series. Of course, the Chinese have already presented these phones in their ore body, we always get them with a few months' delay.
The HONOR Magic8 Pro has been in my pocket for just under two weeks. I've been using it mostly for taking photos, testing out a bunch of AI features, playing a variety of games, from Android to Windows and Switch, and generally evaluating how good it is as a daily companion. At the same time, the HONOR Magic8 Lite was also launched, a budget phone with a focus on battery and durability, but more on that in another review.
| Advantages | Weaknesses |
| Made as befits a phone of this size | Rapid overheating while gaming |
| Excellent performance | MagicOS better than before, but not on the level of others |
| Above-average battery life | The ultra-wide camera is a weak point |
| Cameras among the best | |
| One of the best screens | |
| 7 years of Android upgrades | |
| Good durability |
HONOR Magic8 Pro price and specifications
- HONOR Magic8 Pro 12GB/512GB: 1299 €
There are also versions with 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage, and a slightly cheaper 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, but according to my information only in China. Given the price, I would like 16 GB of RAM to be the standard configuration, but I know that 12 GB is enough for most users for now.
| HONOR Magic8 Pro | HONOR Magic7 Pro | |
| Screen size | 6.71 inches | 6.8 inches |
| Panel | TPO OLED | TPO OLED |
| Refresh rate | 1-120 Hz | 1-120 Hz |
| Luminosity | 6000 thread | 5000 threads |
| Chip | Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 | Snapdragon 8 Elite |
| Graphics core | Adreno 840 | Adreno 830 |
| RAM | Up to 16GB LPDDR5x | Up to 16GB LPDDR5x |
| Drive | Up to 1TB UFS 4.1 | Up to 1TB UFS 4.0 |
| Battery | 6270 mAh (in Europe) | 5270mAh |
| Main camera | 50MP, f/1.6, 24mm, 1/1.3″, OIS | 50MP, f/1.4-2.0; 24mm, 1/1.3″, OIS |
| Telephoto camera | 200 MP, f/2.0, 3.7x optical zoom, OIS, 60mm | 200 MP, f/2.6, 3x optical zoom, OIS, 60mm |
| Ultra-wide camera | 50MP, f/2.0, 12mm | 50MP, f/2.0, 12mm |
| Front camera | 50 MP, f/2.0, 21mm, 3D depth sensor | 50 MP, f/2.0, 21mm, 3D depth sensor |
| Weight | 219g | 223g |
| The rest | IP68/69/69K, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0 | IP68/69, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 |
HONOR Magic8 Pro – you buy this phone for the cameras
The chip is shared by all the best, so you can't tell them apart in terms of performance. They are also incredibly similar elsewhere (screen, build, support...), so in the end I always get asked which one takes better pictures. But even in the photography area, the differences are mostly minimal, so I always emphasize that this is just my subjective answer. Someone else will like the color display better on the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max or the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra (when they are available in our country).
In short, cameras are usually the deciding factor in whether you buy a Samsung, Xiaomi, or HONOR Magic8 Pro.
The main lens is not the same as last year's, but the results are still similar, which means a level of detail that you only get from the best. Of course, the quality of these is better in good light, but you can also take great photos in poor light and at night. Unfortunately, I don't have last year's phone to compare them under the same conditions, but it seems to me that they have changed the software processing a little. Sometimes I get overly smoothed motifs (I first noticed it when I was photographing water) and occasionally unnatural shades of colors. Great for social networks, a little worse for those looking for realism.
When it gets dark or indoors with less than optimal lighting, the main lens rarely stumbles. Noise and grainy images are only an occasional occurrence, mostly in really low light or with moving subjects.
They also said goodbye to the variable aperture, which is now fixed (f/1.6). Images are captured at 12 MP resolution using image stitching, like most phones. I also feel that the shutter is a little slower than last year.
The main camera is not the star of the photography portfolio this time. Already with last year's HONOR Magic7 Pro The telephoto lens almost pushed itself right into the foreground, but this year it finally succeeded.
The telephoto lens uses a Samsung ISOCELL HP9 sensor (as well as the Vivo X200 Pro, Xiaomi 15 Ultra), which is also physically larger than the telephoto sensor in last year's Magic7 Pro. The focal length of the new sensor is 85 mm with a 3.7x optical zoom. The quality of the photos is excellent, sometimes even better than photos taken with the main camera. Especially at night, you will get photos that do not lose much sharpness and detail.
The ultra-wide is just okay compared to the other two lenses. The photo quality is lower, the images look too "soft" and the software processing can also overdo the corrections. This is a lens that almost all manufacturers sideline and include for those niche scenarios and so they can say they have three cameras.
The HONOR Magic8 Pro can record in 4K resolution (up to 120 fps). The footage is good, the colors are vibrant and there is no distortion. However, this is not an area where the newcomer really shines, and I think that upcoming phones will almost certainly be better in the video department.
I also like that they kept the 3D sensor on the front camera, which significantly speeds up and improves the accuracy of facial recognition. Even more importantly, it helps with facial recognition at night, in dark rooms, or when you're wearing glasses or other accessories. The 3D depth sensor also makes it much harder for bad guys to trick the front camera.
Photo gallery
HONOR Magic8 Pro – has the best chip, but it doesn't always manage to cool it
It's not the first phone to have yet to figure out how to stay cool after more than an hour of gaming or heavy-duty tasks. Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip (Adreno 840 graphics core) has, like every year, provided a performance boost, and manufacturers, including HONOR, are looking for ways to take advantage of all this power without the phone overheating in the first hour of intensive use. The hardware is complemented by up to 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of space (depending on the region, in our case 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB) and the fastest UFS 4.1 memory standard, which will ensure lightning-fast internal drive speeds. HONOR, like Samsung, promises up to 7 Android updates and security patches.
Below are some tested Android, Windows, and Switch games.
Given the experience with POCO F8 Ultra, I knew what numbers to expect from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. The good news is that we recently got dedicated Turnip drivers for last year's Snapdragon 8 Elite, which took the crown for the best chip for emulating Windows and Switch games. Next up is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, which probably won't happen as quickly as I'd like.
The HONOR Magic8 Pro performed as expected. After about an hour of playing Windows games, the battery temperature hovered around 48°C (a bit too much for my taste), and the chip temperature was above 60°C. If you are a passionate gamer, I recommend that you consider a controller with a fan, otherwise you will shorten your battery life with each session. Regular Android games are not a big deal for the Magic8 Pro. I played Zenless Zone Zero for two hours without any serious overheating or performance drops. Windows and Switch games are a bigger problem. Obviously, since it is an emulation that puts additional strain on the system.
European users have to make do with a smaller battery capacity (silicon-carbon, 6270 mAh) compared to the Chinese market (7200 mAh). Charging is still extremely fast: 100 W via cable, 80 W wirelessly and 5 W for charging other, smaller devices. The charger is not included, and the protective case is also missing from the packaging. On average, I recorded around 9-10 hours of screen on time (SoT, Screen on Time), which includes quite normal use of YouTube, Reddit, the web, the camera and a maximum of one hour of gaming. If you want to play games non-stop, the battery will drain in 4-5 hours.
MagicOS 10 is installed by default, which is based on Android 16. It has been enhanced mainly visually. More than obvious, they followed Apple's guidelines and most have already noticed the similarities with the Liquid Glass graphics system. My criticism has always been that MagicOS is too similar to Huawei's EMUI system. I can no longer say that now, at least not in terms of form and appearance, functionally they are still similar.
MagicOS 10 allows you to customize the level of transparency you want. At the top you have a "dynamic island" (Magic Capsule), animations and transitions have been changed, and the notification bar and quick shortcuts also behave differently. The portfolio of artificial intelligence functions (HONOR AI) has been supplemented with a dedicated button for artificial intelligence (on the right side of the case). In the settings, you can change what you want to do with this button. It can be a shortcut for the camera (you can also use it to zoom in and take pictures) or for specific applications, but you cannot choose any application. You can set multiple shortcuts (single click, double click, long press). Magic Sidebar (sidebar for quick access), UI translation, UI subtitles, UI writing assistance, UI camera functions have not changed. Another new feature is AI Memories, which is a collection of information that can be extracted from screenshots, documents, images, and the like.
MagicOS 10 is a step in the right direction. They have now separated themselves from Huawei in terms of design, improved the user experience, supplemented the system with UI features, and for some time now have also enabled easy file transfer to the iPhone. The next step is to improve personalization and offer the user more tools with which to transform every corner of the phone. My pious wish is also that they return the ability to unlock the system launcher, but I know that will not happen.
Is there a brighter display? Up to 6000 nits of brightness
While other phones are getting bigger, HONOR is thinking the other way around. They've swapped last year's 6.8-inch display for a 6.71-inch one. It's not a big difference, but I'll keep a question in my pocket for HONOR engineers as to why they made that decision. This is the only number that's been reduced. The maximum brightness has been increased to 6,000 candelas/nits (previously 5,000), the average brightness is 1,800 candelas, the refresh rate is the classic 120 Hz, and the resolution is 2,800 x 1,280, which is great for image density given the size. Dolby Vision support remains, as does PWM dimming with a frequency of 4,320 Hz, which protects your eyes from flickering, especially at lower brightness levels. The display is protected by NanoCrystal Shield.
The display is flawless and among the best on the market. You will never complain that you can't see the screen, that the colors are washed out, or that it doesn't work smoothly. At least for me, HONOR phones have the best displays on phones.
I think only the latest Motorola phone has a brighter screen (by 200 nits) than the HONOR Magic8 Pro. It's really amazing how quickly phone screens have advanced in the last few years.
Extremely durable, but not bold in appearance
The body is aluminum, and the back depends on the version. In some places it is glass, in others it is fiber-reinforced plastic. As already mentioned, it is physically smaller than its predecessor, the screen and back are flat, only towards the edges you can notice a gentle curvature that is barely noticeable. The HONOR Magic8 Pro is very comfortable to use with one hand. The phone fits nicely in the palm of your hand, there is no excessive sliding, and you always feel that it can withstand an awkward fall or impact.
It's not as durable as the cheaper HONOR Magic8 Lite (at least not officially), but it still earned IP68, IP69, and IP69K certifications, which indicate that the first contact with water, dust, and sand will not be fatal to the phone. However, caution is not superfluous. If it falls directly on the screen, it will most likely survive without visible consequences (depending on the height and surface). If it falls on the edge, the aluminum will crack.
The HONOR Magic 8 Pro is a great phone, but too similar to the Magic7 Pro
The HONOR Magic8 Pro suffers the most from the syndrome where manufacturers (and to some extent consumers) want to have new phones every year. Sometimes it would be better to take a deep breath, wait a year, and introduce a phone that would be more tempting for the buyer.
We all know that won't happen, so it's up to us to stop and think about when it's the right time to buy a new phone. Considering that almost all manufacturers will soon offer 7 years of support, we're really in no rush unless there's some catastrophic failure or the battery can no longer handle a full day's use.
The HONOR Magic8 Pro is undoubtedly a very good phone. Even when Samsung, Xiaomi, and others launch their own phones with Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, there is no doubt that HONOR's flagship would not remain among the top five in the market.
