The Honor Magic 5 Pro has arrived as a flagship phone that promises to shake up the smartphone market with its blend of performance, design, and innovative features. Launched by Honor, a brand known for its high-quality smartphones, the Magic 5 Pro brings several significant upgrades over its predecessors. In this review, we’ll take an in-depth look at its design, display, performance, camera capabilities, software experience, and battery life to help you decide if this phone is worth your attention.
1. Design and Build Quality: Premium and Sleek
The first thing that catches your eye about the Honor Magic 5 Pro is its sleek and premium design. Honor has taken design to the next level with a visually striking and ergonomic build. The phone features a glass back with a curved design that enhances the feeling of smoothness when held in hand. The back panel is made of high-quality Gorilla Glass, which not only ensures durability but also gives the device a shiny, reflective look that catches the light beautifully.
At the front, the Magic 5 Pro sports an edge-to-edge OLED display that’s both visually stunning and functional. The curved edges on both sides give it a futuristic feel, and the narrow bezels add to its appeal. The device is IP68-rated, making it water-resistant and dustproof, so you won’t have to worry about accidental spills or rain.
Weighing around 219 grams, the phone feels solid without being overly heavy. The device is available in several premium colors, including black, blue, and gold, all of which add to its aesthetic appeal.
2. Display: A Gorgeous OLED Panel
One of the most impressive aspects of the Honor Magic 5 Pro is its display. The 6.81-inch OLED screen offers a resolution of 1312 x 2848 pixels, which translates into a pixel density of around 460 pixels per inch. This ensures that the display is sharp, vibrant, and incredibly detailed. Whether you’re watching movies, playing games, or browsing photos, the screen produces rich colors and deep blacks thanks to the OLED technology.
The Magic 5 Pro’s display also supports a 120Hz refresh rate, making animations, scrolling, and gaming smoother than ever. The 300Hz touch sampling rate makes the screen highly responsive, offering a smooth and fluid experience while gaming or scrolling through social media.
Additionally, the display supports HDR10+ content, ensuring that high dynamic range videos look exceptional with improved contrast and color accuracy. Whether you’re watching your favorite show or playing a mobile game with high visual fidelity, the display will deliver an immersive experience.
3. Performance: Powerhouse Under the Hood
Under the hood, the Honor Magic 5 Pro is powered by the cutting-edge Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. This latest and most powerful chip is designed for flagship-level performance, ensuring that the Magic 5 Pro can handle any task you throw at it. Whether it’s gaming, multitasking, or demanding apps, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 ensures that the device performs seamlessly.
The phone comes with 12GB of RAM, which is more than enough to keep multiple apps open in the background without any noticeable slowdowns. You can also opt for a version with 256GB or 512GB of internal storage, though there is no microSD card slot for expanding storage.
In benchmarks, the Honor Magic 5 Pro scores near the top of the leaderboard, performing at par with other flagship devices like the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and the iPhone 15 Pro. Whether you’re engaging in intensive gaming or using resource-heavy applications, the Magic 5 Pro excels in every area.
Additionally, the phone is equipped with the latest Adreno 740 GPU, ensuring that gaming experiences are fluid, with smooth graphics rendering and low latency, even in the most demanding mobile games.
4. Camera: A Game Changer in Mobile Photography
The camera setup is another highlight of the Honor Magic 5 Pro, boasting an impressive array of sensors that are built to deliver professional-grade photography.
Triple Camera Setup
The Magic 5 Pro features a triple-camera array on the back, consisting of:
- 50 MP Wide-angle (Main) Camera: The primary camera captures stunning details, vibrant colors, and impressive dynamic range. With a large sensor size, it excels in low-light conditions and offers excellent clarity in all types of lighting.
- 50 MP Ultra-wide Camera: With a 122-degree field of view, the ultra-wide camera allows you to capture more in your shots, perfect for landscapes, group photos, and architectural photography. The image quality remains sharp, and color accuracy is maintained even at the edges of the frame.
- 50 MP Periscope Telephoto Camera (with 3.5x optical zoom and up to 100x digital zoom): This telephoto lens lets you zoom in on distant subjects without losing too much detail. The optical zoom is particularly effective, while the digital zoom can be pushed up to 100x, allowing you to capture long-range shots with good quality.
The Honor Magic 5 Pro also comes equipped with several advanced features to enhance your photography, including AI scene recognition, 4K video recording, and enhanced night mode for superior low-light performance. Honor has also integrated a new computational photography system that combines hardware and software to deliver better image processing and color reproduction.
For selfie lovers, the Magic 5 Pro features a dual front-camera setup, which includes a 12 MP wide camera and a 3D depth-sensing camera. This combination helps capture sharper, more accurate selfies with a natural bokeh effect. The 3D sensor also improves face recognition and AR features, making this one of the most advanced selfie cameras available.
Camera Software Features
The camera app is rich with features, offering manual controls for professionals and easy-to-use modes for casual users. AI-powered enhancements ensure that even novice photographers can capture stunning images with minimal effort. The software also includes various filters, effects, and modes for different shooting scenarios, from low light to portraits and macro shots.
5. Software Experience: Magic UI 7.0
The Honor Magic 5 Pro runs on Magic UI 7.0, which is based on Android 13. Magic UI brings several useful features and improvements to the Android experience, including a more refined design, enhanced customization options, and a smoother overall interface.
Magic UI 7.0 offers a clean and modern look, with several pre-installed apps that complement the device’s hardware. Honor’s custom skin is known for being light and bloat-free, which is a relief for users who want to avoid the unnecessary apps that often come with other Android phones.
Magic UI also offers a range of customization options, allowing you to adjust the look and feel of the phone to your liking. Features like Always-on Display, App Cloner, and a built-in screen recorder add more value to the software experience. The Magic 5 Pro also includes support for multi-window multitasking, which lets you use two apps simultaneously on the same screen—ideal for productivity tasks.
6. Battery Life: Long-Lasting Power
The Honor Magic 5 Pro is equipped with a 5100mAh battery, which provides an excellent balance between performance and endurance. Thanks to the efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and energy-optimized software, the phone can easily last a full day of heavy use, including gaming, browsing, and streaming.
When it comes to charging, the Magic 5 Pro supports 66W fast charging, which can fully charge the device in around 45 minutes. It also supports 50W wireless charging, which is incredibly fast compared to most other flagship phones. Additionally, the phone features 5W reverse wireless charging, allowing you to charge other devices wirelessly, such as earbuds or another phone.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Honor Magic 5 Pro is a true flagship smartphone that combines powerful performance, an exceptional display, top-tier camera capabilities, and long-lasting battery life in a sleek and durable design. Whether you’re a professional photographer, a mobile gamer, or someone who just wants a device that can handle everything with ease, the Magic 5 Pro stands out as one of the best options available on the market.
While it doesn’t have Google services out of the box due to Honor’s separation from Huawei, it still runs on a smooth Android-based software experience that is sure to please most users. With its premium features and impressive performance, the Honor Magic 5 Pro is a strong contender in the competitive flagship market.
If you’re in the market for a high-end smartphone that offers a lot of value for your money, the Honor Magic 5 Pro is certainly worth considering.