Honor Magic 5 Pro Review: A charming flagship

Honor is banking big on its latest flagship which was launched in the UAE recently. The Magic 5 Pro gas has a unique design, a super display and a beast of A camera.

Does it have what it takes to compete with the big boys? We’ve reviews the Honor Magic 5 Pro for a while now, and we have to admit, we are impressed with the outcome.

Design and Display

The phone is surely curvy, and that is visible at first glance. The curved design language takes on the entire hone, from body, to display and camera module. The Honor Magic 5 Pro is a dual-glass design, with glass panels on the front and back with a glossy finish. The phone is available in Meadow Green, and black.

On the front, the Magic 5 Pro has a dual front-facing camera (a 12MP lens and a depth sensor), on the back, There's a three camera setup, which Honor call the new camera bump a "Star Wheel".

There's a silver aluminium frame that covers the body, flat on the sides and get thicker on the top and bottom. There are two buttons on the side, a volume rocket and a power button on the right hand side, and two speakers, one on top and the other at bottom of the phone. The Sim tray and USB-C port are on the bottom portion as well. There's an IR blaster living on top as well.

The display is a 6.81-inch LTPO panel, with a 2848 x 1312 resolution and an adaptive refresh rate up to 120Hz, and has a max brightness of 1,800 nits. The panel is a quad curve display, which looks and feels great to hold and consume content on. The display also supports HDR10+.

The phone is of course IP68 water-resistant.

Software and Performance

internally, the Magic 5 Pro is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor with 12GB/512GB option. The is powered by a 5,100mAh battery with 45W fast charging. Connectivity wise, you’ll find Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.2, eSIM, NFC, and 5G.

On the software front, the Magic 5 Pro is loaded with MagicOS 7.1 (Android 13) with a promised of three years of OS updates and five years of security patches. The OS also packs a lot of features like MagicRing for multi-device collaboration, Magic Text for text recognition, and air gestures. In general, the OS is smooth and we did not find any issues while reviewing the unit.

Battery life wise, during out testing, firstly, we managed to charge the phone from 0 yo around 80% in 33 minutes, and reached 100% in around 55 minutes. In terms of screen-on time, we seen the best result to hit the 3 hours mark, while using the phone with daily tasks such as email, browsing, chatting, and a big chunk of that time playing YouTube videos in HD. Overall, the phone can hold more than a day of life, with regular usage.

Camera

This is probably one of the top strength of the Magic 5 Pro. There's a three camera setup with a 50MP wide shooter, a 50MP ultra wide camera, and a 50MP telephoto. DXOMARK ranked the Honor Magic 5 Pro at 152, making it the top-performing smartphone camera to date.

The main camera has a large 1/1.12in sensor, paired with an f/1.6 aperture and optical image stabilization (OIS), that is great in capturing images, especially in low-light conditions. The Magic 5 Pro also features a 50MP telephoto with a periscope lens system and 3.5x optical zoom, which can go up to 100x hybrid zoom levels thanks to a smart algorithm.

Another feature Honor is focusing on in its new devices is the Millisecond Falcon Capture algorithm which delivers lightning-fast and quality images. We have to admit, this is probably one of the fastest camera we’ve tried so far. Overall, the photos shot are very detailed, sharp, and well focused.

Here's a gallery of photos taken with the P60 Pro

Another feature, is the AI Motion Sensing Capture capability which takes a photo and then analyzes all the frames to determine the best photo. We would say, the feature was 90% accurate in picking the best outcome in all the trails we did.

Video wise, the Magic 5 Pro can record at up to 4K and 30fps from the front camera, and up to 4K and 60fps on the rear., with an 8K option.

Overall, the camera performs well and has some nice and strong capabilities that will please photography buffs.

Verdict

To start, the Honor Magic 5 Pro is a serious upgrade over its predecessor, and is ticking all the right boxes when it comes to flagship device for sure. The overall package is just charming and worth it!