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The HONOR Magic5 Pro is the company’s latest flagship, and we’re here to review it. I’ve been using it for a while now, and I do have plenty of thoughts to share. HONOR really did step up compared to last year, though. The Magic4 Pro was a good phone, but it had some downsides that this year’s iteration fixes. The HONOR Magic5 Pro actually managed to surprise me in some ways, and that’s not easy to do these days.
HONOR paid great attention to the design of this phone, while it also fixed some camera-related problems, and some other things. As it’s the case with every phone, though, the Magic5 Pro is not perfect. So, let’s find out exactly what this phone offers, so that you can be more informed before you pull the trigger.
Table of contents
HONOR Magic5 Pro Review: Hardware / Design
The HONOR Magic5 Pro is similar to its predecessor design-wise, to a degree, but we’ll get to that in a second. The HONOR Magic5 Pro includes a large display on the front, with thin bezels, and that display is also curved. There is a pill-shaped hole in the top-left corner, but there’s a good reason for that, as the phone offers 3D facial scanning. On the back, HONOR opted for a large, circular camera island, with three cameras on it. Both the front and the back sides are curved. The display also has a very slight curve on the top and bottom, by the way, not many people will notice though.
Glass models with glossy & matte coatings are available
The backplate on this phone is made out of glass, and it has a gorgeous matte coating. Well, I can talk only about the model I’ve reviewed, and that’s the green one. HONOR officially refers to it as ‘Meadow Green’. The Black model seems to have a regular, shiny coating on the back, which will, undoubtedly, attract fingerprints like crazy. That’s not the case with this green model, though, not at all. It also looks gorgeous on top of that.
The camera island gradually raises to the top
The phone has a gradual incline towards the top of the camera island on the back, which not only looks nice, but is also useful. I often anchored my finger below the camera island while I was holding the device. The light is reflected very nicely off the back of the phone, and also a ring around the camera array. Not many people will care, but if you care about such design details, you’ll probably like it. I know I do, it shows HONOR made an effort to make something different.
The camera module design is an improvement compared to the Magic4 Pro
Now, the HONOR Magic4 Pro also has a circular camera island on the back, but this one looks much better, in my opinion. It’s visually a lot more appealing, as there’s not as much going on. HONOR simplified things. The phone is still slippery, however, and also large at the same time. So, using a case may be a good idea. It does feel good in the hand, though, I didn’t feel like it was cutting into my hand uncomfortably or anything of the sort. It weighs 219 grams, but considering its size, that’s not surprising nor too much, to be quite honest. On top of everything, the phone is also water and dust resistant (IP68 certification).
A case is included
HONOR did include a case with the HONOR Magic5 Pro, which is always appreciated. As you may have guessed, it’s a regular gel case aka silicone case. It is see-through, but it’s always useful to have. This case does add quite a bit of grip for you, and will do a good job of protecting your phone. It even has some extra material on the corners, just to be safe. You can always use it just until you get another case, if you don’t like it. The point is, it’s there, and it fits this phone nicely.
HONOR Magic5 Pro Review: Display
HONOR included a truly outstanding panel here. Let’s get the specs out of the way first. The HONOR Magic5 Pro features a 6.81-inch 2848 x 1312 LTPO OLED display. That panel is curved on all four sides, and it supports a 120Hz refresh rate. It can also project up to 1 billion colors, and gets immensely bright outdoors. It can go all the way up to 1,800 nits of brightness at its peak, on the automatic setting. The display aspect ratio is 19.5:9, in case you were wondering.
The display is big, bright & vivid
So, on paper, this display looks great. Is that the case in actual use, though? Well, yes, it is. The display is not only big and bright, but it also produces very vivid colors, and it’s more than sharp enough. You can tweak it additionally in the settings, if you want. Yes, the viewing angles are also excellent. Touch response is great, and so is haptic feedback when you’re typing, or using the keyboard to move the slider. There is not a single complaint I have about this display, other than the hole in the top-left corner.
Its pill-shaped camera cutout is an eyesore, but it has a purpose
That hole does have a purpose, but those of you who don’t really use facial scanning certainly have a right to complain. It is distracting, and during my usage, I didn’t really get used to it. I presume I would if I used it for a longer period of time, but it’s not as seamless of a transition from a hole punch. The same was the case last year, actually, at least as far as I can remember. That pill-shaped hole is also not exactly close to the left side of the screen, so that certainly doesn’t help.
Functionality-wise, this is an outstanding display. It does everything a high-end display should do, and then some. If you’re not bothered by the hole in the top-left corner, you should not worry about this display at all.
HONOR Magic5 Pro Review: Performance
HONOR went all out when it comes to the Magic5 Pro internals. The company not only decided to use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, but also LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 flash storage. In other words, it basically grabbed the most powerful SoC available, and the fastest RAM and flash storage units out there. All that doesn’t really mean a lot without proper optimization, right? Well, based on what I’ve seen from this phone, HONOR did a really good job with software optimization as well. The Magic5 Pro performed admirably during my usage.
The performance is outstanding, even when it comes to gaming
It flew through anything I decided to throw at it, really. It managed to open apps really fast, browsing was a breeze, and so was streaming / content consumption. The phone processed images and video during my usage, while it also did a great job on the gaming front. I ran Subway Surfers, Dead Cells, and Genshin Impact on the phone. It did a wonderful job with all three games, even Genshin Impact. Quite a few phones struggle here, but that was not the case with the Magic5 Pro. I don’t think performance will be an issue on this phone for quite some time, it really did feel that smooth. I don’t really have a complaint worth noting.
HONOR Magic5 Pro Review: Battery
The HONOR Magic5 Pro does have a gigantic, high-res display to power, which is why it’s a good thing HONOR stuffed in a 5,100mAh battery here. In combination with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which is very good at power consumption, I managed to get great battery life with the device. Truth be said there was not a single day when I had to charge it before I went to bed, nor was I ever anxious about battery life. This won’t mean that much to you, as your usage will be different, as will your signal, but I managed to get 8 hours of screen-on time multiple times. It still had plenty of juice left in the tank, so I probably could have pushed it even further.
66W wired & 50W wireless charging is supported
HONOR also thought about charging. The device supports 66W wired charging, and a charger is included in the box. On top of that, it supports 50W wireless charging, and both reverse wired and wireless charging. You can get it fully charged in about an hour, while 50W charging will take a bit longer. HONOR could have went with even faster wired charging, but this is faster than both Samsung and Apple offer. Still, it pales in comparison to the HONOR Magic4 Pro, which offered 100W for both wired and wireless charging. 50W wireless charging does seem to be standard with Chinese flagships these days, and is much faster than what Samsung and Apple offer as well (15W). So, we can’t really complain.
HONOR Magic5 Pro Review: Camera
The HONOR Magic5 Pro has three cameras on the back, and two on the front. The phone includes a 50-megapixel main camera (1.4um pixel size, f/1.6 aperture, 23mm lens, OIS, multi-directional PDAF), along with a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera (122-degree FoV). The third camera on the back is also a 50-megapixel one, this is a periscope telephoto unit (3.5x optical zoom, OIS). A 12-megapixel ultrawide camera (122-degree FoV) sits on the front, along with a ToF 3D depth camera. The Magic5 Pro supports advanced facial scanning.
The camera performance is improved compared to its predecessor
First things first, the HONOR Magic5 Pro has excellent hardware, when it comes to cameras. That being said, the pictures this phone can take look noticeably better than what the Magic4 Pro delivered. Most of the time they’re on point. They tend to provide good colors, plenty of detail, and well-balanced highlights during the day, for the most part. At night, the camera does allow enough light into the shot, and most of the time it balances out images.
Further optimizations are needed, though
You’ll notice that I said most of the time a couple of times there. HONOR does need to optimize things a bit more here. At times, the subject I was shooting wasn’t exactly in focus as much as it was supposed to be, while the colors weren’t exactly spot on. Some balancing is needed for this camera to truly shine, but it’s really close. It does a great job at macro photography, by the way. Even if the light is a bit challenging, as you’ll see in the camera samples below, the Magic5 Pro did a great job.
It even includes a capable periscope camera
Furthermore, this phone does include a periscope telephoto camera. It can zoom up to 100x, but I definitely would not recommend that, of course. The phone does a good job during the day with those crazy zoom levels, though not to the level of the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Still, the images up to 30x are more than usable, and noticeably improved compared to the Magic4 Pro. I’m really glad HONOR included a periscope camera here, that’s for sure.
The video recording is good. The phone performs best at fullHD recording at 30 or 60 fps, but it does a good job at 4K as well. The quality does drop off during nighttime, but not more than on most other flagship handsets out there. It’s good overall.
Camera samples (wide & ultrawide):
Camera samples (macro):
Camera samples (periscope):
HONOR Magic5 Pro Review: Software
Android 13 ships out of the box on the HONOR Magic5 Pro. The thing is, it comes with MagicOS 7.1 on top of it. MagicOS is noticeably different than stock Android, and truth be said, personally, it’s not one of my favorite implementations, your mileage may vary, though. The point is, MagicOS 7.1 works really well on this phone. It’s fluid and responsive, and quite bold at the same time. This UI basically combines Android and iOS, in a way. It has a quick search function (aka HONOR Search) when you swipe top-down across the screen, for example. It also has a preference for keeping all your apps on home screens, though you can change that and activate the app drawer.
Knuckle Gestures are quiet useful for taking screenshots
There are some interesting features included here, like Knuckle Gestures, using which you can take screenshots, take partial screenshots, and more. Also, MagicOS comes with big folders, which enable you to enlarge a regular folder so that you can activate apps directly, without opening the folder first. These are just some examples. It does lack Material You, though, and some other Android 13 features that you may be used to if you’ve used Android 13 on some other device.
The UI does look a bit cartoonish and disconnected
The UI looks a bit cartoonish, and it kind of has a disconnect from one portion to the other, design-wise. Pop-up dialogues are in all caps, and it looks a bit weird overall. This is a style preference, and if you’re annoyed by the minimalistic approach, this is certainly different. It is also worth noting that some other parts of the UI work a bit differently than on other Android phones. For example, when it comes to dismissing notifications, you can dismiss them really quickly only by swiping them away from left-to-right, not the other way around. If you do it the other way around, you’ll get several options first, and will then have to swipe again to dismiss a notification.
The UI could be more functional
Entering split screen mode is also quite cumbersome. In fact, many people won’t even know there is a split screen mode here. You cannot activate it from the overview menu directly, or via a gesture. First, you need to go to the overview menu, and open a specific app in a small window. Then you need to open the second app that you’d like to run in a split screen mode, and at that point move the windowed app to the upper or lower portion of the screen. This is quite unintuitive, and I really don’t know why HONOR implemented it this way. Also, you cannot switch places between the top and bottom app while in split screen mode.
MagicOS’ windowed mode is useful
I’ve mentioned windowed apps above, that’s a nice feature to have, and it works well on the Magic5 Pro, as long as the UI allows you to window an app. You can use it in windowed mode, or minimize it in form of a circular icon attached to the right side of the display, to use later. It’s a convenient feature, that’s for sure. If only HONOR included a split screen icon next to the window-an-app icon in the overview menu, things would be much simpler.
It’s considerably different compared to other Android implementations
Overall, this UI is quite functional, but I needed to mention some oddities, different implementations, and missing features, so that you’re ready when you boot the phone. Many people are used to some features on most other phones, so… it’s worth noting that MagicOS is a bit different.
HONOR Magic5 Pro Review: Should you buy it?
So, should you buy the HONOR Magic5 Pro? Well, this phone does have a lot of competition out there. It does also combine a unique set of features not many other phones have. You’re getting top-of-the-line specs, excellent display and battery life, fast wired and wireless charging, and 3D facial scanning all in the same package. Not to mention an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, and more. That being said, the biggest tradeoff here is HONOR’s UI, which needs work. It doesn’t really impact the performance as much as it stands in its own way, and lacks some features that should probably be there. If you, however, want a different experience, and you don’t mind what I’ve mentioned in the software section above, the HONOR Magic5 Pro is definitely worth checking out. This phone has considerably potential.
You should buy the HONOR Magic5 Pro if:
- You want a different software experience
- You want all the specs
- You need 3D facial scanning on an Android phone
- You appreciate having truly fast wired & wireless charging
- You hate OEMs who don’t include (fast) chargers in the box
- You appreciate excellent battery life
- You want good camera performance
You shouldn’t buy the HONOR Magic5 Pro if:
- You need some of the software features this phone is missing
- You find the pill-shaped cutout too distracting
- You find this phone very pricey