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This year, Honor has already given us the Magic6 Lite, which is a brilliantly affordable and surprisingly robust entry-level smartphone.
They’ve also conducted the long-awaited European launch of the Magic V2 which is the most impressive foldable smartphone I’ve got my hands on thus far.
Now, we have their latest flagship device to play with – the Magic6 Pro. It costs £300 less than the equivalent iPhone, features the now standard bonkers-specced camera system, and a display which promises 5,000 nits of peak brightness.
Yes, you read that right.
Let’s dive in.
Specs and pricing
The Magic6 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. It’s also running the brand-new MagicOS 8.0.
The screen is handled by a 6.8-inch quad-curved floating display with a 120Hz dynamic refresh rate, and Dolby Vision support. As noted, it also has a peak brightness of 5,000 nits (more on that later) and a sustained brightness of 1,600 nits.
The Magic6 Pro comes in black and green and features Honor’s NanoCrystal Shield and SGS certification for enhanced durability. And if you’re worried about dust and water, you needn’t be, because it has an IP68 rating, too.
I’ll get to the camera system later, but the headline feature is a 180MP periscope lens and a bunch of AI features for grabbing fast-moving objects.
Powering everything is a 5,600mAh second-generation silicon carbon battery that’s capable of 80w fast charging and wireless charging.
In the UK, the Magic6 Pro will cost £1,099, but if you fancy picking one up at launch, there’s a bundle that can be redeemed with a value of around £359. It’s typically Honor in terms of generousness and includes the forthcoming Earbuds X6, a 100w SuperCharge plug, and an Honor Pad 8.
Design and build quality
Honor has adopted a designed language they’ve brilliantly called ‘Squircle’ for the Magic6 Pro’s unique camera housing. Inspired by luxury wearables, it’s typically Honor, albeit in a slightly less in-your-face manner compared to the Magic6 Lite’s jewellery-inspired camera bump.
I like it. In fact, I like the look of the Magic6 Pro overall. It feels purposeful, smart, and every bit the flagship device. We may be living in a world of titanium flagship smartphones these days, but the Magic6 Pro holds its own. The dark, polished metal sides add just enough of a premium feel to separate it significantly from the budget Magic6 Lite.
Honor has used an industry-first double-sided 3D carving process to manufacture the Magic6 Pro. I have no idea what that means, but when combined with the NanoCrystal Shield and a bunch of durability-related certifications, there was only one way to test Honor’s claims.
You can, apparently, drop the Magic6 Pro from a height of 1.5 meters onto a wooden surface without any trouble. I tried this during my video review, and I can confirm that a 1.5-meter drop for a smartphone feels like an awfully long way to fall. But, fall it did, and there wasn’t a single mark on the Magic6 Pro when I gingerly picked it up from the wooden desk into which it had crashed. Impressive stuff.
Magic6 Pro display
I’m not sure how Honor keeps doing this, but the display on the Magic6 Pro is, predictably, a masterpiece.
It is curved, though – and I know there is a faction of smartphone users out there who aren’t keen on such display designs. Despite this, it’s never bothered me, and I love how all-encompassing those curves make the Magic6 Pro’s display feel.
Now, about that 5,000 nits of peak brightness. This is entirely related to HDR content and, as you might suspect, not something the Magic6 Pro can sustain for very long at all. That’s fine – no one needs 5,000 nits of smartphone display smashing into their retinas. The 1,600 nits of sustained brightness is far more relatable and results in a display that looks like one of the brightest I’ve used. Whether or not that is technically correct is largely irrelevant; trust me, the Magic6 Pro’s display is gloriously bright.
It also benefits from Honor’s range of ‘Eye Comfort’ features, which are gradually appearing on all of its smartphones. These include dynamic dimming, 4,320Hz PWM dimming, a customised Circadian Night Display, and Nature Tone Display.
The latter is Honor’s take on True Tone, which is present in most Apple devices and which modifies the white balance and screen temperature based on ambient light. This results in whites always looking white, no matter where you are, and the Magic6 Pro achieves this very nicely (I wish a similar feature were present on more Android devices).
An under-display fingerprint reader and facial recognition for biometric security complete a brilliant display package. I always miss Honor smartphone displays once the review period ends, and the Magic6 Pro is likely to be no different.
Performance and battery life
As you might be aware, I don’t undertake performance benchmarks – I’m quite happy to leave those tasks to people who are far more capable and knowledgeable in this regard. However, the fact that the Magic6 Pro includes the latest Snapdragon chip means it does, as one might expect from a flagship, absolutely fly in everyday use.
Thanks to that chip, users of the previous generation can expect up to 30% improvements in CPU performance and a 25% increase in GPU performance. The presence of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 also opens up the Magic6 Pro to a range of AI-based possibilities, including the enhancement of existing features like AI Privacy Call.
MagicOS 8.0 also promises to unleash some new AI-based wizardry in March with the introduction of Magic Portal, which will be capable of predicting what the user might want to do next, based on the data it has to hand. For instance, if you receive a text message that contains event information, you’ll be whisked off conveniently to your calendar.
At the time of my review, these AI features were not available for testing, but I’ll be diving in as soon as they are, and it’s nice to see Honor jumping on the AI gravy train – if in a rather less bombastic fashion than certain other Android phone manufacturers.
When it comes to battery performance, that silicon carbon battery is a monster. Once again, I don’t undertake technical battery tests, but I can tell you that the Magic6 Pro sails easily into three-day use territory. Like so many modern Android smartphones, the Magic6 Pro absolutely crushes it when it comes to stamina.
Magic6 Pro camera system
As always at this stage of the review, I’ll let the images do the talking. Smartphone photography is, after all, the most subjective part of any review.
The Magic6 Pro features three cameras on the rear. There’s a 180MP periscope telephoto (that extends to 2.5x), a 50MP main camera with a new Falcon chipset, and a 50MP ultra-wide camera.
Selfie duties are undertaken via a 50MP shooter.
Honor smartphone photography definitely has a look and I can now spot it a mile away.
It’s quite sharpened, very contrasty, and sometimes looks rather Pixel-like.
If you know me, you know I’m a huge fan of the Pixel’s photographic capabilities, so I’m rather fond of a lot of the photos the Magic6 Pro produces.
They don’t leap off the display like, say, the photos from an S24 Ultra might, but, once again, this is all very subjective.
The zoom ranges work well on the Magic6 Pro. I’d have liked an optical 5x, but the digital zoom options aren’t bad – until you go beyond 10x (which is the case with most smartphones).
The most important thing about the Magic6 Pro is that, like every Honor phone I’ve tested, it’s reliable. It will take photos as you intended, and it doesn’t struggle with fast-moving subjects.
On that note, there’s a bunch of AI features built into the Magic6 Pro camera system, too, including AI Motion Sensing Capture, which is designed to make sports photography as accurate as possible.
I didn’t have time to visit a sporting event during the review, so you’ll have to put up with the results from my solitary basketball session at the studio, instead.
In terms of video, the Magic6 Pro can shoot up to 4K at 60 frames per second. This is beaten by other flagships such as the S24 Ultra, but it’s worth keeping in mind the pricing differential, and the fact that I’d guess few people stray beyond 60fps, anyway (I certainly don’t). The video produced by the Magic6 Pro is great, too.
Honor Magic6 Pro vs iPhone 15 Pro Max
There are a few reasons the Magic6 Pro beats the iPhone 15 Pro Max. It’s £300 cheaper, for starters – and that might be enough for some people, right off the bat.
It also has a far better battery life for everyday use. The display is, in my opinion, several steps ahead in terms of brightness, vibrancy, and the way in which it draws you in. The presence of a fingerprint reader is also something I’ve long wanted to return to the iPhone – even if it means getting rid of the largely irrelevant Dynamic Island.
The iPhone does have the better ecosystem, in my opinion, but that’s partly because I’m so wedded to the Mac and my Apple Watch Ultra. In fairness, Honor has its own ecosystem, which shouldn’t be overlooked if you’re not similarly ensconced within Apple’s walled garden.
The lack of titanium on the Magic6 Pro doesn’t really have any bearing, day-to-day, and it only feels marginally heavier than the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
In terms of camera systems, it’s a tie. The iPhone benefits from that lovely optical 5x zoom, but the reliability of the Honor camera and the Pixel-like processing it applies to photos more than makeup for any technical comparisons with the iPhone.
Conclusion
For the price, the Magic6 Pro is an impressive flagship smartphone. Honor has, indeed, ‘done it again’.
The device is built like a tank, it looks every bit like the premium smartphone and has a display which I challenge anyone not to look at and admire how utterly gorgeous it is.
The camera performance might be highly subjective, but it is reliable, and that matters when your smartphone is the main camera you rely on to capture those everyday moments.
And that battery life. My word – what a performer.
If you’re not swayed by Apple or Samsung’s offerings at the moment but need a new flagship smartphone to see you through the next couple of years, I highly recommend checking out the Honor Magic6 Pro.
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