The Magic5 Pro is Honor’s newest proposition in the coveted premium smartphone market. It relies on an original design and enticing technical specifications to compete with the big names in the sector, and the formula seems to work wonderfully.
Honor took advantage of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023 in Barcelona to officially present its Magic5 Pro, a smartphone with high-end features that works on the benchmark platforms of the Android mobile market, such as the Galaxy S23 Ultra or the Xiaomi 13 Pro. Since gaining independence from its former parent company Huawei, the brand has become more and more serious in the premium segment and the Honor Magic5 Pro has made its ambitions come true. Design, screen, performance, autonomy, recharging, software, here is everything you need to know about this device which aims to bring Honor into another dimension.
What is the release date of the Honor Magic5 Pro?
After its announcement on February 27, 2023 during the MWC, we know everything about the Honor Magic5 Pro, except its exact release date. The brand has indicated that we can expect availability in Europe later this second quarter 2023, between April and June. As a reminder, its predecessor, the Honor Magic4 Pro, was also launched during the MWC, for marketing from May 18, 2022.
What is the price of the Honor Magic5 Pro?
The Honor Magic5 Pro costs 1199 euros. Like most of its competitors, the manufacturer has increased its prices this year, the Honor Magic4 Pro being displayed at 1099 euros, or 100 euros cheaper. We do not know to date if a pre-order or launch offer is planned for this smartphone at third-party merchants, but an event says Early Birds is expected on the official Honor website. By logging in or subscribing, you can get a discount coupon worth 80 euros for the purchase of an Honor Magic5 Pro. And if you already have an Honor smartphone, you can even get a coupon to lower the mobile price by 100 euros. All you have to do is enter the serial number of your device.
What design developments for the Honor Magic5 Pro?
The Honor Magic5 Pro takes up a circular photo block located in the axis of the back panel, housing the four optics and the Flash LED of the smartphone. But there is still a change compared to the Magic4 Pro. baptized Star Wheel Triple Camera Design, the new circular block seems better integrated into the design of the mobile and is more discreet, adopting the color of the back of the device. This choice also has the consequence of better highlighting the photo sensors, which are much more visible since the block without its entirety is less conspicuous.
At the front, we find a large pill-shaped punch in the upper left corner of the slab, housing two front cameras for selfies. The smartphone is distinguished by a curved screen not only at the edges, but also at the top and bottom. The materials used are classics in this range: aluminum frame, glass on the back and front.
The Honor Magic5 Pro is certified IP68 water and dust resistant and has dimensions of 162.9 x 76.7 x 8.8 mm for a weight of 219 g. The ultrasonic fingerprint reader is integrated under the screen and the device is available in two colors in France: black (Black) and green (Meadow Green).
A brighter screen for the Honor Magic5 Pro?
The Honor Magic5 Pro has a 6.81-inch AMOLED LTPO display with characteristics very similar to that of its predecessor. It offers a display in 1312 x 2848 pixels, a definition that is between Full HD + (1080p) and Quad HD + (1440p). The screen offers an adaptive refresh rate from 1 to 120 Hz, which automatically matches the broadcast content to always benefit from the best fluidity while preserving the battery.
The main improvement made to the screen on this generation is an increase in maximum brightness, which goes from 1000 nits to 1800 nits. Such an increase promises to see better when you are in direct sunlight and to take full advantage of HDR10+ technology, which brings more vivid colors and a higher level of detail to compatible content. The screen is also IMAX Enhanced certified, a format supported by Disney+ in particular.
The Magic5 Pro is certified by TÜV Rheinland to guarantee its low blue light emission, limiting eye fatigue during long sessions of use. For the same purpose, it also has dynamic dimming technology that simulates natural light. A circadian nighttime display option helps prevent impaired sleep quality, while a 2160Hz Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) dimming technology helps minimize screen flicker.
According to DxOMark experts, the Honor Magic5 Pro simply has the best screen on the market. It scores 151 on the company’s test protocol, compared to 149 for the iPhone 14 Pro and 148 for the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
How does the Honor Magic5 Pro perform?
Equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip engraved in 4 nm and designed by Qualcomm, the Honor Magic5 Pro benefits from the most powerful SoC available on the market for an Android smartphone. This next-generation chip increases both CPU and GPU performance, while improving overall power efficiency. That is, the SoC is able to deliver more power for the same power consumption, or as much power for less resources.
Honor only offers consumers a single configuration of RAM and storage, at 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of internal memory. The Magic4 Pro was also launched in a single version, but at 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. This development may explain the price increase applied by the brand with this new product. The Honor Magic5 Pro is already shaping up to be one of the best performing smartphones of the first half of 2023.
WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 and 5G compatible for wireless connectivity, the Honor Magic5 Pro prides itself on being “equipped with the industry’s first WiFi and Bluetooth stand-alone antenna architecture”giving it 200% better WiFi performance and 30% lower WiFi latency “compared to smartphones with a traditional antenna design”.
What is the autonomy of the Honor Magic5 Pro?
The manufacturer incorporates into the Honor Magic5 Pro a massive battery of 5100mAh. By succeeding in significantly increasing the capacity of the accumulator (which only reached 4600 mAh on the Magic4 Pro), the manufacturer should be able to further improve the autonomy of the smartphone, which already lasted a good day and a half in standard use. . The variable refresh rate of the screen and the controlled consumption of the chip also contribute to the good endurance of the terminal, which will still have to be confirmed by a test in good and due form.
Note that Honor has unveiled a new silicone-carbon battery technology, a first in the smartphone market. Thanks to its higher energy density of 12.8%, it can have a greater capacity than a conventional lithium-ion battery based on graphite. European models won’t get this innovative battery, but Chinese units might get it, as they’re listed at 5450 mAh instead of 5100 mAh.
Surprisingly, the Honor Magic5 Pro is less ambitious than the previous model in terms of fast charging. While the Magic4 Pro offered wired charging and inductive charging with power up to 100W in both cases, the Magic5 Pro is content with 66W wired and 50W wireless. Honor may have felt that it was not necessary to have such a powerful charge with a larger battery, or feared a heating problem. The Honor Magic5 Pro remains better equipped than Samsung smartphones or iPhones in terms of charging speed, but sees competitors like Xiaomi or OPPO pass it on this issue.
A 50W charging block is included in the box, the wireless charging station must be purchased separately.
Honor Magic5 Pro: the best smartphone camera?
The Honor Magic5 Pro takes first place in the ranking of the best photophones compiled by DxOMark. The terminal reaches a score of 152, surpassing the 149 of the Huawei Mate 50 Pro and the 147 of the Google Pixel 7 Pro. To achieve such performance, Honor has combined quality hardware and optimized software with small onions. Its Image Engine, which had already done feats on the Magic4 Pro, becomes even more impressive thanks to the new Falcon Millisecond capture algorithm, which makes it possible to capture complex scenes with movement. Capturing a photo also becomes faster, Ultra Fusion Computational Photography allows photos from two sensors to be merged at certain zoom ratios to improve the final rendering and AI Motion-Sensing Capture uses burst mode to take many shots of the same scene and automatically select the best of the batch.
The main photo sensor (50 MP, f/1.6 aperture, 23mm focal length, 1/1.12″ size and 1.4 µm pixels) has a multidirectional phase detection autofocus (PDAF) for fast and precise focusing, as well as than an optical image stabilization (OIS) to avoid the effects of shaking. It is accompanied by a periscopic telephoto lens (50 MP, f / 3.0, 90mm) equipped with a PDAF and an OIS capable of performing optical zooms up to 3.5x. The ultra-wide-angle module (50 MP, f/2.0, 13mm, 1/2.5″) widens the field of view to 122° to step back and bring more elements into the frame, and a fourth 3D TOF sensor in time of flight has the task of improving the calculation of the depth of field for the portrait mode.
The front optics for selfies, facial recognition, vlogging and video calls are made up of a 12 MP, f/2.4, 1.22µm sensor, with a wide 100˚ field of view and a 3D TOF sensor. The Honor Magic5 Pro can shoot videos in 4K HDR10 10-bit up to 60 frames per second with its rear camera and in 4K 30 fps with its front camera.
According to DxOMark’s test findings, the Honor Magic5 Pro offers the best portrait and zoom bokeh experience on a smartphone. It also shines with its photo and video performance in low light conditions.
Android, Magic OS and updates
The smartphone is delivered under the Magic OS 7.1 version of its home interface, based on Android 13. The manufacturer promises 3 years of feature updates (major Android updates) and 5 years of security updates.
