It has been a while since we reviewed any devices from HONOR, but they are back with the Magic7 Pro, which was first launched in China in Q4 2024 and then on January 15, 2025, in the UK and Europe.
Before we get underway, here is a disclaimer: HONOR provided a sample without any review pre-approval. Oh, and also an apology: this review is rather image-heavy.
First up, let's dive into the specs:
Specification | HONOR Magic7 Pro |
---|---|
Front Display: | LTPO OLED 6.8" 1280 x 2800 @ up to 120 Hz, 453 PPI, 1600 nits (HBM), 5000 nits (peak) 19.5:9 Aspect Ratio, Dolby Vision NanoCrystal Shield |
Dimensions | 162.7 x 77.1 x 8.8 mm (6.41 x 3.04 x 0.35 in) |
Weight: | 223 g (7.87 oz) |
CPU: | Snapdragon 8 Elite (3 nm) Octa-core (2x Prime 4.3GHz + 6x Performance 3.5GHz) |
GPU: | Adreno 830 |
RAM: |
12 GB |
Storage: | 512 GB (UFS 4.0) |
Rear cameras: | 200MP Periscope Telephoto Camera
Laser AF, color spectrum sensor, LED flash, HDR, panorama |
Video features: | 4K@24/30/60fps, 1080p@24/30/60/120/240fps gyro-EIS, OIS, HDR, 10-bit video |
Front camera: |
50MP Wide Camera
|
Video features: | 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60fps gyro-EIS |
Battery and charging | Si/C 5270 mAh - Europe-only model 100W wired, 100% in 33 min 80W wireless, 100% in 44 min Reverse wireless 5W reverse wired |
Connectivity: | 2x Nano-SIM or 2x eSIM Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6/7, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct Bluetooth 5.4, A2DP, LE, apt-X HD |
NFC | Yes, HCE, NFC-SIM |
Ports: | USB Type-C 3.2, DisplayPort 1.2, OTG |
Bands | 5G NR, 4G TDD-LTE / FDD LTE, 3G WCDMA, 2G GSM |
GPS: | GPS (L1+L5), GLONASS, BDS (B1I+B1c+B2a), GALILEO (E1+E5a) |
Durability: | HONOR NanoCrystal Shield, 10X drop resistance SGS 5-Star glass drop resistance ability certification in multiple scenarios IP68 and IP69-Rated water and dust resistance |
Security: | Fingerprint (under display, ultrasonic), Face ID, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass Emergency SOS via satellite (messages and calls) |
Material: | Glass front (NanoCrystal Shield), glass back |
OS: | MagicOS 9.0 (Powered by Android 15) |
Colors: | Lunar Shadow Grey, Breeze Blue, Black |
MSRP: | £1,099.99 / €1,299.99 / ~$1,349.99 |
One thing that you might notice immediately is that the pricing aligns with the S24+ launch price from a year ago. We don't have the S25+ pricing for comparison, but we can already agree that this flagship from HONOR is not cheap.
The colors offered on the product page are Lunar Shadow Grey, Breeze Blue, and Black. Ours is the Grey variant. I've put the full bands it supports in a table below.
Bands | |
---|---|
2G: | GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 |
3G: | HSDPA 800 / 850 / 900 / 1700(AWS) / 1900 / 2100 |
4G: | LTE |
5G: | SA/NSA |
Looking at the specs on paper, this is a quality flagship that can rival anything brought out on the market today and probably even exceed in some areas, like the ample-sized battery and 100W (88W wireless) charging for one.
In the box
- HONOR Magic7 Pro
- Sim Eject Tool
- USB Type-C cable (1M)
It should be noted that my minimal out-of-box experience may have to do with the review sample itself, as I had no charger or even documentation included in the box. According to the official product page,
Two weeks later update: There has been a bit of confusion surrounding what Honor ships in the box to customers, but I can now confirm that a charger is shipped in the box in Europe. In fact Honor made quite a meal out of it by poking a bit of fun at Samsung during its S25 launch announcement.
One can expect the following in the box (taken from the official specs page):
- Phone (Built-in battery) x 1
- HONOR SuperCharge x 1
- Type-C Cable x 1
- Quick Start Guide x 1
- Eject Tool x 1
- Warranty Card x 1
- TP protective film (Attached on the phone before delivery) x 1
Day 1
The first thing I noticed when unboxing it was the weight. Even at just 223g, it is only 10 grams lighter than the S23 Ultra but almost 30 grams heavier than the S24+ for those extra 370mAh of battery when compared to the latter.
The design is quite lovely with its rounded edges and almost 90% screen-to-body ratio.
I made a few calls on it, and the call quality was excellent, but that's the minimum you should expect from any phone, let alone one that costs this much. The earpiece speaker was quite loud, so I actually checked if it was on hands-free speaker mode (it wasn't).
Design
It is a typical candy bar shape with a triple camera mega hump housing on the top middle rear that you will find on many smartphones. The front and back are made up of HONOR's own proprietary glass, which is called NanoCrystal Shield, and around the sides is made up of a metal housing. The metal around the side and antenna lines is sort of iPhone-esq if you ask me, but maybe you should ignore me because the last iPhone I owned was the iPhone 4 (not counting the iPhone SE 2 backup). However, as I always experience with smartphones, it all ends up feeling like it will slip out of my hand without a case.
On the rear, the camera array consists of a 200MP main camera, along with two 50MP wide and ultrawide cameras. Centered at the top of the camera array is an LED flash.
On the right side of the phone, you will find the volume rocker and a power key that doubles as an action button. The keys have a good height and are easily detected by feel. All of those buttons are completely smooth.
On the left side, there are no openings at all.
On the bottom, from left to right, there's a speaker grill, a USB Type C charger port for the included 1 m USB Type C-to-USB Type C cable, a mic hole, and the SIM tray.
The top of the Magic7 Pro has another speaker grill and two pinholes, the function of which is not documented. On the front of the device and in the camera cutout, you'll find the 50 MP front-facing camera. There is no notification LED, which is actually redundant thanks to full always-on-display (AOD) support.
The back has a cool texture effect, which captures the light. I made a short video above to show what I mean. It's kind of cool and adds to the premium feel of the device.
Display
The Magic7 Pro has a 6.8-inch screen and is only 8.8 mm in thickness. That weight also feels like it is distributed evenly across the phone, in spite of its relatively large camera hump that adds a few millimeters when the phone is lying on a flat surface.
The LTPO OLED display has a 1280 x 2800 screen resolution, with a 453 PPI pixel density, a 19.5:9 aspect ratio, and "NanoCrystal Shield" protection. HONOR claims the display has a 5000-nit peak brightness for HDR content (supporting Dolby Vision), and 1600 nits in High Brightness Mode. I found the screen to be excellent, vibrant, and bright enough all the time I was using it in Adaptive refresh rate mode, which automatically adjusts the refresh rate between 1-120Hz depending on the app being used.
Two weeks later update: I should note that a screen protector was preinstalled, and after a couple of weeks use it was already full of scratches, so I removed it. I have used my Galaxy S23 Ultra for the past two years without a screen protector, and I can only see a few superficial scratches under a lit magnifying lens. I fully expect the "NanoCrystal Shield" protection to offer the same, if not better resistance.
Cameras
As I have said in previous smartphone reviews I've done, I am no camera buff. I'm a point-and-shoot kind of guy, but it is clear to me that smartphone makers seem to want to concentrate a hell of a lot on camera quality, sometimes at the expense of other features, and on paper, at least, here is also no exception.
On the rear, the Magic7 Pro comprises an AI Falcon Camera System with a 50MP Super Dynamic Falcon Main Camera, a 200MP Telephoto Camera, and a 50MP Wide Camera making up the triple array.
Optical image stabilization (OIS) and PDAF (phase detection auto focus), which is a high-speed automatic focus technology, are also included.
As you can see in the above photos, It was mostly cloudy and overcast, with the sun sometimes coming through on different days that I made the photos; scene images came out rather well. The first three pictures were used to take advantage of the AI Super Zoom functionality, with the third picture using the maximum zoom of 100x.
I found it quite difficult to focus with the larger zoom, and it took several attempts to capture the bridge. With other shots that I made, I tried to find things with a lot of color, and it became clear that they came out quite a bit over-saturated. To me, the zoom is a bit of a gimmick feature. You need real steady hands or a tripod to really make use of it.
Again, with nighttime image captures, scenes performed the best, although I was surprised with the result of the sixth picture (street scene), which was quite out of focus. I have taken photos in the same spot before with cheaper rugged phones without OIS, and these mostly came out better than what we're seeing here. You can also see my mostly failed attempt at capturing the moon closeup at 100X, although HONOR says nighttime captures employ crowd generative AI at over 30X zoom.
Software
The Magic7 Pro ships with MagicOS 9, which is based on Android 15, with the January 2025 Security Update, which is the newest at the time of writing. My contact told me that our review should be based on 9.0.0.132, which was pushed with an OTA update in early January. However, in terms of software updates and support, HONOR will push Security updates once a month for the Magic series. My contact told me that in Europe HONOR typically provides five years of software updates including security patches and new features.
I have never used MagicOS before; from looking online, feelings are mixed, with some calling it an iOS knockoff with a laggy and buggy experience. Personally, I use Nova Prime on my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, so although it was installed thanks to Android Switch, I stuck with HONOR Home for the purpose of the review and was pleasantly surprised.
I used Android Switch during setup and also transferred my eSIM from my Galaxy S23 Ultra; you can see the entire process above, which also included pages of opt-in services along with an optional invite to the User Experience Program and enabling Location Services.
Thankfully, the Magic7 Pro also employs the default gestures found in most Androids, so I was off to a great start on the Home screen. I found navigating through MagicOS to be a pleasant experience, and I experienced no lag despite having a number of apps opened in the background.
Speaking of the Home screen, which uses HONOR Home by default, this is highly customizable. You can change just about everything; in fact, the only thing I found that was not possible to change is the ability to remove labels from icons, which was a bit disappointing, given you can change just about everything else.
I was also pleased to see a highly customizable AOD, which Samsung could take note of here. It must be noted that to get to HONOR Home settings, you have to navigate through the Settings to "Home screen & style"—there is no long press on the Home screen to launch the settings, which I found a bit strange.
The power button and Volume Down keys can also be mapped to launch a few tools like the camera, torch, Recorder, Timer and Calculator. It is not possible to map to an app or something else.
Another cool thing I discovered by accident is the AOD when the phone is flipped onto its side in landscape mode. It can become a bit distracting on my desk as it is so bright, but it is kind of cool. My colleague, Taras, commented that it is ripped straight from iOS. Android guy here, so I will just believe him.
Notification hell
One thing that bothered me most about MagicOS 9 is the notifications. It seems like unless the app itself has specific notification channels (many do not) then it is an all or nothing deal, this is because there is a setting for "Gentle notifications" but this is ambiguous, I enabled it on some apps and it seemed to simply suppress the notifications to the notifications center, which results in not being alerted at all about certain aspects of an app you care about. Long pressing on a notification doesn't take me to the apps notification settings, this all needs to be managed in the global notifications center. I feel like this is something HONOR will need to address, or simply bake the stock notification channels into the OS, which is included in the Android stock experience, but missing here.
Two weeks later update: It seems that notification management has received a few updates in the last month, you can swipe right on any notification to disable or manage it, and another cool feature is if you go into the notification's settings you might be presented with a huge list of notification channels, however the one you are editing will flash as you scroll the list, ensuring that you are editing the correct notification to block or modify, which is a really cool feature!
AI Eraser
It would be criminal not to mention this fun feature. When taking photos and then editing, you can choose to erase objects (or maybe friends or family you no longer like) in the photo, and the results are quite impressive. I mean, it's by no means a 100% professional Photoshop job, the likes of which you will need to appeal to the professionals on Reddit or social media, but for quick edits with acceptable results, it is perfectly fine and fun!
So you want to get rid of something in a photo, no matter how large (we'll come to this later), simply open the photo in the gallery and tap on Edit, then AI Erase; it tells you to circle what you want to erase, and after manual selection, the process detects the full object and captures what will be removed or replaced.
As you can see, the AI even captures the reflection of the boat. Below are a couple of examples of before and after. Mind you, I should also note that these objects were erased in one go, not after a second or third attempt.
Original | AI erased |
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As you can see, the results are definitely acceptable, but your results may vary. For example, when I wanted to remove a much larger object, it took four attempts until the object was completely removed. Considering that the mobile scooter takes up most of the image, this is quite impressive in itself.
I decided to see exactly how capable AI erase is with the above first image. It takes up most of the shot, but after several attempts at erasing it finally gave me a result without replacing it with another object, which is quite impressive. I haven't been able to test the people-removing capabilities yet, although I plan to update this with the results over the weekend. If you were out clubbing or at a family get-together and need to remove a certain person, the Magic7 Pro is definitely your friend.
There are no costs associated with the AI-powered tools that HONOR delivers with the Magic7 Pro either, which is also cool. HONOR Magic7 Pro also comes with the Gemini AI Assistant, which is worth a mention.
Performance and Battery Life
The phone offers up to 100W charging speed (wired) and 88W wirelessly; however, as I previously mentioned, and is required by the EU, HONOR does not include a SuperCharger in the box. I purchased an HONOR SuperCharger and connected it to a PC with USB4/Thunderbolt 4 but was disappointed to learn that it maxes out at 27W.
I wasn't even getting that because it said Fast Charge, with an estimated charge time of 3h 30 mins. I switched to my Samsung Travel Adapter, which is rated for up to 45W, also using the cable that HONOR shipped in the box and saw that it switched to Super Fast Charging, but only at 27W. All in all, it took three hours to charge.
For those who love benchmarks, a few are below. I started with GFXBench 5, which tests the GPU.
The Magic7 Pro's best score was 6,297 frames @ 98 Fps, which puts it just under the Galaxy S24's score of 6,676 but comfortably above the Galaxy S23+'s score of 5,943 in Aztec Ruin's High Tier.
Next up, I ran Geekbench 6, which returned a score of 2,907, souring past the Galaxy S24 Ultra in Single-Core mode by 730 points. However, in Multi-Core mode, the S24 Ultra beats the Magic7 Pro's 6,243 score by 538 points, which could indicate some tweaking still needs to be done for the Snapdragon Elite's multi-core processing.
Last but not least, the AnTuTu benchmark tests came in at 2,015,912 points, which puts it well above the Galaxy S24 Ultra at 1,813,031. Comparing the HONOR to last year's phones may not be completely fair, but we can gauge how far we've come in a generation by pitting it against a comparable flagship.
Yes, this includes the brand new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite, launched last October. The benchmark results, although important, should be taken into consideration with other findings, which show that the SoC appears to have mixed results across devices, possibly as a result of underclocking (for better battery results) or other reasons.
Conclusion
One thing that I love about this phone is the face unlock. It is unlike anything I have previously used. HONOR says in its documentation that it uses 3D Face Recognition, and it really shows. When I pick the phone up, it immediately unlocks, so I only have to swipe from the lock screen. I literally cannot fault it. It seems like it does not require you to point your face to the screen at all for it to recognize you and unlock; it is just super fast. The same can be said of the fingerprint sensor; it is quick.
Time will tell if MagicOS 9 slows to a crawl, as is feared by many users on Reddit who have had their say on it. I think OS slowdowns affect all handsets; the more apps you install and have running in the background, the more it slows stuff down, but MagicOS 9 appears to have a (annoying) warning when an application seems to be using a lot of battery that you can't permanently dismiss. The tools are there to fix lag and slowdowns.
If I am honest, I haven't used MagicOS 9 long enough to make an informed opinion, one of the reasons was due to the fact I was not able to transfer my bank passes to it, in order to fully switch over and leave my Galaxy S23 Ultra at home. My contact told me that another update sometime after the middle of January would allow the features of Google Wallet to work, but my first impressions and two weeks of use are positive.
The HONOR Magic7 Pro is available now at major UK retailers (O2, Three, Vodafone, Amazon, Argos,
Very, Currys and honor.com/uk) from £1,099.99 and on Amazon UK from £1,091.65 with a free MagicPad 2 (worth £499.99) until Feb 20 2025, which seems like an incredible deal. It is also available in Europe for €1,299.99.
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