Verdict
The Honor Magic 6 Pro is the all - babble out , all - dance 2024 flagship that seems to extend the complete package , from a premium design to a lovely screen , impressive photographic camera public presentation and all - day bombardment life-time – but computer software irks stop it from being the perfect Galaxy S24 Ultra option .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
The Honor Magic 6 Pro has the potency to rock up the status quo of the high-pitched - end smartphone market place , bringing the competitiveness to Samsung ’s top - end Galaxy S24 Ultra .
That ’s not just true in terms of hardware , with the Magic 6 Pro sporting not only more advanced screen technical school but a camera setup with a range of first gear that could potentially slip the Samsung flagship ’s zoom top .
There ’s also a exchange premium design , all - day battery life and hearty top - end performance on go , ticking peck of boxes for what a flagship smartphone in 2024 could offer up .
laurels ’s big weakness extend to be MagicOS however ; there ’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it , but the iOS inspiration is more obvious now than ever , and its GenAI features are n’t quite as sophisticated as first trust either .
It ’s also more expensive than the £ 949 Honor Magic Pro at £ 1,099 , but while nobody appreciates a price wage increase , I kind of get it . The Magic 6 Pro is totally more capable than its predecessor , specially in the television camera department , and that terms still comes in at £ 150 less than the 256 GB Galaxy S24 Ultra .
The question is , is the hardware good enough to put up with Honor ’s heavy stylised approach to Android ? You might be surprise by the answer .
Design
The Honor Magic 6 Pro is n’t a complete reinvention of last year’sMagic 5 Pro , but there ’s certainly an phylogeny to the innovation with this yr ’s flagship . That ’s most obvious when looking at the rear of the phone , sporting either a glassful or vegan leather rear calculate on the finish you opt for .
The greenish variant I was send out for review comes with a textured finish that ’s not only grippy but thoroughly - looking , with an tantamount effect present within the centrally placed ‘ Star Wheel ’ camera island that helps tie the two together . The slight golden tinge on the aluminium frame and component of the camera bump distich well with the light green finish while also looking very premium .
If that ’s not your cupful of Camellia sinensis , it ’s also available in black with a more traditional glass finish .
riffle the phone over , however , and you ’ll be recognize with a familiar combination of a curl all - screen aim , all over with Honor ’s signature tune dual camera cutout on the screen . It ’s not just big for the saki of being big either , featuring a dead on target alternative to confront ID that , like Apple ’s choice , works even in complete darkness .
Generally speak , I do prefer a 2-dimensional screen , but there ’s no denying that the curved nature of the Magic 6 Pro ’s 6.8 - inch screen intend it ’s much easy to wield than the comparatively box-shaped 6.8 - inchSamsung Galaxy S24 Ultra . That ’s not to say it ’s in particular light or thin , mensurate in at 225 g and 8.9 mm severally , but that ponderousness does at least make the phone sense robust in the hired man .
It ’ll likely still be a two - handed gimmick for some , but it does at least sit decent and snug in the thenar of my hand , and the rear television camera protrusion reduplicate up as a handy financial backing area for my finger to rest on . I ’m not trusted that was an intended lineament , but it works yet .
honour has also upped the strength of this yr ’s flagship , not only in the form of the fall IP68 dust and H2O resistance but young screen trade protection tech . It ’s not theCorning Gorilla Armorof the S24 Ultra , rather sporting Honor ’s in - business firm - developed NanoCrystal Shield that the ship’s company take is 10x more drop - resistant than its predecessor .
Screen
award ’s screen technical school is often some of the dependable around , and that ’s just as true with the unexampled Magic 6 Pro and its sensational curved 6.8 - column inch AMOLED display . It ’s not only openhanded and high-pitched - resolution at 1280 x 2800 , but it sports a superfluity of exchange premium screen tech like a120Hzrefresh charge per unit withLTPO 3.0that let the covert drop to 1Hz to save battery life sentence alongside the the likes of of Dolby Vision backup .
However , it go even further than that . Alongside existing eyecare - focus features from Honor that we ’ve seen from past smartphones , like Natural Tone Display , active Dimming and exceptionally fast4320Hz PWM Dimming , the Magic 6 Pro sports the brightest screen on the grocery store at an center - watering 5000nits when watch out HDR content .
Even without HDR content , the 1600nits peak brightness means that the screen is both easily legible in smart sunshine and open of delivering an exceptional HDR experience .
It ’s dependable to say that Honor has throw in the proverbial kitchen sink when it comes to filmdom smarts , with more technical school than you ’ll find on premium alternatives like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra , and it ’s extremely customisable too .
That all translates to a screen that ’s an absolute delight to the eyes , and one that ’s great not only for scrolling through Instagram and TikTok but binging series ’ on Netflix and Disney+ , with the vibrant colours of the AMOLED panel lending themselves particularly well to documentaries like David Attenborough ’s Life in Colour .
That ’s paired with two-channel verbalizer that sit atop and below the screen in its regular portrayal orientation course . The pair helps deliver a more immersive stereo sound experience without the pauperization to use headphones , and they ’re pretty garish too , though the side - climb nature does mean you might incidentally enshroud them up when play .
These , of course , wo n’t replace a pair of headphone , lacking the bass and clarity of a good pair of cans , but they ’re more than serviceable for observe YouTube when cooking dinner .
Cameras
If there ’s an area where the Honor Magic 6 Pro truly stands out , it ’s the photographic camera section – and that ’s saying something considering just how much tech is packed into this class ’s flagship . Simply put , the Magic 6 Pro is gunning for the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra ’s rapid growth summit with a particularly impressive threesome of lenses .
Let ’s jump with the primary camera ; at 50MP , it ’d be easy to publish off , but there ’s much more to camera performance than megapixel reckoning . To that last , the primary sensor not only boast what Honor trace as an “ diligence - first customised HDR sensor with radical - large dynamic cooking stove ” that , when combined with a passably turgid 1/1.3 - in sensor , can hike up active range by up to 800 % .
That ’s , of row , hard to quantify , but it ’s easy to spot when require photos of my German Shepherd , Luna . While her drear face looks almost silhouette - the like in a quite a little of photo , the Magic 6 Pro had no issue picking out all the details I could see with the naked middle .
It ’s also one of a growing routine of lens that pop the question varying aperture technical school , give up the sensor to switch between f/1.4 and f/2.0 depend on what ’s being shoot . near - up blastoff from the master lens have a real DSLR - similar look to them , complete with a instinctive bokeh that looks right smart good than software program - based option . It also mean that , with such a wide-cut aperture , the main television camera excels in humble - brightness conditions .
That all said , images from the master sensor sure as shooting do n’t let down . They ’re crisp , vibrant without being too contrived - looking at and , unsurprisingly , handle brilliant spots and low office exceedingly well with very little bollocks up out or too dark to make out details .
For me , though , it ’s the periscope lens that ’s the most interesting – and , simply put , Samsung should be more than a small interested .
The 180MP 2.5x periscope lens system is not only the most pixel - jam around , but it has a particularly wide f/2.6 aperture and the largest periscope sensor at 1/1.49 inches . It also allows Honor to take reward of 16 - in-1 pixel binning tech to further hike up contingent and light . That combination of tech essentially allows gamy - lineament shots not only at 2.5x but also up to 10x and beyond , matching the 100x zoom of the S24 Ultra .
And , truly , I cerebrate I might opt the results from the Magic 6 Pro – between the 2.5x and 10x mark anyway – as it not only equal the overall looking at of those from the S24 Ultra with corresponding spirit level of detail , but it offers fashion more true - to - life sentence people of color tuning than Samsung ’s flagship . The blues of the sky depend the correct shade , and though the super acid of forage can still see a little bittoogreen , it does n’t take away from the overall look .
It ’s also much more performative in depressed - Inner Light consideration than most other periscope lenses I ’ve used , though I ’m only really talking about dim indoor weather rather than complete swarthiness . It still ca n’t quite handle the latter , but that ’s not really a surprise .
round off out the trio is a 50MP ultrawide with a 122 - degree FOV and similarly high-pitched - end tech including a clean large 1/2.88 - inch sensor and f/2.0 aperture . As with the other lenses , the ultrawide delivers largely great operation in well - alight conditions and even contain its own in low - light conditions , cook it a great pick for scenic aspect and those big group selfies .
Flip the earphone over and you ’ll find a 50MP selfie photographic camera . Though it ’s easy to forget about selfie tv camera , autofocus technical school and an f/2.0 aperture make this a particularly impressive alternative . It wo n’t substitute the rearward lens system , of row , but it ’ll more than suffice for the casual selfie and video call likewise .
Performance
purity has gone all - out with performance - related specs , sporting not only theSnapdragon 8 Gen 3 , but a good for you 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of UFS 4.0 storage as measure . That ’s a big advance compared to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus which come with 128 GB of repositing at the entry point .
It ’s probably a good matter though , considering there ’s no microSD card time slot to further expand memory board capacity at a late date .
As you ’re probably look given it ’s a trend among Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 devices like the Galaxy S24 Ultra andOnePlus 12 , the Magic 6 Pro is an right-down public presentation beast that ’s adequate to of handling just about anything I could throw at it .
That ’s not only the case in cosmopolitan use , with larder - smooth scrolling , near - instant app load times and lightning - fast answer time , but when gaming too , and that ’s largely back up by benchmark tests .
The phone could handle the the likes of of Call of Duty Mobile and Genshin Impact with high - degree graphics enable , and with the excess of big businessman from the chipset , that ’ll likely stay the case for some time . It wo n’t maintain gameplay for quite as long as a consecrate gaming telephone set like theROG Phone 8 Pro Edition , but it ’ll do for casual gamers like me .
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 also provide for on - equipment GenAI capableness – something that the Magic 6 Pro also takes advantage of – but more on that in a bit .
Software and AI
It ’s clear at this distributor point that Honor has a firm grip on hardware , delivering a great combination of design , blind technical school , capable cameras and sinewy operation , but the same ca n’t quite be said for Honor ’s MagicOS 8 that sits atop Android 14 on the Magic 6 professional .
The update MagicOS 8 is arguably the closest to Io you ’ll get on an Android right now . That ’s apparent not only by the classic notification centre and quick scope break up that has been a staple of MagicOS for some time , but new features too .
Those include a customisable ringlet screen with very similar baptistry and layout to that of iOS , a standardized Standby Mode that appears when the phone ’s on charge and horizontally placed , and it even utilise the dual notch to provide a Dynamic Island - esque experience with shortcuts to music controls , timer and more throughout the atomic number 76 .
It ’s not only totally dissimilar to the even Android 14 tegument but it ’s still not quite up to the tiptop - polished grade of iOS , sit or else in an awkward halfway soil . in person , I finger like Android skins should n’t try and emulate iOS – if I wanted an iPhone , I ’d purchase an iPhone – but others may feel differently .
It ’s also miss reasonably basic features present on other Android hide , like the power to see how much barrage fire is remaining in a pair of connect Bluetooth headphones . You also have to unlock the phone and get at the Home filmdom if you require to get to the quick crosscut , which kind of defeats the purpose of hold them in the first place .
UI gripes aside , two of the big raw feature article of MagicOS 8 are MagicPortal and MagicLM , features that look to offer a unique approaching to GenAI . Rather than utilising features like Samsung ’s Galaxy AI to transcribe calls , rewrite text and the like , Honor ’s approach is all unlike .
According to Honor , MagicPortal can analyze messages , figure and other content for spirit and provide cutoff to apps it conceive you might need , but I ’ve found it to be much more limited in my pre - launch testing .
For one , the manner you activate the supporter is rather convoluted and depends not only on what you ’re dragging and dropping but the app in head . Most apps I used do n’t offer the ability to simply drop back and drop text edition or photo from one app to another , so the option is to either manually select the text in - app yourself and , if that ’s not possible , share a screenshot .
The problem with the latter is that there does n’t seem to be any psychoanalysis of tell screenshot to work out what you want to do with it , alternatively share generic share actions for send on Instagram , Facebook and the similar .
The only real succeeder of MagicPortal in my experience has been navigation ; I selected an address and drag it into the Google Maps app via MagicPortal , and it not only opened Google Maps for me but mechanically selected the destination and start up piloting .
Still , overall , I ’d say that it ’s a fairly limit use case of what GenAI can do , and I can only hope that it gets smarter over the derive month .
Honor MagicLM , on the other hand , is an on - twist helper that can not only handle oecumenical knowledge queries like ChatGPT or Google Gemini but also edit photos and television from your gallery base on your description , help site specific files on your gimmick , arrange taxi , create seaworthiness programme and more .
It ’s not a feature available during the inspection period , but it ’s something I ’ll turn over into once the update arrives on my sample . However , as it stand , I find likeSamsung ’s Galaxy AI toolsare style more helpful in Clarence Shepard Day Jr. - to - sidereal day life than what the Magic 6 Pro whirl .
Battery life
When it hail to assault and battery life , the Honor Magic 6 Pro not only excels but it does so in a rather unique means compare to most of the rival . It not only boast one of the high-pitched capacity electric cell around at 5,600mAh , but it ’s made from Si - carbon or else of the regular lithium - ion .
That ’s not onlymuchbetter for the planet as silicon is much more abundant and less harmful , but it allows the Magic 6 Pro to have a modest , more dim assault and battery that ’ll remain to sour in super cold environments . There ’s also micro chip - level existent - time voltage detection and power management that essentially optimise both the discharge and charge process to meliorate general longevity .
That ’s all a roundabout way of enjoin that the Honor Magic 6 Pro has exceptional everyday battery life . The Magic 6 Pro would usually cease a 16 - hour day with around 45 - 50 % left in the army tank , and that ’s with around 3.5 hour of filmdom - on time on middling .
That ’s with optional lineament like an always - on exhibit and maximal resolution enable , by the manner . It ’ll easily last most multitude well into a 2nd day ’s use , with around 6 - 7 hours of screen time overall , specially if you ’re a piffling less gung - ho with your battery - draining feature film than I am .
That ’s paired with both 80W Honor SuperCharge and 66W Wireless Supercharge , give you a choice of wired or wireless degraded bear down technical school . Crucially , they ’ll replenish the battery ’s charge reasonably tight . The catch ? Neither a charge brick nor a wireless courser comes in the box , so you ’ll have to invest in those separately .
Using a third - political party 100W USB - C charger I had ready to hand , I found that the Honor Magic 6 Pro gained 50 % billing in 18 mo , with a full heraldic bearing in just 45 minutes . That ’s pretty rapid , even if it ’s not up to the 26 moment of the OnePlus 12 . Besides , you might fare slenderly better if you use the prescribed Honor SuperCharger .
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Should you buy it?
The Honor Magic 6 Pro can compete with some of the best snappers around with a very capable trio of lenses on the rear .
Honor ’s MagicOS 8 is pretty far from the stock Android approaching you ’ll find from thePixel 8andMotorola Edge 40 Pro , and it can take a luck of getting used to.&bsp ;
Final Thoughts
The Honor Magic 6 Pro is a feasible alternative toSamsung ’s Galaxy S24 Ultra , bid corresponding – if not better – television camera carrying out than Samsung ’s flagship , along with a gorgeous curved design , eminent - end concealment tech with an industriousness - leading 5000nits peak luminance , fantabulous operation from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and all - day battery life – and all at a cheaper monetary value point than Samsung ’s top - terminal alternative .
It ’s not complete , particularly in the computer software department where I experience that Honor ’s MagicOS 8 could do with a few QOL tweak and less of a focus on being an iOS dupe . It also miss long - term support , offer 4 bone upgrade and five years of security patches , while thePixel 8and Galaxy S24 offer an lengthy seven years of update , and its MagicPortal AI technical school is a picayune lacklustre at launching .
However , I find that the huge absolute majority of user could learn to inhabit with Honor ’s software quirkiness when there ’s such slap-up hardware on pass .
Trusted Score
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FAQs
Yes , you ’ll get both rapid 80W wire and 60W wireless charging , but neither comes in the boxwood .
It tender IP68 detritus and water resistor as well as Honor ’s own proprietary projection screen protection tech that should protect it from drop .
Test Data
Full Specs
