Honor Magic8 Pro hands-on review

Introduction

This is the Honor Magic8 Pro and it's among the best camera-centric flagships you can get in late 2025. It has all the bells and whistles you'd want in a flagship - a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC, a gorgeous display, a big battery, and capable cameras. The only thing that's missing is Qi2 magnets (read MagSafe) built in.

What's even better is that this phone is coming to global markets at large - it's not just a China-exclusive phone like some of its rivals. So far, so good then. But there are some caveats. Like several other phones, the Magic8 Pro is selective about battery capacity depending on the market.

If you’re in China, you get the full 7,200mAh pack. If you have a "global" unit, you get a slightly smaller 7,100mAh battery. The difference is so small that it doesn't matter. However, if you're in Europe, you only get a 6,270mAh battery - that's around 13% less or a similar reduction to the vivo X300 Pro which gets 16% less in Europe. Still, objectively, the battery capacity is notably better than on the vivo.

Battery discrepancy aside, the Honor Magic8 Pro is shaping up as a mightily great phone. The Honor Magic7 Pro, which this phone replaces, was already great, especially in the imaging department. But the Magic8 brings a couple of interesting improvements.

Honor Magic8 Pro specs at a glance:

• Body: 161.2x75.0x8.3mm, 219g; Glass front (Giant Rhino Glass), fiber-reinforced plastic back; IP68/IP69K dust tight and water resistant (high pressure water jets; immersible up to 1.5m for 30 min).
• Display: 6.71" LTPO OLED, 1B colors, 120Hz, 4320Hz PWM, Dolby Vision, HDR Vivid, 1800 nits (HBM), 6000 nits (peak), 1256x2808px resolution, 20.12:9 aspect ratio, 458ppi; HDR image support.
• Chipset: Qualcomm SM8850-AC Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (3 nm): Octa-core (2x4.6 GHz Oryon V3 Phoenix L + 6x3.62 GHz Oryon V3 Phoenix M); Adreno 840.
• Memory: 256GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 16GB RAM, 1TB 16GB RAM; UFS 4.1.
• OS/Software: Android 16, up to 7 major Android upgrades, MagicOS 10.
• Rear camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/1.6, 23mm, 1/1.3", 1.2µm, multi-directional PDAF, OIS; Telephoto: 200 MP, f/2.6, 85mm, 1/1.4", 0.56µm, multi-directional PDAF, OIS, 3.7x optical zoom; Ultra wide angle: 50 MP, f/2.0, 12mm, 122˚, 1/2.88", 0.61µm, dual pixel PDAF.
• Front camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/2.0, 21mm, 1/2.93", 0.6µm, PDAF; Depth: TOF 3D.
• Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@24/30/60/120fps, 1080p@24/30/60/120/240fps, gyro-EIS, OIS, HDR, 10-bit video; Front camera: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60fps, gyro-EIS.
• Battery: 7100mAh (Global); 6270 mAh (Europe); 100W wired, 80W wireless, Reverse wireless, 5W reverse wired.
• Connectivity: 5G; eSIM; Wi-Fi 7; BT 6.0, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, LHDC 5, Auracast, ASHA; NFC; Infrared port.
• Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, ultrasonic); large amplitude stereo speakers.

The main camera ditches the variable aperture lens, and it has a bit of a wider field of view at 23mm. You can head on over to page 3 of this article to see how the camera performs as we took it around Hong Kong.

The ultrawide was already great, and the Magic8 Pro doesn't change it - it's wider than most at 12mm, and has a bright f/2.0 lens and a big 50MP sensor.

The telephoto has gotten better. What was a 60mm optical unit (that ussed a crop zoom to shoot at 72mm by default) on the previous phone is now an 85mm native lens with an f/2.6 aperture. The sensor may sound the same on paper - a 200MP 1/1.4-inch unit - but it's the newer ISOCELL HP9.

So, solid cameras all-around. The top-shelf processing is also covered. And it's a globally available phone. Not a bad start for Honor's Magic8 Pro - it seems like it has all the basics covered.

Join us on the next page where we'll tackle the physical aspect of the phone on the next page.