Honor’s flagship smartphone, the Magic 8 Pro, has launched globally with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, a 7,100mAh battery, and a 200MP periscope telephoto camera. The smartphone made its debut in China in October, and the global debut begins in Malaysia. The Chinese model has a slightly bigger 7,200mAh battery with faster 120W charging support. Although higher, they won’t make much of a difference in real-world experience.
The Honor Magic 8 Pro continues with the same design as its predecessor. It’s a strikingly large circular camera module housing three sensors. The smartphone comes in three colours: Black, Sunrise Gold and Sky Cyan. Up front is a 6.71-inch 1.5K LTPO OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and 6,000 nits of HDR brightness, which is one of the highest you can find on a smartphone. Like most of the new Android flagships, the Honor Magic 8 Pro is also powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC. Compared to the Honor Magic 7 Pro’s Snapdragon 8 Elite, the new model is designed to offer improved performance by 20 percent and 35 percent CPU power efficiency.
Its triple-camera setup includes a 200MP periscope telephoto sensor with 3.7x optical zoom and up to 100x digital zoom. There’s a 50MP primary camera and a 50MP ultra-wide camera as well. For selfies, you get a 50MP selfie camera and a 3D depth sensor. This is a good setup for a flagship smartphone, but its performance is something we can only determine after reviewing it. The Honor flagship also comes with this ‘Magic Color’ feature, which is claimed to be the first-ever AI-powered colour tuning for photos. The 200MP telephoto sensor is also designed to take stunning night shots, which should give it an edge over competing flagships.
The Honor Magic 8 Pro is one of the few flagships to offer a 7,000mAh+ battery. It packs a 7,100mAh battery with 100W fast charging, and 80W wireless charging support. This setup is one of the best you’d get on a flagship smartphone. The Honor Magic 8 Pro is highly durable with IP68, IP69, and IP69K ratings for dust and water resistance, and the brand’s NanoCrystal Shield for display protection. You also get an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor with the Magic 8 Pro.
In Malaysia, the Magic 8 Pro has been launched at RM 4,599 (Rs 1,00,043 approx) for the base model with 12GB RAM with 512GB storage variant. It comes in another variant with 16GB RAM with 1TB storage model, which costs RM 5,199 (Rs 1,13,094 approx). There’s no word of an India launch for the Honor Magic 8 Pro yet. The brand did make sort of a comeback in 2023, with the launch of the Honor 90, followed by the Honor 200 series last year. It also launched the Honor X9c in India earlier this year, but no flagship phone in recent times. The brand is also reportedly struggling with new launches due to import issues in the country. So, it’s not clear if the Magic 8 Pro will arrive in India or not.
If the Magic 8 Pro does arrive here, it would be an interesting addition to the flagship lineup competing against the likes of OnePlus 15, OPPO Find X9 Pro, and the iQOO 15.
For those in Malaysia, you can consider the Magic 8 Pro if you prioritise battery life, photograghy, and flagship performance. If you’re in India, it’s best to wait for official confirmation and pricing before making any decisions, as current flagships offer compelling alternatives.
