Honor Magic 6 Pro review: the anti-iPhone

Honor Magic 6 Pro review: There is always competition in the flagship phone market; this is nothing new. However, 2024 seems to be the closest race to the top of the tree yet. On paper, the Honour Magic 6 Pro seems impressive, but it faces fierce competition.

Having said that, the last two Honour flagships have been very impressive. While we thought last year’s Magic 5 Pro was another excellent effort, we also thought the 2022 Magic 4 Pro was a welcome “shock to the system.” Modern specifications and outstanding performance have replaced glaring shortcomings and cost-cutting.

Nevertheless, there are a lot of similarities with the model from the previous year, and a comparison of the spec sheet reveals a lot.

Is Honour up to par to earn a triple five star rating? That will be challenging, mostly due to its ￡1099 starting price, which makes it more costly than the ￡999 512GB OnePlus 12 (which has since been further discounted) and S24 Plus at launch.

NB We’re not sure if the early bird discount that is currently available to reduce the price of the phone to ￡849.99 will last.

Honor Magic 6 Pro Features

Design and display

This is where many brands are beginning to find it difficult to innovate in external design. Yes, it has been a while since we’ve seen a truly unconventional smartphone design. Particularly for the black version, it’s easy to see how similar these phones are to those from Honour and other vendors. Although it has a unique polymer back, the Epi green design is more eye-catching, not everyone will find it appealing. That said, things are still impressive in person, with the large 6.8-inch LTPO OLED display looking fantastic. The brightness can reach an astounding 5000nits at its peak, and the refresh rate was 12Hz, as is now considered normal. It is certified for Dolby Vision as well. When Honour unveiled this phone, it also made a big deal about eye comfort, and it has been working to improve the usability of the screen dimming technology.

As one might anticipate, the Magic 6 Pro has an IP68 rating for resistance to dust and water. It’s interesting to note that, depending on the model, the weight has increased by a few grammes from the previous year to between 229 and 245 grammes. At 8.9mm, it’s not the thinnest either.

We were unable to verify Honor’s claims of significantly enhanced drop resistance. But because of its upgraded NanoCrystal Shield glass, Honor’s drop resistance has earned it a full five-star certification.

It’s interesting to note that there are fewer pixels overall than in the display from last year—2800 x 1280 pixels—resulting in a pixel density of 453 ppi. Naturally, this is not noticeable at all.

Performance

The Magic 6 Pro, like many other 2024 phones, is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, which is paired with the Adreno 750 graphics. Although these phones’ performance improvements aren’t as significant as they were in previous years, they are still impressive and easily handle demanding gaming workloads. In this instance, the platform has 512GB of standard storage along with 12GB of RAM. Not only is the 256GB size unavailable, but the 1TB version is also non-existent.

We think the Porsche Design version of the Magic 6 Pro, which will be marketed as the Magic 6 RSR when it launches later this year, will include 1TB of storage, as the Porsche Design V2 RSR does. With Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C 3.1, and Wi-Fi 7 on board, the rest of the specs sheet is as you might expect; a lot of this is dependent on the chipset used, after all.

The phone can now be fully charged in about 40 minutes thanks to faster charging rates of 80W wired and 66W wireless. With its substantial 5600mAh battery, you can use it for nearly two working days if you squeeze it out.

Cameras

The periscope telephoto lens has been upgraded from its 50MP configuration to a massive 180MP one, which is a significant change from the previous year’s setup. Has it had a significant impact? We’re not entirely sold—100x zoom photos are merely passable, though naturally better if you can get it extremely still. Additionally, the optical zoom is only 2.5x, which isn’t comparable to the 3x on the OnePlus 12, for instance, on paper.

Additionally, it is less than the Honour Magic 5 Pro’s 3.5x zoom from the previous year. In actuality, though, you can easily zoom in to 5x or even 10x without losing too much detail thanks to the high resolution. This is supposedly Samsung’s 200MP sensor.

The primary sensor appears to be the OmniVision OV50H, which is also utilised in the Xiaomi 14, and it is brighter than it was previously. Similar to the Magic 5 Pro from the previous year, it is quick to take shots and produces some excellent results, as you can see from our photos here.

Although the ultrawide is 50MP, you won’t find yourself using it very often. The majority of the time, the wide is more than sufficient.

However, a 50MP sensor has been added to the front-sensor, a significant improvement. Not a huge loss, the TOF sensor from the back of the model from last year has vanished, but the front still has one for facial recognition.

Software

Here it is, Honor’s MagicOS 8.0 (based on Android 14), and it works just fine. There is some adjusting to determine which of the numerous Google apps that are preinstalled alongside Honor’s own apps work best for you, but that has always been the case with Android devices. The best thing about MagicOS is that it has been gradually simplified and isn’t overbearing. It’s actually quite enjoyable to use, and not much interferes with your use until you want it to after you get past the barrage of “this is how it works” pop-ups that appear at first.

Face recognition is built-in by default and, like Face ID from Apple and other systems, is incredibly simple to use. You almost never get prompted for your PIN or fingerprint (assuming you have enabled the latter). It simply functions!

Around the camera cutout, there’s an iOS-inspired interface modification called Magic Capsule. For example, it is activated when music is playing, and you can tap it to get more information. is, however, a subpar rendition of the Dynamic Island. Nevertheless, it’s a plus rather than a minus. There were times when it didn’t always show up.

We find the need to access the settings in order to activate the app drawer to be a minor annoyance with MagicOS, though Honour is not the only one. Apps simply pile up on homescreens in the absence of this. While this was acceptable a few years ago, we believe it is a little out of date to have by default. Although many brands have boasted about artificial intelligence in recent months, the Magic 6 Pro actually possesses some extremely sophisticated intelligence. Context sensitivity is the most important of these. The fact that so many operating systems struggle with it shouldn’t be shocking. You don’t need to copy and paste anything when you go to a message that contains an address because Google Maps will find it for you.

A slightly strange name for this variation on the theme is Magic Portal. Items can be dragged onto a sidebar containing apps that are relevant to the context, like the address we’re dragging here. The Honour 6 Pro’s eye-tracking feature has received a lot of attention, but as of right now, it is limited to China, so even though we have seen a demo, we are unable to evaluate it for this review. Still, it seems to perform surprisingly well when it comes to tasks like opening apps.

Along with five years of security patches, you also get four major operating system updates. Even though it’s not remarkable by today’s standards, it’s still appreciated.

Honor Magic 6 Pro Review

The Magic 6 Pro is a very good mobile device. Is it a superb smartphone, though? Although the hardware is excellent, we believe the photography falls slightly short of the best. However, the price point, which is somewhat exorbitant when compared to competitors, is the main issue. It’s unfortunate because this phone is excellent value.

It will be interesting to see how much it costs on contract if O2 decides to sell it in the UK (the network stated it would be stocking Honour devices on stage at its launch). This is a great Android flagship phone, so if you can get it for a fair price, you won’t regret it.