The Honor Magic 7 Professional hits all the proper...

For the previous a number of years, a lot of the continued buzz within the US smartphone scene has been dominated by the likes of Samsung, Google, and Apple. In the meantime, Honor, a Shenzhen, China-based tech firm, is one in all a variety of abroad OEMs to be rapidly expanding its international handset presence.

With its latest flagship candy bar style phone, the Magic 7 Professional, Honor is betting large on a mixture of high-end {hardware}, a feature-packed Android pores and skin, and, after all, a set of AI-powered instruments. I examined out the Magic 7 Professional to seek out out exactly what I have been lacking out on as a North American resident, and to see whether or not the handset lives as much as the hype surrounding it.

Editor’s selection

Honor Magic7 Professional

Honor’s Magic 7 Professional is the corporate’s newest flagship smartphone, arriving with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, IP69 water resistance, and extra.

Execs & Cons

• Beautiful show
• Wonderful construct high quality
• Blazing quick efficiency

• Software program takes some getting used to
• AI instruments are take it or depart it
• No Qi2 magnetic wi-fi charging

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Worth, availability, and specs

By way of and thru, the Honor Magic 7 Professional is a high-end Android smartphone. Together with the wonderful OnePlus 13 and the newly-announced Galaxy S25 series, Honor’s newest handset is among the many first to ship with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset.

The Magic 7 Professional can also be one of many first mainstream cellphones to reach with IP69 water and dust resistance, which, as we have seen on the competing OnePlus 13, permits the machine to resist excessive temperatures and highly effective jet sprays in a number of instructions.

Honor has outfitted the Magic 7 Professional with an expansive 6.8-inch OLED show panel, which includes a dynamic 120Hz refresh charge, 5,000 nits of peak high dynamic range (HDR) brightness, and a crisp 2800 x 1280 pixel decision.

The scale of the cellphone are about what you’d count on for a cellphone with such a big display: they measure in at 6.41 x 3.04 x 0.35-inches (162.7 x 77.1 x 8.8 mm), and the unit weighs in at 7.87 oz (223 g). In addition to the suspicious lack of Qi2 magnetic charging, Honor has packed nearly each main {hardware} bell and whistle into the unit.

The handset’s rear digicam array can also be fittingly high-end, with a 200-megapixel 3x f/2.6 periscope lens, a 50-megapixel wide-angle shooter with a variable f/1.4-f/2.0 aperture, and a 50-megapixel f/2.0 ultra-wide sensor.

Again in October of final 12 months, Honor launched the Magic 7 Professional inside its home market of China. As of January 15, the machine is on the market globally, albeit not formally within the US or Canada.

With its base 12GB of RAM and 512GB of inner storage configuration, the Magic 7 Professional is listed for a worth of £1100 / €1,300, which is equal to roughly $1,340. At launch, the handset is on the market in lunar shadow gray, breeze blue, and black colorways.

What I appreciated in regards to the Honor Magic 7 Professional

On the {hardware} aspect, the Magic 7 Professional is a powerful handset

It is secure to say that with the Magic 7 Professional, Honor has nailed the outside design aspect of the equation. The cellphone feels extremely premium within the hand, with tight tolerances, tactile buttons, and a micro-textured rear glass panel that feels silky easy.

I am a fan of the general design language right here, which is generally flat and understated, however not boringly so. The facility button’s delicate pop of coloration jogs my memory of early Google Pixel handsets, and its symmetrical bezels are solely barely curved on the edges, which I choose over the ‘waterfall’ or ‘edge’ design of another units.

Even the digicam hump, which protrudes prominently from the rear, is slightly inoffensive for my part. I a lot choose its look over the stovetop design of iPhone Professional fashions, and it (largely) eliminates wobble when used on a flat floor.

The show is one other sturdy level with the Magic 7 Professional — the panel is beautiful to take a look at, and shiny sufficient to be used beneath direct daylight. Honor bakes in a variety of ‘Eye Consolation Show’ options meant to scale back eye fatigue, together with 4,320Hz Extremely-high frequency PWM Dimming, myopic defocus stimulation, and Rheinland circularly polarized gentle show certification.

On the digicam entrance, the Magic 7 Professional delivers strong outcomes general. Honor’s computational algorithms and selections in coloration science are, after all, subjective, however I discovered that each photos and 4K 60fps movies got here out clear and nice to take a look at.

I do want Honor had kitted the machine with a 5x zoom lens versus a 3x one — I’ve grown keen on the extra flexibility provided in different flagship telephones, which have an elevated means to punch in optically on far-off topics.

As for efficiency and endurance, the Magic 7 Professional is a delight. The handset’s comparatively massive 5,270mAh battery pack reliably lasts me a whole day after which some, and its 100W of wired and 80W of wi-fi charging capabilities blow most US cellphone charging speeds out of the water.

Stepping into the cellphone is speedy due to the under-display, and the Snapdragon 8 elite chipset is blazing quick. When put by means of the Geekbench 6 benchmarking check, the cellphone scores a decent 3,015 in single-core and eight,474 in multi-core.

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Honor has crafted the world’s thinnest book-style foldable, and it makes me excited for the way forward for the class.

What I did not like in regards to the Honor Magic 7 Professional

Honor’s MagicOS software program pores and skin is in want of some refinement

Whereas Honor jumps from energy to energy on the {hardware} and efficiency fronts, I discover the corporate’s software program expertise to be much less compelling. The Magic 7 Professional ships with MagicOS 9 operating atop of Android 14, and the corporate guarantees 5 years of OS and safety updates for the machine.

The corporate’s homegrown Android pores and skin is function wealthy, however it lacks a few of the UX refinements discovered within the Pixel’s interface design, and even that of Samsung’s One UI 7. In my testing, the gesture navigation system appears a bit much less responsive than that of another skins, and so I ended up switching to the tried-and-true 3-button system as a substitute.

I additionally want Honor supplied the choice to allow Android’s native ‘merged’ notifications and fast settings panels UI, versus the separate interfaces at the moment employed. It is a small gripe within the grand scheme of issues, however person selection is at all times the proper approach to go with regards to these issues.

Honor’s suite of synthetic intelligence instruments and options are fairly much like these present in competing units, proper right down to their considerably doubtful utility. Whereas the Magic Textual content function is helpful for extracting on-screen phrases, I discovered the Magic Portal instrument much less helpful.

This latter addition features much like Google’s Circle to Search, however it’s accessed through a knuckle gesture slightly than a finger swipe. It really works nicely sufficient for analyzing and contextually trying to find content material, however with Google’s AI suite already on deck, the entire of Honor AI feels a bit superfluous in the intervening time.

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Do you have to purchase the Honor Magic 7 Professional?

If you happen to reside exterior of North America, then the Magic 7 Professional is a stellar selection

Honor has crafted an extremely compelling smartphone within the Magic 7 Professional. The machine’s {hardware} is stellar, its digicam system within reason performant, and its processing energy and battery life are each rock strong.

I am much less keen on the corporate’s MagicOS Android pores and skin from a UX perspective, however the firm’s dedication to updates and safety patches is a giant win. The varied AI instruments are slightly hit and miss, and the dearth of Qi2 charging magnets is an actual disgrace, however the bundle is in any other case wonderful.

If you happen to occur to reside exterior the US, then the Honor Magic 7 Professional is a superb selection that is worthy of consideration. The machine deserves to face alongside the best flagship Android phones, and in some instances, it even manages to greatest the competitors outright.

This machine was supplied to Pocket-lint by Honor.

Editor’s selection

Honor Magic7 Professional