HONOR Magic5 Pro
RM4,299.00
Pros
- Superb camera
- Good battery life
- Waterproof IP68
- Gorgeous display
- Top notch performance
Cons
- Top feels heavy when using
- OS needs a little tweak
- A tad slipperty to hold
The new HONOR Magic5 Pro was recently launched in Malaysia and the current highest DX0MARK device is well received nationwide. I personally have been using the HONOR Magic5 Pro for the last 3 weeks and I too, fell in love with the device, mainly for its camera performance.
But is it the best in photography right now? The HONOR Magic5 Pro has many other contenders including those flagships from bigger smartphone makers that would give the HONOR Magic5 Pro a dash to the finish line. Having said that, the HONOR Magic5 Pro does have the lead in the DX0MARK score for its camera and display. The question is, how will it perform in the real world in the hands of the consumers?
First Look: HONOR Magic5 Pro
The review unit that I received is their featured Meadow Green colourway that comes with 512GB of internal storage and 12GB of RAM with an additional 7GB HONOR RAM Turbo feature. It has a gorgeous 6.81” OLED curved Super Dynamic Vivid Display that goes up to a blinding 1800 nits brightness. It has a resolution of 2848×1312 pixels at 19.5:9 ratio and with 460 ppi density. Everything about the HONOR Magic5 Pro shouts flagship. And I would agree to that.
Now the main feature of the HONOR Magic5 Pro is its camera. It features a triple camera setup, all of which comes with a 50-megapixel sensor. This is probably the first time I came across a flagship device that features the same megapixel count for every single one of its main cameras.
Touted as the Falcon Triple Main Camera, the HONOR Magic5 Pro is equipped with a larger sensor, larger aperture to capture more light and OIS (optical image stabilisation) for more stable handheld shots.
The large round camera bump is quite large in my opinion. But it is made that way to accommodate the larger sensors. Come to think of it, it does look good and kinda grew on me after awhile. Now, having a large rounded camera tapered bump makes it feel top heavy. At least to me. I can feel the top weight while holding the phone when scrolling through my social media feeds.
And when I take a vertical video, my hand gets tired trying to balance the device. It’s not as bad as you think but I’m just saying that I can feel the extra weight near the top.
As for the overall aesthetic of the HONOR Magic5 Pro, it simply looks pleasing to the eyes and feels good when holding in one hand. The pill shaped cutout front facing camera is located on the top left of the front display that features a 12MP ultrawide camera and TOF 3D depth sensor that is used for face detection biometric security.
And yes, it can unlock the device accurately and quickly. I use this more often than the under display fingerprint scanner because of that. And the front camera captures nice selfies too. More on that later.
The volume rocker and the power button is on the right side while there is an infrared blaster at the top. I use this often as well because my son tends to misplace the TV remote at home so I use this as a backup. The IR blaster works up to 10 feet when I’m at home. So it worked well for me.
There is also a top firing speaker here as one of the two stereo speakers and it works for calls too. Nothing much on the left side. At the bottom, there’s the SIM tray slot, bottom firing speaker and a USB type-C port for data transfer and charging.
Performance and Daily Usage
The HONOR Magic5 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC which is the highest performance chipset for Android currently. Coupled with the huge 512GB of internal storage and a massive 12GB + 7GB of RAM setup, the HONOR Magic5 Pro can do more than what you can think of. The overall performance is outstanding, from daily tasks to multitasking and from gaming to entertainment, it handled everything effortlessly.
It is one of the most powerful devices right now. The HONOR Magic5 Pro is the third generation flagship made by HONOR and in my opinion, this is their best yet. It is also powered by the latest Android 13 OS with HONOR’s own MagicOS 7.1. Software stability and responsiveness is top notch making it really fun to play around with.
Multitasking works great. I can have tons of open apps in the background and the HONOR Magic5 Pro doesn’t show any signs of lag. Daily use of social media apps, chat apps like WhatsApp and Telegram, video editing like CapCut and photo editing with Snapseed or Lightroom works really well. The whole user experience with it is snappy. I simply can’t find any flaws while using the HONOR Magic5 Pro.
To power it all up, the HONOR Magic5 Pro comes with a huge 5100mAh battery that is much thinner than its predecessors. It is made to last much longer. During my test, I managed to squeeze every last drop of juice from the HONOR Magic5 Pro for up to 2 days. All that while using it for social media and messages. It will only drop significantly when I’m watching movies on Netflix or have my Spotify on the whole day.
Speaking of entertainment, the HONOR Magic5 Pro comes with Industry’s first Wi-Fi and Bluetooth standalone antenna architecture that improves Wi-Fi performance by 200% and reduces Wi-Fi latency by 30% compared to the traditional antenna design. This means the HONOR Magic5 Pro has two separate chips that handle WiFi and Bluetooth respectively.
Other smartphones use the same antenna for Bluetooth and WiFi. If you’re watching movies with a Bluetooth headset, the signals of the two antennas will interfere with each other, causing the Bluetooth signal to delay and the download speed of WiFi to slow down, resulting in out-of-sync audio and video.
Same goes with gaming. Usually when I use a Bluetooth earbud as my audio device while playing games, I will get a split second delay from the moment I hit the fire button in PUBG Mobile to when the sound can be heard from the earbud. But some of the newer devices come with Game Mode feature to reduce the audio latency while gaming.
The HONOR Magic5 Pro does this right out-of-the-box. I don’t have to turn the Game Mode on to have lower latency, which is a bonus. Therefore, my gaming session with the HONOR Magic5 Pro is overall satisfactory.
When it comes to gaming performance, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 shows its true power. With the support of the 19GB of RAM in total, the overall gameplay is simply wonderful. Having a gorgeous TÜV Rheinland Certified OLED display and the super smooth 120Hz refresh rate, it is hard for me to put the phone down even after a few hours of gaming.
The responsiveness and smoothness of the immersive graphics is on another level. Same goes with the Antutu 3D benchmarking. The HONOR Magic5 Pro passed the 1 million mark, scoring 1,051,842 points. That is outstanding by my count.
Because we have these kinds of devices these days, we don’t need “real” gaming phones anymore. With something like the HONOR Magic5 Pro, we can have the best of both worlds – an awesome gaming phone and also a phone that comes with a great camera.
Which brings us to the next subject.
Camera and Photography
As I mentioned in the title, is the HONOR Magic5 Pro the best in photography? I managed to test the camera features and did quite a few “nightography” as well. I had fun with it of course, sometimes a little trigger happy when I use the HONOR Magic5 Pro as my go-to camera. But before I show you some of the samples, we shall have a look at the camera’s specifications.
Main camera
- 50 MP, f/1.6, 23mm (wide), 1/1.12″ 1.4µm, multi-directional PDAF, Laser AF, OIS
- 50 MP, f/3.0, 90mm (periscope telephoto), PDAF, OIS, 3.5x optical zoom
- 50 MP, f/2.0, 13mm, 122˚ (ultrawide), 1/2.5″, AF
- TOF 3D (depth)
- Video at 4K with 30/60fps, 1080p with 30/60fps, gyro-EIS, HDR10, 10-bit video
Selfie camera
- 12 MP, f/2.4, 100˚ (ultrawide), 1.22µm with HDR
- TOF 3D, (depth/biometrics sensor)
- Video at 4K with 30fps and 1080p with 30/60fps
On the camera software side, it is able to zoom up to 100x digitally after which it will optimise the image using AI to “clear up” the image. Somehow, it does it really well. For optical zoom, it can go up to 3.5x and the result is quite good, thanks to the larger camera sensor.
Portrait shots are my favourite. The HONOR Magic5 Pro managed to capture great portrait photos during my test. I like the Motion Sensing Capture feature that can capture fast movements automatically. To turn this feature on, I just have to tap the running man icon near the bottom in the camera app and toggle the auto capture on. It will trigger when it detects movements and smiles so that you don’t miss the moment.
I find this feature to be very helpful especially when I have to chase my 17 month old toddler around whenever I want to take a photo of him.
There are many other features included in the camera app such as night mode, video, movie, Pro mode, super macro, slow-mo, panorama, time lapse, multi-video for vlogging, full high-res shots at 50MP and document scanning. I particularly love using the “Pro mode” for my photography although keeping it as standing auto mode is easier and quicker. I just like the feeling of adjusting the shutter speed, ISO and exposure levels manually. And I tend to keep the ISO between 100 – 400 to keep the noise as low as possible.
Zooming in on a subject or a building can be tiring because I have to keep my hand still as much as possible. When zooming in to more than 10x, I need a tripod to help with the stability. Anything lower than 10x zoom works well. I shoot most of the portrait shots at 3.5x zoom so that I can get a nice bokeh effect on the background. Most DSLR cameras shoot portraits using a 50mm or higher optical lens anyway so I was trying to emulate that with the HONOR Magic5 Pro.
When it comes to ultrawide angle shots, I managed to capture some nice landscape photos with it. Ultrawide angle is best to use when shooting outdoor landscape photos. The photos turn out punchy and vibrant without any weird image warping around the edges. Ultrawide can also be used to shoot group photos in a cramped space.
The HONOR Magic5 Pro is able to shoot in the dark quite well. Then it comes to nightography, it excels by capturing excellent lighting with minimal noise in the dark areas. When the night mode is on, light is captured more with slightly longer exposure but you do have to keep your hands steady. But sometimes it is not necessary to toggle the night mode on because the camera system will turn on the night mode automatically when it detects low light.
To see how it all goes, have a look at the photo gallery below:
Outdoor 1
When taking photos outdoors, I can safely say that nothing can go wrong with it. It doesn’t matter if you’re using a flagship device or any low range 5 years old device, when you’re shooting outdoors under a bright sunny sky, you will always get a decent photo. The only difference is on the miniscule detail around a certain area.
Outdoor – Zoom feature 1
So when you’re being outdoors under a good lighting condition, you will also be able to play around with the zoom levels. In this case, I manage to zoom in from the widest 0.5x all the way to 50x zoom. I had a lot of fun with this.
Outdoor – Zoom feature 2
And instead of looking at something far away, I tried looking at things that are near me. So I zoom towards the nearby greenery in this photo collection. Zooming in up to 10x, I can still see good details and punchy image colour without losing any quality.
Outdoor with less light
When the sun is about to set, I managed to take some quick water feature photos and I think the HONOR Magic5 Pro captured some good shots here. First of all, it managed to freeze the water in place instead of seeing blurry water drops. I know some lower end smartphones would fail when it comes to this.
Animals
A little variety is nice. Appreciating nature’s most vibrant and colourful features, and cuteness too.
Nightography and Night Mode
When it comes to night mode, or nightography as what they are calling it these days, I recently noticed that it is one of my favourite photography styles. I do tend to take more photos in low light areas as opposed to bright areas. And it is a good thing that the HONOR Magic5 Pro excels in this area. Nightography with the HONOR Magic5 Pro is a whole lot of fun. Just look at the photo series above. Details are there, colours look good and overall quality is not bad. Only when I zoom in to anywhere above 10x that the photos start to break apart. But it still looks good to me.
And I have a bonus moon shot right there. I need a better tripod in order to get a clearer image. Will try again soon and share it here.
Portrait and Selfie
Portrait shots are always the best to look at. But if you’re like my, you need to turn on the Motion Sensing Capture feature on the camera app. I toggle this feature on whenever I try to take portrait photos of my little toddler as he would run around and never sit still. But when it comes to normal portait shots of an adult, that’s a different story. Good thing I have a test subject this time. Selfies are good too. Details look better than the other flagship I’m testing and I’m very impressed with the HONOR Magic5 Pro’s front camera.
Miniature life
I don’t have much else to say about the HONOR Magic5 Pro. The camera features are great. I am able to capture good photos 99% of the time, with that 1% still looking good for social media. It deserves to be ranked number 1 on DX0MARK. That’s just my own opinion. Some may still look at other flagships but I’m all good with the HONOR Magic5 Pro.
So when it comes to photography, it is so good that you would only have to point and shoot.
Conclusion
With the HONOR Magic5 Pro recently launched here in Malaysia with quite a hefty price tag, will it be a good deal to get one? If you’re into smartphone photography, the HONOR Magic5 Pro has so much potential to be the frontrunner for others to catch up. The triple 50MP camera setup is one of the best out there, even scoring the highest in DX0MARK ranking. It will give the other flagship brands a run for their money.
Battery life is awesome. Multitasking and other daily tasks are handled flawlessly without any hiccups. Performance is just as good as a dedicated high-end gaming smartphone but with the advantage of having the best of both worlds. It is definitely one of the best devices that I have ever used thus far.
And let’s not forget the gorgeous 6.81” OLED curved Super Dynamic Vivid Display with up to 120Hz refresh rate that gives the extra smoothness in graphic rendering and movements. Colours are vivid and bright, thanks to the super bright 1800 nits brightness.
Yes, it does come with a hefty price tag but I assure you that it will be worth every penny. The HONOR Magic5 Pro is now on sale at HONOR Malaysia’s official Shopee Page for RM4,299.00
