Honor Magic 4 Pro review: It fits like an old glove

Honor’s first flagship smartphone in the modern era has launched in the UK, powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset and featuring all the Google goodness you would expect. With a big 6.81-inch LTPO display and 164 megapixels of camera power on the rear panel, the Magic 4 Pro represents Honor’s future whilst still harking back to the company’s time under Huawei’s stewardship. Comforting and familiar yet with modern internals, does the Magic 4 Pro manage to move on from the past and emerge as a competitor to the likes of the OnePlus 10 Pro and OPPO’s Find X5 Pro?

Join us after the break to find out in our review of the Honor Magic 4 Pro.

Design

Unlike other 2022 flagships, the Magic 4 Pro bucks the trend of featuring a taller aspect ratio, and as such it feels a little chunkier in the hand. The display has curved edges on every side which will please or displease you depending on which side of the argument you sit on. You can’t fail to notice the huge circular camera housing on the rear panel which houses a trio of cameras, it’s black and shiny and demands your attention, even when the phone is in a case.

Both the volume rocker and power button are on the right-hand edge, with the USB-C charging port located in between the SIM tray and speaker chamber on the bottom of the phone. You won’t find an audio jack, but there is another speaker chamber on the top edge which has a microphone and IR blaster sitting alongside for company.

We’ve got the Cyan colorway in for review which is shiny and as you would expect, something of a fingerprint magnet. The construction is reassuringly rock-solid to the touch, and while there is an IP68 rating it’s important to note that Honor doesn’t mention if the display and rear panel feature Gorilla Glass protection so it’s probably best to slap the clear plastic case (included in the box) on the phone ASAP.

Hardware

Performance

At 6.81-inches it’s already a big display, and that feeling is only increased by the 20:9 aspect ratio and the unusual 2,848 x 1,312 resolution which falls somewhere in the middle between QHD+ and FHD+. The refresh rate scales from 1-120Hz which helps with battery life, and for those who suffer from Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) sensitivity, the Magic 4 Pro features a 1,920Hz flicker rate. The colors are vibrant on the display with good viewing angles.

The in-display fingerprint sensor is quick and accurate, and combined with face unlocking, makes for a slick unlocking experience. The sound is good despite the two speakers being mounted on the top and bottom edges of the phone instead of firing upwards. In terms of connectivity, the Magic 4 Pro supports Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, WiFi 6, and ultra-wideband, as well as 5G networking.

Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, no one can say that the Magic 4 Pro lacks in the performance department. It sails through whichever tasks you set with aplomb, and gamers will be happy to learn that even demanding titles such as Genshin Impact play well, even at the 60fps setting. We’ve put the Magic 4 Pro through the usual array of benchmarking apps so you can get an idea of how it compares to its competitors, on paper at least.

Battery

With a rather average 4,600mAh battery, the Magic 4 Pro lacks 400mAh on most modern flagships, but rest assured that it’s able to get through a day’s normal usage (3-4 hours of screen-on-time) without resorting to any power-saving measures. Just. It needs to be hooked up to a charger at bedtime, although thanks to the ultra-fast wired charging you can leave it until it’s time to shower and change for work. The 100W fast charging will fully recharge the Magic 4 Pro in just 30 minutes, and almost 60% in 15 minutes, so you’ll never be left in the lurch if you forget to charge overnight.

Perhaps even more impressively, the Magic 4 Pro can also charge wirelessly at a faster pace than Google’s Pixel or Samsung’s Galaxy phones can charge via a wired connection. How fast? What would you say if I said 100W wireless charging is present? Incredible, right? You will need to buy the specific wireless charger (£70) to make use of the 100W wireless charging capability, though.

Software

Ahem. The proverbial fly in the ointment. While Magic UI 6.0 is built upon Android 12, you’d be forgiven if you thought you were using EMUI from before the US ban on Huawei came into effect. There are a bunch of pre-installed apps which can mostly be uninstalled and it feels a little heavy when compared to UIs from rival brands. It’s not bad, it just feels a little dated after using ColorOS 12 on OPPO’s Find X5 Pro.

In 2022 we are used to having loads of customization options on our phones that let us manually change the shape and size of app icons, adapt the menu accents to the current wallpaper, and notification options such as edge lighting. These options aren’t present in Magic UI 6.0 but it does let you enlarge folders on the home screen, show custom images on the Always-on-Display, and have the eBook option which turns the display into a greyscale screen to simulate the e-reader experience.

Honor is only promising two years of software support and security patches for the Magic 4 Pro, which in 2022 isn’t really good enough for a flagship that skates close to the £1,000 mark. At the time of writing (June 14, 2022), the review unit is running on the April security patch which was out of date when the phone was launched on May 11th, which doesn’t bode well for the future.

Camera

With 164 megapixels of camera power, the Magic 4 Pro promises great things in the photography department and for the most part, it doesn’t disappoint. The 50MP main camera has a large sensor which results in great imagery with vibrant colors and a high dynamic range. The 50MP ultra-wide lens isn’t quite as accomplished but it still outputs images with high levels of details, although the dynamic range and exposure levels are diminished, probably due to the slightly smaller sensor.

Last, and certainly least, is the 64MP periscope lens that offers 3.5x optical zoom, 10x hybrid zoom, and 100x digital zoom. Right away I can say that the 100x digital zoom is unusable, but the 3.5x optical zoom will give you highly-detailed images that almost match the color tuning of the main sensor.

When it comes to Night mode, it’s evident that a lot of processing is going on which results in smooth but fake-looking imagery. The other two cameras aren’t really worth mentioning when it comes to low-light photography, which is a shame.

The Magic 4 Pro is capable of 4k @60fps video recording but as I experienced on multiple occasions, it will cease recording at the fifteen-minute mark.

The 12MP selfie camera takes excellent images in normal lighting conditions with a good amount of details, although in less than ideal conditions the results dip.

Worth it?

It’s great to see Honor return with a fully-fledged flagship device, and the Magic 4 Pro certainly has a number of eye-catching features. From the ultra-fast 100W wired and wireless charging, the powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, the 50MP main camera that delivers great photos, and the unique camera housing, Honor’s flagship is a sign that the brand is once again on the up. This is good news for the smartphone industry that in Europe at least, has been dominated by the BKK stable and Xiaomi over the past couple of years since the Huawei ban came into effect.

However, taking off the rose-tinted glasses, it’s clear that Honor’s work isn’t done and that the Magic 4 Pro relies a little too much on sentiment and its past to be truly considered as the equal of the Galaxy S22 Ultra, or even the OnePlus 10 Pro. And that’s fine because despite having a £949 price tag in the UK, Honor is bundling in a case, Earbuds 2 Lite, and Watch GS3 with the phone which adds value to the proposition.

All-in-all, the Magic 4 Pro fits like an old glove in the hand, and while it’s comfy and does the job you may not be able to stop yourself from looking at slimmer alternatives.

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