Honor Magic 7 Pro Review: Refined Flagship

Honor’s Magic 7 Pro is a refined flagship Android phone that weaves the latest AI features with cutting-edge hardware. It excels everywhere that matters. You get an incredibly versatile camera, impressive stamina, speedy charging, silky smooth performance, and an excellent display. Several subtle but important improvements over its predecessor elevate this smartphone to the next level.

Chinese phone maker Honor has impressed me with its hardware of late, from last year’s Magic 6 Pro to the impossibly svelte Honor Magic V3. This year, it has paid more attention to the software with some welcome polish. Its heavy investment in AI is beginning to mature, with features that feel more practical in the Magic 7 Pro than in its predecessors. It’s a pricey flagship at £1,099 ($1,346), and sadly it’s not officially sold in the US. But UK and European buyers shouldn’t sleep on the Magic.

Subtle Refinements

At first glance, the Magic 7 Pro looks similar to the 6 Pro, but I was delighted to find a flatter display and frame, making it far more comfortable to use and less prone to accidental touches than curved glass. Honor has toned down the camera module, though it is still big enough to unbalance the phone a little. While this phone felt large after using the Pixel 9, it’s manageable to handle. I’m not in love with the marbled effect of my Lunar Shadow Grey review unit, but it’s more interesting than the plain blue or black alternatives.

The 6.8-inch screen is as good as any I’ve tested. It’s bright, smooth, and sharp. By the numbers, it has a 2,800 x 1,200-pixel resolution, a variable refresh rate of up to 120 Hz, and 1,600 nits brightness (up to 5,000 nits for highlights). Video looks great on the 7 Pro, with Dolby Vision and HDR Vivid support, and the speakers are nice and loud without distortion. Honor has also included several features intended to reduce eye fatigue and strain, but they’re tough to quantify.

Photograph: Simon Hill

The only slight irritation I had was with the large selfie camera cutout, though you soon get used to it. It’s a compromise I can accept for the convenience of secure face unlock—a rarity on Android phones, as it even works with banking apps.

There’s plenty of power under the hood with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and 12 GB of RAM. As you’d expect, benchmark results are at the top, and this phone can run anything. There’s also a very generous 512 GB of speedy storage, which is more than what most phones offer at this price. The Honor Magic 7 Pro has an IP68 and IP69 rating too, meaning it can be submerged and handle water jets or steam.

Delving inside, a far higher level of polish is evident throughout. Honor talks up the AI in the Magic 7 Pro, and we’ll get into the specific features, but it permeates the phone. AI has seeped into the phone app to reduce background noise and make voices clearer, and there’s a privacy feature designed to prevent sound leakage and thwart eavesdroppers.