Honor Magic 4 Pro hands-on review: a first look at the smartphone after its MWC reveal – Reviews – Technology

We got a brief hands-on with the Honor Magic 4 Pro at MWC 2022, in Barcelona. It’s Honor’s first major flagship offering and it’s now been confirmed that the phone will be available in the UK.

Bear in mind, these are our first impressions after a short test of the phone. We’ll offer a full review, with more detailed conclusions, at a later date.

When you pick up the Honor Magic 4 Pro, you’ll notice its quad-curved screen straight away. The way the screen slopes away at the edges, making for next-to-non-existent bezels, feels every bit the premium flagship device.

What doesn’t though, is the smudgy fingerprints on the back. When we got hands-on with the black version, it picked up fingerprints remarkably easily. Of course, this will annoy some users more than others and some won’t care at all. Many are likely to keep it in a case anyway, to protect from drops, bumps and scrapes.

Honor is yet to confirm an exact release date for the Magic 4 Pro, but told us it’s set for some time in May.

To stay up to date on the latest Honor news, check back here later or take a look at our Honor Magic 4 Pro release date page.

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Honor Magic 4 Pro specs and features

The Honor Magic 4 Pro is appropriately high-spec for that hefty price tag. With the same RAM options as major competitors and a similarly competitive 120Hz refresh rate — another key battleground for top-performing smartphones. However, it would be nice to have a 1TB storage option, as the S22 Ultra and iPhone 13 Pro do.

In the charging stakes though, it smokes the competition, offering a 100W wireless or wired ‘super charge’. That wireless offering is a real stand-out spec and an industry first. The phone can go from 0-50% in 15 minutes.

During our hands-on time, the display with its variable 1-120Hz refresh rate really stood out. The silky-smooth scrolling at 120Hz is another premium touch, while the ability to go down to 1Hz saves the battery life.

It packs the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor that we’d generally expect from a current flagship. However, Honor was keen to stress that their engineers had worked with those at Qualcomm to enhance the processor even further. Qualcomm’s Enrico Salvatore appeared at the unveiling to make the same point. He said: “We are really impressed when using our platform, the performance that Honor has been able to extract.” We’ll wait until we’ve done a more exhaustive test on the phone to verify these claims.

Key features:

• LTPO OLED display offering HDR10+
• 120Hz refresh rate
• 100W wireless or wired charging
• Android 12 overlaid with Magic UI 6
• Google Play services
• 8GB or 12GB of RAM
• 256GB or 512GB of storage
• Triple camera array — 50MP, 50MP, 64MP
• Front camera — 12MP
• 4600mAh battery
• Comes in black, white, cyan, gold, orange

How much is Honor Magic 4 Pro?

Honor has confirmed the Magic 4 Pro will cost £949 in the UK. That puts it at the premium end of the market, competing with the iPhone 13 Pro, which starts at exactly the same price.

Honor was keen to show off the Magic 4 Pro’s ability to compete with — and beat, according to Honor — the iPhone 13 Pro in a number of metrics. The price shows quite how confident Honor is that it will do this.

The base model of the Honor Magic 4 won’t available in the UK, but will start at €899 in Europe.

Honor Magic 4 Pro camera

Another key metric — and one Honor were keen to discuss — is the Magic 4 Pro’s camera. During the unveiling presentation, several examples of the camera out-shining that of the iPhone 13 Pro were put on show. Of course, we have to take this with a pinch of salt until we can put the phone through an extended test ourselves, but the initial signs are good and the 100x digital zoom is very impressive.

Honor claims the phone renders colours far more accurately than the iPhone 13 Pro and can offer much more details when enlarging zoomed-in images, making that 100x digital zoom far more functional. Again, this is a function we need to test in more detail, but this certainly got our reviewers interested at first glance.

Essentially, the 100x digital zoom captures detail at each stage of the zo
om, as you zoom in, rather than looking for one final image at the high zoom level. The phone harnesses AI to stitch this together and offer a more detailed zoomed-in image.

Similarly the three cameras on the reverse use what Honor is calling its ‘Ultra Fusion Photography Algorithm’ to stitch together the ultra-wide, wide and telephoto images to offer a more detailed and accurate final image. It’s a really interesting proposition that we can’t wait to test out in the wild.

Honor Magic 4 Pro battery life

The Magic 4 Pro packs a 4600mAh battery, capable of 100W wireless or wired fast-charging. As already mentioned, that wireless facility is really something else and a stand-out feature on the list.

The only notable drawback of fast charging is that it can wear batteries down sooner than standard charging. This may mean the phone has a slightly shorter functional life than some competitors, but it’s not something we’ve had a chance to test with this particular handset.

Honor Magic 4 Pro design

When it comes to the design of the Honor Magic 4 Pro, there’s no getting away from that huge ring camera array on the reverse, repeatedly described as “iconic” by Honor’s George Zhao. Whether or not consumers agree remains to be seen. We think it’s going to split opinion.

Elsewhere, the phone certainly has a very premium feel in the hand, but that easily-marked-up back is a bit of a shame. However, some of the other colours may not suffer from this as badly and ultimately it’s a fairly minor factor, especially if you use the phone with a case.

How to buy Honor Magic 4 Pro

The Honor Magic 4 Pro will be available in May in the UK, but Honor is yet to confirm the date. Check back with us for more updates as the date draws closer, or follow the links below to see more of Honor’s smartphone range.

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