The Magic of Honor 7 Pro is a refined flagship Android phone which combines the latest AI capabilities with cutting-edge hardware. He excels wherever it counts. You get an incredibly versatile camera, impressive endurance, fast charging, smooth performance, and a great display. Several subtle but important improvements over its predecessor take this smartphone to the next level.
Chinese phone maker Honor has impressed me with its hardware recently, last year’s. Magic 6 Pro incredibly slender Honor the Magic V3. This year it has paid more attention to the software with some welcome improvements. Its heavy investment in AI is starting to mature, with features that seem more practical in the Magic 7 Pro than in its predecessors. It’s an expensive flagship at £1,099 ($1,346) and unfortunately 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 pleased to find a flatter screen and frame, making it much more comfortable to use and less prone to accidental touches than curved glass. Honor has toned down the camera module, although it remains large enough to unbalance the phone a little. Even though this phone seemed big after using the Pixel 9it’s manageable to manage. I’m not in love with the marbled effect of my Lunar Shadow Gray review unit, but it’s more interesting than the solid blue or black alternatives.
The 6.8-inch screen is as good as any I’ve tested. It’s shiny, smooth and crisp. By the numbers, it has a resolution of 2800 x 1200 pixels, a variable refresh rate up to 120 Hzand a brightness of 1,600 nits (up to 5,000 nits for highlights). Video looks great on the 7 Pro, with support for Dolby Vision and HDR Vivid, and the speakers sound nice and loud without distortion. Honor has also included several features intended to reduce eye fatigue and strain, but they are difficult to quantify.
Photography: Simon Hill
The only slight irritation I had was the large cutout for the selfie camera, although you get used to it quickly. It’s a tradeoff I can live with for the convenience of secure face unlock, a rarity on Android phones because it even works with banking apps.
There’s plenty of power under the hood with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and 12GB of RAM. As you would expect, the benchmark test results are top notch and this phone can run it all. There’s also a very generous 512GB of fast storage, which is more than most phones offer at this price. The Honor Magic 7 Pro has a IP68 and IP69 also, which means it can be submerged and handle jets of water or steam.
Digging inside, a much higher level of finish is evident throughout. Honor talks about the Magic 7 Pro’s AI and we’ll get into the specific features, but it permeates the phone. AI has infiltrated the phone app to reduce background noise and make voices clearer, and there’s a privacy feature designed to prevent sound leaks and thwart eavesdropping.