Honor has come on leaps and bounds in the past couple of years, transforming itself from its former Huawei-owned budget youth brand into one that can stand head and shoulders above its competition.

Following on from the release of its superb foldable, the Magic Vs, Honor debuted the £949 (about $1,175) Magic5 Pro at MWC 2023. It is truly a smartphone that excels and deserves its flagship moniker. Let's look at what makes this phone so good.

Honor Magic5 Pro: In the Box

It is pretty obvious what you're going to get in your smartphone box nowadays, but for the avoidance of doubt, the box contains:

• Honor Magic5 Pro smartphone
• USB Type-C charger and cable
• Silicone cover
• SIM-tray tool
• Device literature

And that is your lot. It is worth noting that Honor has applied a screen protector on your behalf, so you don't have to worry about that.

Honor Magic5 Aesthetics: A Beautiful Design

Honor's new Magic5 Pro is a stunning smartphone, which you'll notice when you take it out of the box. We reviewed the Black version, but it also comes in a fetching Meadow Green colorway—there are only two color options outside of the Chinese market.

The handset weighs in at 219 grams (7.72oz), so it is 15 grams lighter than its competitor, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. In terms of its dimensions, we're looking at a 162.9 x 76.7 x 8.77 mm (6.4 in x 3.0 in x 0.3 inches) handset, so it is also slightly smaller than the S23 Ultra, too.

Up front, we have the 6.81-inch quad curved screen, which has a very impressive screen-to-body ratio of 92.33% (again, beating the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra's 89.9% screen-to-body ratio). The top left of the screen features the pill cutout for the selfie camera and 3D image sensor.

The bottom edge carries the Type-C charging port, the microphone pinhole, the SIM tray, and a speaker grille. The top edge features the IR blaster for use with the Magic5 Pro's Smart Remote feature, another mic pinhole, and another speaker grille. On the right edge is the power button and the volume rocker.

Round the back of this curvy handset, we have the lovely "Star Wheel" camera array, named so as it is based on an image of a black hole, which is reminiscent of the "Eye of Muse" that sat to the back of the 2022 Magic4 Pro (read more about the award-winning Magic4 Pro in our feature rundown).

The camera island is really quite remarkable. Instead of an awkward island that juts unceremoniously out of the back of the Magic5 Pro, the island is surrounded by what Honor is calling the Gaudi Curve, which sees the camera bump melding seamlessly into the back of the handset's curved fascia.

The rear face is glass, and because of its glossy nature, it might feel a little slippy in hand to some, and you'll notice it picks up fingerprints with ease. The included case offers additional grip and protection from your greasy mitts. Honor's Meadow Green colorway has a matte finish, so the fingerprint issue is unlikely to affect anyone plumping for this colorway.

In all, we have a gorgeous smartphone that looks and feels every bit the premium pick.

Honor Magic5 Pro: Premium Specifications

When Honor released the Magic Vs, it came with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, which many people questioned. Therefore, I was a little concerned that Honor would take the same path with the Magic5 Pro. Not so; it has up-to-the-minute specs that keep it on a level playing field with competing handsets from the likes of Samsung.

Driving this handset is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, and it runs Honor's Android 13-based MagicOS 7.1 software skin. The CPU is octa core and features a Cortex X3 clocked at 3.2 GHz, two Cortex A715 clocked at 2.8 GHz, two Cortex A710 clocked at 2.8 GHz, and three Cortex A510 clocked at 2.0 GHz. The GPU is an Adreno 740.

The display is an OLED so should look sumptuous in practice, and it displays 1.07 billion colors, therefore, is compliant with the DCI-P3 color gamut. It has an aspect ratio of 20:9, with a cool 2848 x 1312 pixel resolution. It has a refresh rate of 120Hz and supports HDR10+, as well as a maximum brightness of 1800 nits (50 nits brighter than the S23 Ultra).

The device comes with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. The battery is a Li-Po 5100 mAh (again, larger than the S23 Ultra, which is 5000 mAh). The phone supports 66W supercharging, and 50W wireless charging.

In terms of those cameras, we've got a triple sensor array around the back of the device, comprising a 50 MP main lens, 50 MP ultrawide, and 50 MP periscope telephoto lens. To the front is a 12 MP selfie camera with 3D depth sensor.

As with the Honor Magic Vs, external audio comes courtesy of the dual stereo speakers located on the top and bottom edges of the handset. These are IMAX certified, and so should sound great in practice.

Note that the Magic5 Pro has an IP68 rating, which is excellent. You can drop this handset in water up to 1.5m deep and it'll last 30 minutes before ingress starts to damage the internal workings.

So, again, we have a smartphone with premium specifications that stand up against big names in the Android smartphone space, wiping the smile off Samsung's face in several areas.

Benchmarking the Honor Magic5 Pro

Before we get into the practical performance of Honor's beastly little handset, let's look at how it performs under benchmarking conditions. As usual, I will mention that these are arbitrary numbers valid only to compare with other handsets, and it is practical usage that really tells us how a smartphone performs.

First off I ran PCMark for Android. The results were thus:

• Work 3.0 Performance: 14735
• Storage 2.0: 34315

Unsurprisingly, the Magic5 Pro scores better than the SnapDragon 8 Gen 1-bearing Magic Vs. The scores above show that the Magic5 Pro should eat tasks alive; even more intensive tasks shouldn't be an issue for this handset.

Next, I ran 3DMark to test the graphical capabilities of the handset. I was impressed with the scores yielded by the Honor Magic Vs, so I was hopeful about the Magic5 Pro.

• Wild Life Extreme: 3651

The Wild Life Extreme test places the Honor Magic5 Pro above 87% of all other devices. This is a very intensive graphical test, and a score of 3651 is impressive.

Honor Magic5 Pro: Performance

As with the Magic Vs review, I'm going to break this down into sections for practical performance.

Display

As you might expect, the Honor Magic5 Pro display is quite the screen to behold, with vibrant colors and deep black tones in a manner commensurate with such a display. As an OLED, it will use less battery as it does not need to power any of the pixels when showing black, unlike an IPS screen.

Touch input is very responsive, with zero noticeable lag. Haptic feedback is similarly responsive. I sometimes find haptic feedback a bit annoying, to be truthful, but the vibrations from the handset don't cause any undue irritation for once, so I'm happy here.

The screen looks wonderful in every sense. The physical curves lend it a certain elegance and are perfect for media playback. Colors are reproduced faithfully, with no washout or dullness, irrespective of what I'm displaying on the screen, be it a dark, moody horror movie or some vividly colored anime.

I find that the display is excellent, whether I'm reading web pages, watching movies, or reading comic books via the Kindle app. It is a very smooth experience and makes the handset a joy to use.

Software

The MagicOS 7. software that the Magic5 Pro runs is excellent, and is bang up-to-date thanks to its Android 13 foundations. I love Honor handsets and find the software intuitively packed with additional features. The inclusion of Magic Ring, which allows you to connect devices and services across devices, is excellent for productivity. It allows me to multi-task quickly and smoothly across my connected devices.

Honor Notes is a great addition, too. It allows you to capture text from anywhere and save it to the Notes app for offline use. I tested this with my review of the Honor Magic Vs and, having swiped down the screen with three fingers, the entire review was rendered in the Notes app in a matter of seconds, photos included.

One excellent software feature I am really fond of is Magic Text. Take a photo with the camera, and you can use this feature to recognize text on the screen. I typed my phone number on a Google Doc, snapped an image, enabled the AI Magic Text feature, and could select the number on the screen, with actions such as copying the number now possible.

Software-wise, the Magic5 Pro offers a smooth, seamless experience packed with quality-of-life features that make the Magic5 Pro a powerful device.

Battery

The Magic5 Pro battery is nothing short of excellent. I get two days out of this handset, and that is with pretty much continuous use. The 5100 mAh tank will give you plenty of juice, and even if you're short on charge, you can boost it with 66W fast charging. I found that I could fully charge the Magic5 Pro in roughly 35 minutes from 10% to 100% charge. That said, it's better to trickle-charge your device at a slower rate if you don't need it quickly. Rapid charging is more stressful on the battery and will reduce its lifespan.

Wireless charging also works a treat. I have an Honor wireless charging cradle, and the two devices work together in perfect harmony. Wireless charging from 10% to 100% takes around 60 minutes from my experience using the device over the past three weeks.

Connectivity

If you've read my reviews before, you'll know I live in a house constructed entirely from lead. Thus, despite living smack-bang in the middle of two 5G masts that are literally 1km apart from each other, my signal is consistently atrocious. Or, at least, it was until I started using the Magic5 Pro.

The device debuts Honor's new RF chip, which supposedly boosts connection strength in areas with poor reception. My house and surrounding area is one such place, so I was excited to see if the new proprietary chip inside my handset improved matters. And do you know what? It does!

I noticed that I can now pick up a 5G signal, which remains fairly strong. My office, for example, usually only allows an H+ connection, or 4G if I am very fortunate. Now, though, I can receive a 5G connection consistently, and calls are clear as day instead of my call partner saying, "you've broken up again" every eight seconds.

Likewise, Wi-Fi connectivity is stable and consistent, and Bluetooth is great, showing no dropouts anywhere in my house when I'm connected to the handset with my earbuds. So I can leave my phone on my desk and move around the house without interrupting my music.

Hono Magic5 Pro: The Cameras

The Honor Magic5 Pro comes with an impressive camera, on paper. The Magic4 Pro housed (in my opinion) the best smartphone camera system I have ever used. So, the Magic5 Pro had plenty to live up to. I'm delighted to say the camera delivers on every front, which is why it took the number one spot with DXOMark at launch (DXOMark is a company that benchmarks smartphone cameras, among other things).

Honor boasts that the camera captures images incredibly fast, and I find that it does; something that really impressed me with the camera during my initial tests. The main lens affords great quality snaps, which look sharp and detailed. I find that on occasion, the AI will slightly oversaturate some colors as it processes an image, but not all the time, and not so much it makes my eyes want to retreat into my skull and never be seen again.

The results from the primary lens are excellent, and I managed to get plenty of great shots while I was out and about testing the camera. Even photographs taken in low light/dark look good, as you can see from the image of the garden above. This was taken in the dead of night at is well-detailed as you can see.

The wide-angle lens is excellent, producing images of the same detailed clarity and quality as the main lens. Zooming up to 3.5x retains enough detail, but you'll notice there is softening of the image once you reach 10x zoom and above (as per the image of the boat above). Super macro is also excellent, as you can see from the image of the inside of a tulip.

None of the samples have undergone any post-processing other than resizing.

Video recording is excellent as well. The Honor Magic5 Pro takes some fantastic video, and the image stabilization is great (perfect for someone like me who has fairly unsteady hands). There is also a neat little camera feature called Magic Take, which converts video frames into images. The above image was produced using this feature.

Recommending the Honor Magic5 Pro

If you're looking for a new flagship smartphone that goes toe-to-toe with the leading brands and shows superiority in several factors, then the Honor Magic5 Pro is for you. Honor has pulled it out of the bag with this smartphone, and any concerns that it wouldn't match up to the prowess of the Magic4 Pro are immediately squashed.

With a smooth OS, excellent camera, and a glut of software features that enhance the productivity potential of Magic5 Pro, it certainly makes a worthy contender for the top of your shopping list when it comes to purchasing a new smartphone, and only serves to make us more excited to see what Honor has in store for us in the next 12 months.