Honor Magic 4 Pro Review: After Using Some time My Opinion and Details

Honor Magic 4 Pro Review, Let's take a look at the Honor Magic 4 Pro specifications, features, and other information that is currently available.

Honor Magic 4 Pro Review: After Using Some time My Opinion and Details
Honor Magic 4 Pro (Image credit: realme)

REASONS TO BUY

 +  Great camera system

 +  Premium design

 +  Gorgeous, immersive display

 +  Powerful internals

 +  Loads of storage

 REASONS TO AVOID

 -  It's a fingerprint magnet

 -  Good, not great battery life

 -  Occasional interface gremlins

The Honor Magic 4 Pro has a lot of work ahead of it. Honor used to be a subsidiary of Huawei, and since the two companies split, it hasn't released a flagship phone in the West – until now.

Honor's Magic 4 Pro comes with top-tier specs, including a very fast processor, a large, bold, curvy screen, premium glass, and metal design, and world-first charging technology. Unlike any other phone on the market at the time of writing, Honor's flagship can be charged wirelessly at 100W. That's insanely fast – nearly seven times faster than the iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Despite its clearly impressive list of specifications, Honor still has a lot of work to do if it wants you to buy its new phone. After all, it's been years since we've seen a high-end Honor phone, and there are plenty of fantastic smartphones on the market right now, including the Realme GT 2 Pro, OPPO Find X5 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, to name a few.

Also Read: iPhone SE (2022) Review

HONOR MAGIC 4 PRO REVIEW: PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

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The Honor Magic 4 Pro will be available for pre-order on May 13, 2022, with both on and off-contract options available in the UK.

You can get it with a contract from Three UK or Carphone Warehouse. If you want to buy the phone offline, it costs £949.99 in the UK and will be available on Amazon, Argos, Currys, and hihonor.com on May 27, 2022.

The Honor Magic 4 Pro costs €1,099 in Europe, with availability in other countries to be confirmed. There is currently no US release date set.

Also Read: Xiaomi 12 Pro Review

HONOR MAGIC 4 PRO REVIEW: DESIGN

In a world of matte, frosted glass flagship phones, the Honor Magic Pro 4's shiny mirror finish feels like a throwback. While there's no denying the phone is made of high-quality materials, feels premium, and looks great, its fingerprint-friendly glass back screams '2020' when compared to the frosted Samsung Galaxy S22, iPhone 13 Pro, and Xiaomi 12.

Because the Honor Magic 4 Pro comes with a case, anyone who despises smudgy fingerprint stains as much as we do can easily conceal them. This does an excellent job of keeping smudges at bay and protecting the phone while displaying its attractive reflective back panel.

There's also a pre-installed screen protector and IP68 water and dust resistance, making the Magic 4 Pro one of the most durable flagship phones available.

The Honor Magic 4 Pro weighs 215g and fits comfortably in your pocket. Its large screen is matched by a weight somewhere between that of an iPhone 13 Pro and a 13 Pro Max. The phone's glass front and back taper in at the sides, making the Magic Pro 4 feel thinner in the hand – and relatively elegant.

Highlights include a USB-C port at the base alongside a dual-SIM slot; buttons on the right side; an infrared blaster at the top; and speakers that bookend the device and deliver stereo sound. While the front of the phone is all screen, with the exception of a pill-shaped selfie camera, the curved back of the Magic 4 Pro features a bold black circle that houses three cameras, some sensors, and a flash.

Also Read: Samsung Galaxy A53 5G Review

HONOR MAGIC 4 PRO REVIEW: DISPLAY

(Image credit: realme)

The Honor Magic 4 Pro's front is almost entirely screen, with the exception of a cutout for the selfie cameras. It has a 6.81-inch curved display and tiny bezels surrounding it. The screen is not only large, but it is also sharp, with a resolution of 1312 x 2848 pixels. While it isn't the sharpest smartphone on the market, it is still excellent, with around 460 pixels per inch (460ppi).

Honor's Magic 4 Pro, like most high-end smartphones, features an OLED display with HDR10 certification, colour accuracy credentials galore (DCI-P3 coverage, a sub 0.5 DeltaE, and 10-bit colour), and a silky smooth 120Hz refresh rate.

Because the OLED panel is a new LTPO screen, similar to that used on the OnePlus 10 Pro, the phone can adjust its refresh rate between 1Hz and 120Hz, saving power overall.

Honor, desperate for differentiation, is boasting about an independent display chipset found in the Magic 4 Pro. This does things we've seen before: it enhances standard dynamic range video to appear more like HDR video; it upscales SD and HD footage to take advantage of the specified screen, and it generally improves video performance.

The Honor Magic 4 Pro's display looks great in person, with a brightness of 1000 nits. Its colours are punchy and vibrant, as well as accurate, and its blacks are inky. The phone isn't as bright as an iPhone 13 Pro or the new Galaxy S22 line, but it's still clearly visible in all but the brightest environments – and it's easy to see from moderate angles, despite some colour shift when taking an extreme side or top view (not uncommon for a curved display).

Also Read: Oppo Find X5 Lite Review

HONOR MAGIC 4 PRO REVIEW: CAMERAS

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The back of the Magic 4 Pro appears to have five cameras – four around the circumference of the circular ring and one in the center – but it actually only has three. Honor Magic 4 Pro Review

The main camera has a wide 50-megapixel sensor paired with an f/1.8 aperture lens, the ultra-wide camera has a 50-megapixel sensor paired with an f/2.2 lens, and the periscope telephoto camera has a 3.5x optical zoom.

The other two sensors are a time of flight (TOF) sensor, which detects depth and aids in focus and background defocus effects, and a flicker sensor, which helps to reduce flicker when shooting in artificially lit scenes.

The majority of flagship phones' main cameras have stabilized lenses. This feature, abbreviated OIS, aids in keeping the lens steady, reducing blur caused by handshake. It's especially useful in low light, so we were surprised it wasn't included in the Magic 4 Pro, and even more surprised to get such good results from the phone's main camera.

Honor's flagship takes rich, vibrant photos that are generally realistic in terms of colour balance, contrast, and saturation. While it reduces contrast compared to iPhone results – reds, in particular, aren't always as vibrant and nuanced as we'd like – it delivers better dynamic range in a variety of scenes than most flagships, including when photographing backlit subjects.

The phone focuses quickly, but switching between the macro and regular cameras can be confusing. Macro lens? Yes, the ultra-wide doubles as a GoPro-style expansive shooter as well as a close-up camera, allowing it to photograph objects as close as 4cm away from the lens. When the Magic 4 Pro detects a close-up object, it can automatically activate the ultra-wide camera. This automation can be effective at times, but it can also be jarring.

The zoom range of the Magic 4 Pro impressed us greatly. Despite having only a 3.5x optical zoom, the Magic 4 Pro holds its own against phones with 10x zoom, such as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. When the light is right, its high-resolution 64MP sensor delivers detail that blows away phones like the iPhone 13 Pro Max, OnePlus 9 Pro, and OPPO Find X5 Pro.

The Magic 4 Pro's low-light performance is impressive, thanks to the auto night mode. While photos taken in low light appear more balanced than those taken on a zingy Samsung or a contrasty iPhone, they have less detail. This is where optical image stabilization (OIS) on the main camera would have likely come in handy.

The Magic 4 Pro has a powerful dual selfie camera with one 12-megapixel 100-degree-wide camera and a 3D depth camera for more accurate portraits. It's ideal for capturing group shots, maintaining natural skin tones, and delivering generally accurate background defocus effects.

The phone's Log video capture mode is also novel. If you're unfamiliar with Log video, it's very flat-looking footage that gives editors a lot of leeway when editing their videos. Capturing at up to 4K resolution and 60 frames per second, it's a welcome addition to an already capable smartphone video camera that video enthusiasts will appreciate.

Also Read: Honor Magic 4, Magic 4 Pro with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC...

HONOR MAGIC 4 PRO REVIEW: PERFORMANCE

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The Honor Magic 4 Pro's Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, 256GB storage, and 8GB RAM are all adequate for the needs of most modern smartphone users.

We played games on the phone for about a quarter of an hour before it began to warm up slightly, and it became noticeably warm after about half an hour, though not uncomfortable. This is no worse than other Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 phones, but if you intend to play for extended periods of time, dedicated gaming phones like the Asus ROG Phone 5 are better suited.

On the Magic 4 Pro, biometric security is provided by a responsive under-display fingerprint scanner and advanced face recognition that makes use of the front camera's 3D sensor.

The Magic 4 Pro is loud, with speakers on either side of the screen, and delivers relatively impressive sound separation for a phone, but it falls short of outperforming the iPhone 13 Pro Max in terms of depth.

Anyone who has used a Huawei phone before will likely know what to expect. It runs Android 12 with Honor's Magic UI 6 on top. Everything is very similar to the EMUI found on the Huawei Mate 40 Pro.

When compared to Huawei's UI, Honor has added some software flourishes, specifically screen-tuning optimizations.

The phone's screen flickered occasionally when we increased or decreased the volume during video playback; the handling of the selfie camera cutout/full-screen mode isn't particularly intuitive, and we had a spot of VPN trouble that a soft reset fixed.

Despite these minor quibbles, the Magic 4 Pro provides an overall stable, smooth, and enjoyable software experience. You also have access to the Google Play Store, so no complaints there.

Also Read: Oppo Find X5 Review: a Flagship Smartphone with a Lower...

HONOR MAGIC 4 PRO REVIEW: BATTERY AND CHARGING

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Honor's 2022 flagship has a larger 4500mAh battery capacity than the 2021 model. Its main rivals – Realme, OPPO, OnePlus, and Xiaomi – pack 5000mAh batteries into their flagships.

What Honor sacrifices in battery capacity, it makes up for in quick charging – the Magic 4 Pro supports up to 100W wired and wireless charging, delivering faster wireless speeds than any other flagship at the time of writing.

The Honor Magic 4 Pro died by the early evening on the days we stressed-tested it, so power users may struggle to get a full day out of it. Having said that, most people should be fine in terms of battery life.

An hour of streaming video playback at full brightness with a VPN active shaved about 12% off a full battery, indicating that the phone is more than capable of handling a long-haul flight on a single charge. We were able to complete a full day with around 15-25 percent remaining on a typical day with some photo taking, music listening, and watching.

Honor includes a 100W wired charger with the phone, and a 100W wireless charger is available for £84.99. If you think this will wirelessly charge your Magic 4 Pro at 100W, think again. It only supports 80W with the supplied charger.

To achieve the maximum wireless speeds of 100W, an additional 135W wired charger, priced at £69.99, is required. That means the 100W wireless charging kit will cost around £155, which is insane. If you purchase the expensive package, you can expect to charge the battery by 30% in just 10 minutes and fully charge it in about 45 minutes.

Despite this very expensive method of maximizing wireless charging speeds, the phone charges quickly from 0 to 100 in half an hour using the supplied wired charger – only bested by Xiaomi's 12 Pro.

HONOR MAGIC 4 PRO REVIEW: VERDICT

Honor is treading carefully with the Magic 4 Pro. It must be a seriously competitive flagship that does not make too many compromises in any key area while still undercutting the most expensive phones on the market. However, for the most part, it succeeds – so welcome back, Honor.

The Magic 4 Pro costs the same as the 128GB iPhone 13 Pro, but it is less expensive than the Pro Max, Galaxy S22 Plus and Ultra, Oppo Find X5 Pro, and Xiaomi 12 Pro. That's a pretty balanced position to be in.

Given how good the screen looks and how well the main rear camera performs, the Magic 4 Pro is arguably one of the best camera phones available at this price. The phone competes with and outperforms the Pixel 6 Pro in several key areas, including screen quality, charging speed, processing power, camera versatility, and storage capacity.

While we don't love Honor's fingerprint-magnet finish and believe it could benefit from a few smoother edges in the UI, the Magic 4 Pro is still full of promise and one of the best phones under four figures in 2022.