Honor has launched its latest flagship phone, the Honor Magic 8 Pro, with a number of eye-catching features.
The follow-up to the Honor Magic 7 Pro has a familiar design, with the company’s signature ‘squircle’ camera module and rounded rear panel.
Look closer, though, and you’ll notice that it’s a little smaller by every metric. It measures 161.15 x 75 x 8.4mm and weighs 213g (10g lighter than its predecessor).
Its display is a tad smaller to fit, though this 6.71-inch OLED can hardly be called a downgrade. It packs a 1256 x 2808 resolution, a 1 to 120Hz refresh rate (courtesy of LTPO), 4320Hz PWM Dimming, and a bolstered peak HDR brightness of 6,000 nits. It’ll also hit a higher 1,800 nits in high brightness mode.
It’s an even tougher cookie than before, too, with IP69K joining the previous IP68 and IP69. It’s as water resistant as smartphones get, and it also boasts SGS 5-Star Drop Resistance Certification.
Chris Hall / Foundry
Honor Magic 8 Pro performance and camera
Performance is handled by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, which should make for similarly class-leading results to the OnePlus 15. This is backed by 12GB of RAM and a healthy 512GB of storage – though that’s the only specification available in this territory.
Honor has packed in another capable triple camera system, with a 50Mp f/1.6 1/1.3” main camera, a 50Mp f/2.0 1/2.88″ ultra-wide, and a stand-out 200Mp f/2.6 1/1.4″ periscope telephoto with an increased 3.7x zoom (up from 3x).
That last sensor is pretty huge for a mobile telephoto camera. Honor is leaning into this by calling it a SuperNight Camera
As on the Honor Magic 7 Pro, that last sensor is pretty huge for a mobile telephoto camera. Honor is leaning into this by calling it a SuperNight Camera, boasting of its low light performance.
Magic Colour is said to be “the industry’s first AI-powered colour engine”, capable of intelligently extracting 16.77 million colours and allowing you to fine tune the tone of your shots in real time. This can involve carrying across the tone from your own existing shots, using them as templates.
There’s a 50Mp selfie camera around front, once again enhanced by a 3D ToF sensor for secure facial recognition. Honor is one of precious few Android manufacturers to follow Apple’s lead in this department.
Chris Hall / Foundry
Honor Magic 8 Pro battery and software
Despite the smaller size of its latest phone, Honor has increased the size of the Honor Magic 8 Pro’s battery to 6,270mAh. That’s still not as big as the Chinese model’s 7,200mAh, nor indeed the ‘global’ model’s 7,100mAh, but it’s still much larger than on previous generation flaghship phones.
Honor is making some typically bold claims about AI, mashing together its own tools with Google Gemini
There’s support for 100W wired charging and 80W wireless, though you’ll need to supply your own accessories for the job.
Honor is making some typically bold claims about AI, mashing together its own tools with Google Gemini. AI features include AI Deepfake Detection and AI Voice Cloning Detection, which will apparently protect you against audio and video call manipulation.
The company has also included a dedicated AI Button, which can be tied to several of the phone’s AI functions, and can also serve as a camera shortcut and shutter button.
More important to us than MagicOS 10’s new AI integration is Honor’s promise of seven years of OS and security updates, bringing the series up to the standard of rivals such as the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL and the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Chris Hall / Foundry
Honor Magic 8 Pro price and availability
The Honor Magic 8 Pro can be bought now directly from the Honor website, or from the usual third party retailers. Its sole configuration can be specified in Sunrise Gold, Sky Cyan, or Black, and it costs £1,099.99. There’s a tempting £200 early bird discount, if you’re quick.
That’s the same price as the Oppo Find X9 Pro, while undercutting the iPhone 17 Pro Max and the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL.
Want to know how the camera on the Honor Magic Pro stacks up against the Pixel 10 Pro? We tested them head-to-head to find out.
Author: Jon Mundy, Contributor, Tech Advisor
Jon is a freelance journalist who got his start covering mobile games at the dawn of the App Store. He has since covered everything from smart home tech and laptops to food and culture, but always seems to return to his fascination with smartphones.