Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Mid-range magic

Finest Costs Immediately: Honor Magic 8 Lite

The Honor Magic 8 Lite is a well-balanced mix of flagship-level endurance and budget-friendly compromises, leading to a surprisingly compelling gadget.

Whereas its predecessor, the Magic 7 Lite, solely launched in January, Honor has already upgraded this iteration with a brand new processor and a sturdier chassis, whereas providing improved mud and water safety. 

Additionally taking the limelight is the hefty 7,500mAh battery, designed to maintain the cellphone operating all day and effectively into the subsequent. After in-depth testing, listed below are my detailed ideas on the cellphone.

Design & Construct

• Hanging marble end
• IP69K water and dirt resistance
• Awkward digital camera placement

The Magic 8 Lite is a hanging gadget, that includes a slim black bezel outlining the 6.79-inch OLED show and a discreet hole-punch notch. The plastic again is harking back to marble, that includes a cloud-like sample that reveals itself when tilted towards the sunshine. 

The end is beautifully clean with out being slippery or vulnerable to fingerprints. It’s obtainable in three finishes: Forest Inexperienced, Midnight Black, and Reddish Brown.

Equally hanging – although maybe much less sensible – is the large round digital camera array. Whereas it makes the Magic 8 Lite recognisable, the position means your fingertips typically brush towards the lenses when holding the cellphone in a single hand.

On the right-hand facet are the amount buttons and the ability button. When pressed twice quickly, the latter activates the flashlight, whereas holding it down will set off Google Gemini. These are each helpful options, and extra refined than the gesture controls from different smartphone producers like Motorola, for instance, whose gadgets require a extra seen karate chop to activate the torch.

Adam Smith / Foundry

Weighing in at 189g, it’s three grams heavier than the Google Pixel 9a – more likely to be its major rival at this value level – however it strikes a strong stability between light-weight consolation and sturdiness. 

With IP68 and IP69K scores, the gadget can stand up to high-pressure sprays and submersion as much as 1 metre for half-hour.

Display screen & Audio system

• Vivid OLED show
• Easy 120Hz movement
• Common audio high quality

The display Honor has fitted right here is spectacular, with a claimed 6000 nits peak brightness that ensures legibility even in direct daylight. It includes a crisp 2640 x 1200 decision and a 120Hz refresh charge that retains scrolling and animations buttery clean.

Watching Her (2013), the show dealt with the movie’s melancholy palette with nuance. The place lesser gadgets typically render shadowed city scenes as an earthly gray, the Magic 8 Lite maintains distinct distinction, permitting the purple of Theodore Twombly’s (Joaquin Phoenix) jacket to pop towards the concrete and muted-blue sky.

Adam Smith / Foundry

Pores and skin tones are naturally conveyed, avoiding the washed-out look frequent amongst price range handsets. When Twombly returns house to his murky house, the show captures each the darkness and the element. 

You can also make out the hints of his kitchen home equipment within the nook of the room with a lot higher element on the suitable facet of the scene, whereas the left facet plunges into darkness. It’s contrasted towards the purple of his room, which, on the Magic 8 Lite, comes throughout good and brightly.

Audio high quality is appropriate for the small stereo audio system, although it tends to edge towards harshness at most quantity. For the very best expertise, pairing the gadget with first rate headphones is really useful.

Specs & Efficiency

• Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chip
• Strong gaming efficiency

Beneath the hood, the Magic 8 Lite is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chip, paired with 8GB of RAM and both 256GB or 512GB of storage. For essentially the most half, this setup retains the cellphone operating easily.

Whereas scrolling by way of social media and firing off texts feels fluid, the gadget isn’t fairly as snappy because it might be. There’s often a perceptible delay when typing, looking, or launching heavy apps.

Adam Smith / Foundry

In an try and put it by way of its paces taking part in Wuthering Waves, gameplay was greater than satisfactory on its default settings, with no important body charge dips. Whereas a flagship cellphone will naturally supply greater constancy and higher responses, cellular avid gamers seeking to play titles on the go gained’t be disenchanted.

Cameras

• Similar digital camera {hardware} as final two iterations
• Oversaturated color tones
• Weak zoom element

The largest let-down is that Honor has not upgraded the digital camera {hardware} from the Magic 6 Lite or 7 Lite. We’re as soon as once more offered with a 108Mp major sensor, a 5Mp ultra-wide, and a 16Mp selfie lens.

The color science leaves one thing to be desired, affected by the oversaturation typically seen in Chinese language Android gadgets. Whereas the palette makes a robust first impression, a comparability between the display and actuality reveals that the majority photographs are extra false than trustworthy to actuality.

Crops seem unnaturally lush, and blue skies seem like a journey advert. This aesthetic might attraction to social media customers, however these searching for accuracy will want the extra pure processing of Google’s Pixel line or the iPhone.

With no telephoto lens, zoom capabilities are additionally restricted. High quality holds up at 2x zoom, however push it to 3x – or the utmost 10x – and the gadget struggles to resolve the superb element that discerning customers anticipate.

In low mild, the Magic 8 Lite performs adequately, producing first rate photographs regardless of a scarcity of superb texture. The selfie digital camera, in the meantime, is serviceable and usually matches the competitors available on the market.

Battery Life & Charging

• 7500mAh silicon-carbon battery
• Unbelievable three-day battery life
• 66W quick charging, however charger bought individually

The battery that Honor has outfitted the Magic 8 Lite with is astonishingly good. Regardless of a svelte design, choosing silicon-carbon (Si/C) know-how means you get a large 7500mAh capability.

It took roughly three days of casually watching movies, scrolling social media, answering emails, and taking a look at maps earlier than the Magic 8 Lite lastly gave out on me. So even with essentially the most demanding day possible, you gained’t have to fret about whether or not it’ll make it to bedtime.

Adam Smith / Foundry

The gadget additionally helps as much as 66W quick charging utilizing an official Honor charger. Sadly, you’ll want to provide your individual brick, as one just isn’t included within the field, and the cable is an out-of-date USB-A to USB-C.

Software program & Options

• Magic OS 9 over Android 16
• A lot of AI instruments
• An excessive amount of bloatware
• Six years of OS and safety updates

The Magic 8 Lite runs Magic OS 9, Honor’s pores and skin primarily based on Android 15. Honor layers its personal suite of functions over the Google defaults – together with its personal Well being, Calendar, and Gallery apps. 

Relying on how invested you’re within the Honor ecosystem, cleansing these off your house display might take a while.

In some methods, it feels extra like Apple’s iOS than Android. The notification centre is reached by swiping vertically down on the left facet of the cellphone, whereas the management centre is on the suitable. 

Honor additionally has a ‘Join’ perform for seamlessly transferring duties, notifications, and your wi-fi hotspot between different Honor tablets and laptops, identical to Apple does with the iPad and MacBooks. The ‘Magic Capsule’ characteristic additionally acts just like the Dynamic Island does, exhibiting a wider synthetic notch for recording, media playback, and clock features like timers.

Adam Smith / Foundry

Honor can also be leaning closely into synthetic intelligence. There are AI translation, summarisation, subtitles, and writing instruments, plus a ‘Magic Portal’ that works equally to Google’s Circle to Search. 

By drawing round textual content or a picture together with your knuckle (full with some magic-wand-like sparkles), a sidebar will open on the suitable facet of the cellphone for fast sharing to e-mail or messages, or fast-copying textual content.

In photographs and movies, Honor has an AI enhancing suite. This consists of an ‘AI eraser’ that can take away inconvenient elements reminiscent of signage or individuals from the background of your photographs or do away with the reflection from photographs taken by way of home windows, each of which work very effectively.

Different instruments embrace ‘AI Upscaler’, which makes an attempt to make blurry and low decision photographs clearer, however did little greater than sharpen the sides of objects within the photographs examined; an ‘AI Outpainting’ mode, which makes use of generative know-how to increase a picture to a sure facet ratio in a method that was fairly efficient; and an on the spot ‘AI Magnificence’ mode that brightens a picture and whitens the pores and skin in a method I actually don’t like.

Honor’s software program help coverage is superb, providing six years of each main Android OS updates and safety patches. Nonetheless, help is drastically reduce to only two years of updates exterior of Europe, and it’s unclear when Android 16 shall be obtainable on the Magic 8 Lite.

Value & Availability

The Honor Magic 8 Lite is a lovely mid-range selection, however we don’t understand how a lot it’ll price – but.

Nonetheless, it’s unlikely to be vastly totally different to the Magic 7 Lite, which began at £399 at launch.

For now, all you are able to do is join notifications by way of the Honor UK web site, and it’s unclear when the cellphone will truly be obtainable.

Assuming it stays as one of many cheaper mid-range telephones available on the market, rivals embrace the Google Pixel 9a, Samsung Galaxy A56, Oppo Reno 13 FS and Nothing Telephone (3a) Professional.

Must you purchase the Honor Magic 8 Lite?

The Magic 8 Lite has so much going for it. Its standout options – the large 7,500 mAh battery, a vibrant 6.79-inch OLED display, and a robust suite of AI capabilities – ship a premium really feel price excess of its anticipated price. 

Whereas it’s held again by a merely satisfactory, inherited digital camera system and the pre-loaded Honor bloatware, the Magic 8 Lite gives sufficient top-tier endurance and show high quality to be confidently really useful – offered you reside in Europe, the place long-term help is assured.

Specs

• Magic OS 9 over Android 15
• 6.79-inch, 2640 x 1200, 120Hz
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 4
• 8GB RAM
• 256/512GB storage
• Entrance digital camera: 16Mp (f/2.45)
• Rear cameras: 108Mp (f/1.75) Extremely-Sensing major, 5MP (f/2.2) ultrawide
• On-screen fingerprint reader, Face unlock
• 5G
• Wi-Fi 6
• Bluetooth 5.2
• USB-C
• 7500mAh silicon-carbon battery
• 161.9mm (L) x 76.1mm (W) x 7.76mm (D)
• W189g
• Launch Colors: Forest Inexperienced, Midnight Black, Reddish Brown