Initial Verdict: Despite being no longe the top dog in smartphone camera rankings, the Magic5 Pro is still a compelling flagship offering from HONOR that we’re excited to see in the Philippines. 

Pros

-Sleek build

-Great cameras (on paper)

Cons

-Pill-shaped punch-hole can be polarizing

-Downgrade in wired charging speeds

As part of its return to the Philippines last year, the Magic4 Pro is HONOR’s top-end offering, and we generally liked its overall performance for a flagship offering–though there’s room for improvement. The Magic5 Pro refines all the good things about the Magic4 Pro–and improves on key aspects like the camera.

Unboxing and packaging contents

Inside the box, you have the 66w charger, USB-C cable, silicone case, and the phone itself. Considering that a number of phones do not include the charger in the box, it’s nice to see the likes of HONOR still keep the charger out of the box.

Design

Like its predecessor, the Magic5 Pro retains the premium aluminum and glass build, and we’re happy that you’re getting a matte finish instead of a glossy one for the Meadow Green colorway to make you fret less about fingerprints. Unlike the Magic4 Pro, the Magic5 Pro’s camera module has the same color as the back panel. This makes the Magic5 Pro look sleeker–especially in making the camera module blend better through the body.

The button and port layout is the same as what you expect on a premium HONOR device–and that includes the SIM card tray at the bottom, speakers on both the top and bottom, and an IR sensor on top. You get curved sides on both the back panel and the display to give it better ergonomics. The phone can be a bit slippery, though it’s good that HONOR includes a case with the Magic5 Pro. Like its predecessor, you get an IP68 rating, making the Magic5 Pro water and dust resistant.

 

Display

The Magic5 Pro has one of the best smartphone displays in the market with its 6.81-inch 120hz quad-curved AMOLED display. Save for the pill-shaped punch-hole that may divide users in terms of its size and appearance–the Magic5 Pro does have a great display with 1800nits max brightness, and its support for HDR10+ content is stellar especially when watching Netflix shows that have it.

Despite being a quad-curved display, the Magic5 Pro did a great job in rejecting accidental touches, making it a slight improvement from what we experienced with the Magic4 Pro. Its smart refresh rate feature can dial it down to as low as 1hz depending on what’s on the screen, which should help make the Magic5 Pro power efficient as well.

Aside from the great display, the Magic5 Pro also has great speakers as well–making it an excellent device for entertainment.

 

Cameras

The ace of the Magic5 Pro is its triple rear camera setup, which consists of three 50-megapixel cameras laid out in the circular camera module. The setup consists of a 1/1.2-inch sensor for the main camera with an f/1.6 aperture, OIS, an ultra-wide camera with an f/2.0 aperture and autofocus to let you do macro shots (as close as 2.5cm), and a telephoto camera with an f/3.0 aperture, 3.5x optical zoom, OIS, and a telephoto macro feature. The telephoto camera promises up to 100x digital zoom–and we will put that to the test to see if it’s a good feature.

The Magic5 Pro’s showing in DxOMark does make it a compelling camera phone–though we will have to put it to the test to see if DxOMark’s findings are indeed true. Otherwise, the Magic5 Pro is a compelling camera phone on paper.

 

Internals and Battery

The Magic5 Pro is a flagship through and through, as it has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor that’s paired with up to 512GB UFS 4.0 internal storage and up to 12GB LPDDR5X RAM. While we’re familiar with how the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 performs (it’s way better than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1), we will need to do our usual set of tests to see if HONOR has better software optimization for this 2023 flagship chip.

Compared to other flagship phones in the market, the Magic5 Pro has a larger-than-usual 5100mAh battery inside that supports 66w wired and 50w wireless charging. The wired charging speed is a downgrade from the 100w charging found on the Magic4 Pro, but 66w wired is just as good–the Magic5 Pro makes it up for a bigger battery anyways.

Wrap-up and Initial Impressions

We love the Magic4 Pro last year when HONOR included it as one of its initial offerings in the Philippines, and we can more or less say the same with the Magic5 Pro with all the improvements HONOR made through its 2023 flagship device. We love the Magic5 Pro’s display, and we’re excited to see how its cameras perform–given all the great hardware it has to offer on paper.