The Honor Magic8 Pro is a stone-cold S26 Ultra killer – offering great value and a staggering camera setup, but it lacks a little finesse

Honor is taking the fight to Samsung and Apple with its latest flagship smartphone, hoping to attract consumers and enterprises alike. Rather than being a transformative upgrade on last year's excellent Honor Magic7 Pro, the Magic8 Pro offers some much-needed refinements.

For instance, the device is marginally trimmer and lighter, with a slightly smaller screen, while its camera lenses see minor improvements. There's also a larger battery capacity and a slightly improved chipset. On the flipside, there's a lot of on-device AI to wade through as we try to determine how useful these applications actually are, and whether the incremental upgrades are worthy of the premium price tag.

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Honor Magic8 Pro: Design

The biggest change you'll see between the Magic8 Pro and its predecessor is one you'll barely notice, a slight reduction in the display size – and consequently an ever-so-slightly smaller frame. The thickness, for example, has reduced from 8.8mm to 8.4mm – but you'd otherwise be forgiven for believing they were the same device.

The Magic8 Pro features the same rounded glass display as in the Magic7 Pro, placed atop a smoothened brushed metal chassis with squared sides and rounded edges, and a silky frosted metallic rear. On the left-hand side, lined up are the volume, power/Gemini, and Honor AI button (more on that later). One thing we were a little disappointed with was just how rounded the corners were; it feels like the content you view is ever-so-slightly cut off.

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It's a beautiful construction otherwise, with just the right amount of grip to feel sturdy when held. The device is also available in the same Black finish as its predecessor, as well as two new colors; a more muted Cyan replaces Breeze Blue, and Sunrise Gold subs in for the jazzy Lunar Shadow Grey.

An Apple-style floating island hosts two front-facing cameras on the top of the display, while a robust glass wheel houses the three rear lenses on its rear. This is slightly larger than in the Magic7 Pro, and you won't find much joy standing the device vertically due to the weight. On that subject, it's ever-so-slightly lighter at 219g (versus 223g) – but the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is lighter still at 214g. This device is also slimmer, with a depth of 7.9mm. But the Honor Magic8 Pro is a little more compact in terms of its width and height.

As with last year's device, the NanoCrystal Shield glass on the front and rear boasts SGS 5-StarDrop Resistance. The dust and water resistance is also excellent, with ratings of IP68/IP69/IP69K, with the latter a new tier of protection that even the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra lacks (only limited to IP68). IP69K is completely dust-tight and offers protection against high-pressure and high-temperature water jets. If you find yourself using the device in harsh terrains, it's as rugged as you can get for something so slender.

Honor Magic8 Pro: Display

You should expect the absolute best from the display in a flagship smartphone, and Honor delivers with its 6.71in LTPO OLED display (a reduction from the 6.8in display in its predecessor) with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and HDR Vivid support. Its 2,808 x 1,256 resolution is sharp but offers a slightly weaker pixels-per-inch ratio than the 6.9in S26 Ultra (456 versus 498), but falls in line with the iPhone 17 Pro (460).

You can pick from three distinct color profiles: normal (true-to-life), vivid (enhanced for higher saturation), and professional (suitable for tuning for color-accurate displays). Beyond that, however, you may tweak the red, green, and blue settings, alongside factors like hue, saturation, brightness, contrast, and sharpness. There's also the option to set a default, cool, or warm color tint – or pick from a color wheel. It's an incredible array of customization. We found Vivid (default) is your best bet for day-to-day usage, given the way that colors pop, but Normal might be best if you want a more organic representation of the world when shooting video or taking photos.

Honor claims that the smartphone can hit 1,800cd/m2 under High Brightness Mode (HBM) – with a peak luminosity of 6,000cd/m2. That's considerably higher than the S26 Ultra's 2,600cd/m2 and the iPhone 17 Pro's 3,000cd/m2 maximum. These levels are normally temporary and require exceptional conditions, like direct sunlight, with Automatic Brightness turned on. When we measured the device under manual settings and all automatic settings turned off, we measured a peak luminosity of 790cd/m2 – which is a fantastic base level, and a little higher than the S26 Ultra.

Color accuracy was also outstanding, with 99.9% coverage of the sRGB color spectrum – a notch higher than the S26 Ultra's 96%. This is outstanding, and was complemented with 79% coverage of the Adobe RGB spectrum and 92.3% coverage of the DCI P3 spectrum (where above 70% and 80% is viable for professional use).

Beyond standard settings like Light and Dark mode toggles and refresh rate adjustments are options to adjust the screen resolution (including a power-saving Smart Resolution mode that does so automatically when battery life is under strain), as well as eBook mode, which renders the display in black and white to aid with reading. The phone also lets you toggle two AI-powered enhancement options, including Super Dynamic Display (which adjusts brightness and contrast) and Vivid Display (which adjusts video clarity and colors). Admittedly, it does make a small difference, helping video footage pop from the screen. However, depending on your circumstances, the original image quality is already strong, and it may be worth turning off to preserve battery life.

Honor Magic8 Pro: Specs and performance

You'll find the outstanding Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 platform in the Honor Magic8 Pro, alongside an Adreno 840 GPU, 12GB RAM, and 512GB storage. The differences between this chipset in the Magic8 Pro and the S26 Ultra are minimal, but performance in the latter just about edges it.

The Magic8 Pro hit 3,671 for single-core workloads and 10,772 for multi-core workloads, which is a tad lower than 3,671 and 11,307 in the S26 Ultra. While not quite eclipsing the power of its direct rival, it packs more of a punch overall than the iPhone 17 Pro Max, which scored 3,790 and 9,844 via public testing information, respectively. Still, a score like this outpaces many premium laptops, meaning the Honor Magic8 Pro can certainly make a strong case for a device that can allow high-powered mobile working.

With its huge 6270mAh battery, Honor's flagship phone can certainly last well into two days. In our looped video playback test, the Honor Magic8 Pro lasted 31hrs 42mins – it's a staggering result and certainly more than enough. This is a lifespan that's four hours less than the S26 Ultra, despite its larger capacity and silicon carbon technology (as opposed to Samsung's persistence with Lithium-ion). The Honor Magic8 Pro also supports 100W wired charging and up to 80W wireless charging, as opposed to the S26 Ultra's 60W and 25W.

Honor Magic8 Pro: Cameras

The selection of cameras in the Honor Magic8 Pro is outstanding, both front and back. The front-facing camera comprises two lenses, including a 50MP lens and a 3D depth-sensing lens. On the rear is a 50MP Ultra Night Main Camera, 50MP Ultra Wide Camera and a stonking 200MP Ultra Night Telephoto Camera.

This collection of lenses is as good as you may find in a flagship device – and features a host of software-powered enhancements that add to the sense that you're working with professional-lite hardware. One of the Magic8 Pro's main selling points is its ability to shoot at night, and it really does excel in this department -- flooding your frame with light thanks to the combination of the 200MP lens as well as some AI support courtesy of AiMAGE.

This layer also adds a Stabilization Engine – which Honor suggests is an industry-first CIPA 6.5-stop image stabilizer – and a Portrait Engine that helps you focus on individual subjects and make them stand out. The Magic Color mode is also a fun photo-level feature that lets you add AI-generated filters and color palettes to whatever you're shooting. You can even upload one of your previous photos and use it to generate an original filter.

The Honor Magic8 Pro allows up to 3.7x manual zoom and up to 100x digital zoom – and you can cycle between lenses depending on how you'd like to frame your subject. Shooting while zoomed into something at extreme levels works surprisingly well, with little to no shake, and AI augmentations like colorization and sharpness enhancing the finished product.

Shooting with video is also stellar. While you'll sadly lack the 8K offered by the S26 Ultra and OnePlus 15, you can shoot 4K footage at up to 120fps/3.7x zoom with the rear camera and 60fps/2x zoom with the front-facing lenses. The frame rate is limited to 60fps if you're shooting in HDR and 24fps if you're activating Super Night Mode. There's also fantastic image stabilization, as we've covered. Handily, you can run your finger along the AI button while you're aiming to zoom in and out, and tap it to take your photo or start shooting.

Honor Magic8 Pro: Features and software

The inclusion of a true 3D facial recognition system in the front-facing lenses is fantastic – making authentication a little easier – while a fingerprint scanner fits neatly beneath the surface to cater to those who'd rather avoid scanning their face. Another curious addition is the Infrared Remote Control that lets you activate a range of devices, including displays and air conditioners. You can also benefit from PC Data Sync if you install HonorSuite on your smartphone, although Windows 11 now includes excellent smartphone syncing features.

The MagicOS 10, powered by Android 16, is largely clean and straightforward to navigate – very much resembling Apple's iOS environment – but allows for a massive degree of customization. You'll spend most of your time at first, however, wading through a half-dozen AI-enabled apps and features that you may or may not find useful.

To begin with, there's an AI Suggestions folder on the home screen that offers a collection of four apps that rotate in and out depending on what the device expects you'll need. We found this unhelpful, as long as you've organized your folders and apps to suit your own muscle memory navigation. You can expand this folder to six apps – or remove it.

AI Space can, in theory, be useful for coordinating all the devices in a smart home office, with the IR blaster and Bluetooth letting you add devices to your Space that you can then control with your phone.

Then there's Gemini, which is fairly self-explanatory. Honor AI is another one that offers three "agents" – one for settings, one for photos, and one for memories. The first two seem fairly straightforward, where a certain degree of automation will take over how you control settings and edit photos, but the third is more intriguing.

By swiping three fingers down on your screen, your device will capture the content on your screen, perform some kind of "analysis", then store it for later reference in a dedicated app that appears on your home screen. Frankly, this feature appears indistinguishable from just taking screenshots.

Some more useful features include the AI-powered real-time transcription and translation through the Recorder app. The Magic Portal also threatens to be useful; by holding the AI button, you can tap into AI Memories or Circle to Search, which lets you capture portions of text or images by circling it with your finger before you Google it. If you want to work on your phrasing and writing, you can activate the AI Writing feature, too, to

For the security-conscious among you, AI Deepfake & Voice Cloning Detection can help you perform scans while using compatible apps, including Google Meet and Phone, to detect whether you've come up against a deepfake. Those who need to swap between SIM cards can also load one physical SIM and an eSIM. Finally, the device comes with a one-year replacement service (including a one-time screen replacement service), a two-year warranty, and up to seven years of Android maintenance. There are no device-specific packages, however, like Samsung's Knox Suite Enterprise Plan, available.

Honor Magic8 Pro: Is it worth it?

This Honor Magic8 Pro is a simply outstanding flagship smartphone that offers plenty of value in its price category. Its main competitor is undoubtedly the S26 Ultra – and it goes head-to-head in several key areas – not quite eclipsing it in a few key quarters like performance and battery life, but eclipsing the South Korean manufacturer's own flagship device when it comes to screen brightness and the camera array.

For businesses keen on offering employees high-end on-device AI functionality, alongside plenty of photo and video shooting power, the Honor Magic8 Pro is an excellent proposition. That's even more the case when you consider its up-to £1,090 price tag versus the S26 Ultra's £1,279.99 valuation. You do, however, miss out on the use of a stylus, and you may well prefer the S26 Ultra's design and build, especially given the Honor's comically protruding camera array. Put simply, however, it's a potential S26 Ultra killer that packs plenty of high-end features at a reasonable price.

Honor Magic8 Pro specifications