Honor Magic 6 Pro Review

In a market saturated with iterative updates, the Honor Magic 6 Pro arrives as a genuine contender for the flagship crown. It promises a no-compromise experience, blending bleeding-edge hardware with ambitious new software features. This isn’t just another smartphone; it’s a statement of intent from a brand reasserting its dominance.

The first thing you notice about the Magic 6 Pro is its sheer confidence. Encased in a metal frame with a distinctive vegan leather back, the device feels substantial and unapologetically premium. The centerpiece of this design is the massive, cushion-shaped camera island. It’s a polarizing choice that makes a bold statement, but it also houses some of the most impressive camera hardware on the market. Paired with the incredibly tough “NanoCrystal Shield” glass on the front, the build quality inspires confidence, though its considerable weight and size mean it won’t be for everyone.

Firing up the display reveals one of the phone’s greatest strengths. The 6.8-inch LTPO OLED panel is simply spectacular, boasting an absurdly high peak brightness of 5,000 nits for HDR content and excellent visibility in direct sunlight. But the real story for daily use is the industry-leading 4320Hz PWM dimming, which significantly reduces eye strain during prolonged use—a feature that those sensitive to screen flicker will deeply appreciate. Colors are vibrant, motion is buttery smooth thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate, and it stands as one of the very best displays you can find on any smartphone today.

Under the hood, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset delivers the blistering performance we’ve come to expect from a 2024 flagship. Apps launch instantly, multitasking is seamless, and demanding games run without a hint of lag. Where Honor truly pulls ahead, however, is in the battery department. The 5600mAh silicon-carbon battery consistently delivers outstanding endurance, comfortably lasting a full day of heavy use and often pushing into a second. When you do need to top up, the 80W wired and 66W wireless charging are incredibly fast, outpacing most of the mainstream competition.

Of course, the main event is the “Falcon Camera System.” The 50MP main sensor features a variable f/1.4-2.0 aperture, offering greater control over depth of field and low-light performance. But the star is the 180MP periscope telephoto lens. This is not just a numbers game; the lens provides stunningly detailed shots at its native 2.5x optical zoom and produces some of the most usable and detailed 5x and 10x hybrid zoom photos we’ve seen. The camera’s AI Motion Sensing Capture is also remarkably effective at freezing fast-moving subjects, making it a fantastic tool for capturing unpredictable moments.

On the software front, MagicOS 8.0 running on Android 14 is a step in the right direction. It’s fluid and feature-rich, though it still carries a distinct aesthetic that may not appeal to stock Android purists. The headline addition is “Magic Portal,” an AI-powered feature that allows you to drag text or images to the side of the screen to trigger contextual actions, like creating a calendar event from a message or searching for a product in a photo. While it shows immense promise, it’s still in its early stages and feels more like a compelling tech demo than an essential, everyday tool.

Ultimately, the Honor Magic 6 Pro is a hardware masterpiece. It nails the fundamentals with a class-leading display, phenomenal battery life, and a truly exceptional and versatile camera system that challenges the very best in the industry. It’s an easy recommendation for the photography enthusiast or the power user who wants a device that can do it all and last all day doing it. If you can embrace its bold design and are open to a software experience outside the Google or Samsung norm, this is one of the most compelling flagships of the year.

Where to Buy:

Check it out on Amazon