(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)
HONOR has been on a roll recently, with key phones models it released last year, making it to the honour rolls of the best in their categories. Whether it's the world's slimmest folding phone in the form of the Magic V3 or the tough X9C, HONOR was on top of its game last year and came out with some big winners. And that form seems to have carried over to this year too, going by its first big release of 2025 – the Magic 7 Pro.
This latest offering from HONOR combines several great features in a stylish package, with its camera among the highlights of several path-breaking features. The world has known for some time now that mobile phones will one day end the need for standalone cameras, making the DSLRs and compact cameras that still rule photography relics of the past. And with the Magic 7 Pro, which boasts a whopping 100X zoom and AI-assisted features, HONOR just hammered in another nail into the coffin of the conventional digital camera.
But before we explore its photographic prowess, let's first take a look at the design and appearance of the Magic 7 Pro.
For this latest model, HONOR moves away from the curved edges of some of its predecessors to adopt a more trendy angular look. The result is that there is now a flat metal side edge, with bevelled corners, and both the front and back are flat with only a slight micro curve around the edges where they meet the thin metal side strip. This makes it feel a little thicker than its immediate predecessor, the Magic 6 Pro, while also exudes a more premium, solid feel.
Colour-wise there are three options: Breeze Blue, Black and Lunar Shadow Grey, with all colours sporting a soft matte glass finish on the back. Our Breeze Blue test mule was particularly eye-catching, with a soft and satiny texture that shimmered like mother-of-pearl as light fell on it.
The camera module on the back is a large circle with a four-lens array and the flash, which is centrally located and framed by a 'squircle'-shaped bezel while also rising a couple of millimetres above the surrounding flat surface.
The Honor Magic 7 Pro has an IP68/IP69 rating for water and dust resistance, meaning it can withstand submersion in freshwater and endure jets of hot water up to 176°F / 80°C. While this may not be something you use often, it does mean the phone can survive a quick scroll through Instagram in the shower.
That scrolling can be done on the phone's 6.8-inch display with a dynamic refresh rate that adjusts between 1Hz and 120Hz based on the content being viewed. The display is protected by HINOR's NanoCrystal Shield glass, which looked to be highly scratch-resistant based on our user experience. Reassuringly, HONOR claims that it's also 10 times more drop-resistant than typical glass. A new feature in this model is a layer of circular polarisation that reduces reflections and makes the display gentler on the eyes. HONOR says this could reduce eye fatigue by up to 16%.
In terms of brightness, the Magic 7 Pro really shines, and can reach up to 5,000 nits in certain conditions, ensuring excellent HDR content and easy readability even in bright environments.
As expected, Honor has included a variety of eye-care features, including a high PWM dimming rate of 4,320Hz to eliminate flicker. Additionally, you can activate eye comfort and low-blue-light modes to reduce strain on your eyes.
Under the display, there's a 3D ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, and a pill-shaped cutout for the 3D face unlock camera. This is the first phone to feature both, offering a convenient unlocking experience. Personally, I appreciate being able to use my face for secure logins to banking apps, which makes the slightly larger camera cutout worthwhile.
Speaking of the camera, the Magic 7 Pro excels in this department. Its four-lens main camera set-up boasts a 50MP 1/1.3-inch sensor, with a mechanically adjustable aperture that shifts between f/1.4 and f/2. The ultra-wide and selfie cameras have 50MP resolution each with a f/2 lens, while the telephoto is a significant upgrade over its predecessor model with a 200MP lens unit capable of 3x optical zoom. At 1/1.4-inch, it is among the largest telephoto sensors on the market, while its f/2.6 aperture also makes it one of the fastest telephoto cameras available on a mobile phone.
The idea behind the super high megapixel count is that higher resolution allows for more effective digital zoom with less quality loss. We have seen in several other makes and models, however, this theory works better on paper than in practice, with zooming past a certain threshold leading to unimpressive and inconsistent results. But HONOR has addressed that issue in the Magic 7 Pro with its AI SuperZoom feature, which kicks in past 30x zoom to enhance images. With our test device, this produced some superb results, giving us close-up and zoomed in images with impressive details, easily among the best we have seen at such high zoom numbers.
The only surprise here is that the AI SuperZoom feature, with which you can zoom in a whopping 100X, only works when the phone is connected to the internet rather than processing everything on the device itself.
Another new addition to the camera is the AI Enhanced Portrait feature that provides a plethora of portrait styles. If you enjoy taking portraits, this is a fantastic feature, with beautiful colour tuning and blur effects, enhanced by the improved optics. These styles are only available on the main and telephoto cameras, however, meaning you can't use them for selfies.
Also, with the HONOR AI Motion Sensing Capture, you can capture fast-paced action with clarity and detail. This is especially helped by the HD Super Burst shooting mode that shoots several frames per second in one go, DSLR-style. We were able to shoot some sharp images of birds in mid-flight with these modes, and more capable users will be able to put such AI features to even more creative use.
Overall, the Magic 7 Pro boasts a highly capable camera system that can deliver stunning shots in various lighting and action conditions, especially with all the built-in AI assistance.
Speaking of AI also brings us to all the other AI-powered features. Chief among them is AI translator and AI Note with summary, format and interpreter capabilities. Combined, they give you the ability to not only translate face-to-face conversationally but also take notes, and format and transcribe those notes with AI. HONOR has also included features such as Circle to Search, which makes hunting for information a breeze. Just circle the part of whatever it is on screen that you need more information about and Google will automatically search it out for you. Then there is Magic Portal, with which you can select an image or text on your screen and drag it into another app for quick sharing or searching. We were even able to use our knuckles to circle things on the Magic 7 Pro, which makes this feature even easier to access.
To run all these AI features, the hardware obviously needs to be top-notch, and HONOR has used Qualcomm's most powerful chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Elite, to power the phone. On the operating system side, the Magic 7 Pro runs Magic OS 9, HONOR's highly customised version of Android 15. With whatever HONOR has used at the heart of the Magic 7 Pro to run the device, it has also managed to achieve a great phone for gaming, enabling it to offer better image fidelity and higher framerates without loading up the processor too much so that you can play games at higher settings without the phone heating up or draining the battery too fast.
We went on marathon gaming sessions with the Magic 7 Pro that lasted a couple of hours on occasions and did not once find the device heating up, unlike even some dedicated gaming consoles. Nor did it have any trouble maintaining a high screen refresh rate, giving us great visuals throughout. Meanwhile, the speaker set-up on the phone helped enhance the gaming experience, no doubt helped by the AI Space Speaker feature.
Even when not gaming, the phone maintained very high audio quality. The speakers provided a surprising amount of bass for such a small device, helped by an integrated subwoofer, which is a pleasant surprise on a phone and added a lot of oomph to both audio playback and in-game sound effects.
If you think all of these feature and bells and whistles mean that the Magic 7 Pro's battery drains quickly and needs frequent topping up, think again. HONOR may have equipped it with only a 5850mAh battery but it has done some wizardry in software optimisation and power management that makes the battery go on and on. Even with our heavy test use, we frequently got over two full days on a single charge. HONOR has not compromised on juicing the phone back up either, providing an impressive 100W wired charging capability and a very high 80W wireless charging if you use the HONOR Wireless SuperCharger - which means the former took around 35 minutes from flat to full while the latter only around 10 minutes more at 45 or so minutes.
With the Magic 7 Pro having the specs and performance of a flagship mobile for HONOR, one might expect it to cost a bomb too, but here we were again pleasantly surprised. The Magic 7 Pro is priced at a very competitive Dh3,999. And to sweeten the deal further, as it goes on sale in the UAE on January 23, you can order it with a package of freebies worth Dh1,547, which includes a Fuji Instax mini Link 3 printer worth Dh649, a unit of the HONOR Choice S7 worth Dh399, and a HONOR CARE package for six months, worth Dh499 - all free with the phone.
With all the tech that it has managed to cram into the Magic 7 Pro, especially its AI features, camera, hardware and battery, it seems that HONOR continuous to be on a roll with its hot streak on the market and has another winner on its hands.
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