3 reasons why I’d buy the Honor Magic 4 Pro, and 1 reason why I wouldn’t

Announced way back in February 2022, the Honor Magic 4 Pro has finally landed on our shores. It’s Honor’s first flagship away from Huawei so all eyes have been on them to see how they will cope on their own. 

T3’s Honor Magic 4 Pro review comes to the conclusion that it is a success story - but there have been a lot of those lately and the Honor Magic 4 Pro will have to compete against some of the best phones in the world to get your attention. 

Rivals include the productivity powerhouse that is the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, the style icon that is the OnePlus 10 Pro and the mighty fine iPhone 13 Pro Max to name just a few of them. 

So can it stand out enough to sway you into splashing your cash? Well, I’ve been testing it out, and I think the answer to that is yes, depending on what you’re looking for, although admittedly there is one reason why I'd be put off buying this phone. 

The Honor Magic 4 Pro looks fantastic  

Whether you like the look of it will very much depend on you and your taste, but the Honor Magic 4 Pro has taken a different approach to its design than almost every other flagship smartphone right now, and I respect that. 

While the mirrored back might feel outdated to some others, like me, weren’t sure why it ever went out of fashion in the first place. Pair that with a round camera module that takes up a lot of the rear, and its design screams sophistication. It looks properly premium, and with IP68 water and dust resistance, it'll be a hardy piece of kit as well.  

Another reason why I think it looks so good is because of its screen. With curves in all the right places, the Honor Magic 4 Pro sports a 6.81-inch OLED LPTO display. Its resolution sits at 1312 x 2848p QHD with 1,000 nits peak brightness and a 120Hz refresh rate. Long story short, it’s stunning. Not only does it feel lovely and smooth to use but it’s also both vibrant and accurate. I happily shot and edited photos for social media on it, and I enjoyed streaming TV shows and YouTube videos on it as well. 

The Honor Magic 4 Pro has a good camera

One of the very best things about the Honor Magic 4 Pro is its camera system because for point-and-shoot photography it easily matches up to its rivals. 

I snapped shots of the city, of plants and of people - it coped well with them all - and even though its optical zoom range isn’t quite the length of other phones, the level of detail is impeccable. Plus thanks to its 100x digital zoom you can capture a lot more than the human eye can see. 

In T3’s Honor Magic 4 Pro review, the camera was said to take ‘rich, vibrant photos that are still generally realistic across colour balance, contrast and saturation […] it delivers better dynamic range in a host of scenes than most flagships, including when capturing backlit subjects’.

The Honor Magic 4 Pro is fast and efficient

Like literally every other flagship phone I’ve tried out this year, the Honor Magic 4 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset and no wonder when it delivers such a serious amount of speed. You can use this phone for just about any mobile-friendly task, no matter how demanding. 

It had no problem loading up games like Call of Duty Mobile and even on busy days where I had tabs open here there and everywhere, it didn’t start to slow down at all. 

Its Geekbench 5 scores reflect that as well, having picked up 917 in single-core and 3,270 in multi-core which places it amongst the most powerful Android phones on the market today. 

You can also charge it in a matter of minutes. The included 100W wired charger takes about 30 minutes to go from flat to full, but if you buy the full wireless charging package (that being the 100W wireless charger and the 135W wired charger to go with it) you’ll be able to charge the phone to 100% in about 20 minutes which is bonkers. That charging package is very pricey though and will set you back a total of £155 - I can’t see many people going for it, to be honest!

... but its battery could be better

So it all sounds great, right? No actually, it sounds phenomenal. But there’s one big problem. For me, battery life is a dealbreaker. I often forget to pack my charger when I head into the office, and when I go away on holiday I don’t want to have to think about trying to conserve battery throughout the day - I like to get snap happy and I rely a lot on Google Maps. So I need decent battery life. 

Some phones have blown me away with what they have to offer, like the Oppo Find X5 Pro, which lasted me a whole two days away without needing more juice. The Honor Magic 4 Pro can’t compete with that, unfortunately. It barely lasted a whole day of heavy lifting, never mind two. I also found that it only lasted about 16 hours hours of video playback, which is quite far off the 20 hours delivered by Oppo's latest flagship.

You can pre-order the Honor Magic 4 Pro now, with sales officially kicking off on the 27th May 2022. To buy the phone outright, it'll set you back £949.99 in the UK or €1,099 in Europe.