I've been testing the Honor Magic 8 Pro and we'll have to wait before it's truly great

After debuting in its homeland of China back in October last year, before progressing to international markets like the UAE in December, Honor's kicking off 2026 by finally bringing its latest flagship – the Magic 8 Pro – to Europe and the UK.

I've actually been testing the phone since November, and while I'm not yet ready to publish my full Magic 8 Pro review (stay tuned), there's no question that this is a formidable handset when compared with the other best phones available today.

For Honor fans, it's the brand's newest champion; touting Qualcomm's latest and greatest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, an improved rear triple camera system, which includes a huge 200-megapixel 3.7x telephoto sensor – optimised for low light photography – and a significantly larger battery (by how much varies by region).

It's perfectly positioned to combat other recently-released rivals, like the OnePlus 15 and iPhone 17 Pro series, as well as forthcoming competition from Samsung; with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, expected in February.

Waiting for greatness

While this by-the-book upgrade has everything you could want or need from a top-tier Android phone on paper, there are some practical limitations to consider, at least for the time being.

The main problem is camera performance. Having trialled the Magic 8 Pro's assorted sensors, they can all take excellent shots – with a particular talent for macro photography and selfies. However, performance is inconsistent, and in side-by-side tests with big-name rivals, Honor's image quality and processing currently fall short of the mark.

It was a similar story with last year's Magic 7 Pro, which also relied too heavily on Honor's AI image processing and upscaling tricks; resulting in artificial-looking results, that often suffered from artefacts.

Image 1 of 2

While not an issue (or a solution) exclusive to Honor, it took around six months of software updates before sentiment towards the 7 Pro's camera performance became more positive. And unless the company changes tact this year, I expect a similar gradual improvement from the sensors on the back of the Honor Magic 8 Pro throughout 2026.

If you're ready to hop on the train right now (8 January), the Magic 8 Pro just went on sale in the UK, priced as much as its predecessors, at £1,099.99 for 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

Those in the UK buying from EE, Vodafone, Three, Virgin Media O2, Very, Argos, Amazon or Currys – before 4 February – will also nab a gift bundle (worth over £800), including an Honor Magic Pad 3, an Honor Choice Watch 2 Pro, and an wireless charging stand.