Honor Magic 7 Pro hands-on review: Hanging on to the magic?

The Honor Magic 7 Pro is the first flagship phone I’ve got my hands on in 2025 and the successor to one of my favourite smartphones from last year – the Honor Magic 6 Pro. That particular model offered features such as an IR sensor, 3D face unlocking and industry-leading PWM dimming that made it unique among the top tier of Android flagships.

Glancing at the Magic 7 Pro’s specs sheet, it seems like Honor is eager to ensure it’s a similar story this time around. The Magic 7 Pro keeps everything that worked about its forebear and throws in some fresh new hardware to keep up with the best in the business. A few of the design quirks that bothered me last generation are still present here, however, so the question is: does the Magic 7 Pro have enough new tricks up its sleeve to make up for its shortcomings?

Honor Magic 7 Pro hands-on review: Specifications, price and release date

• Octa-core 4.32GHz Snapdragon 8 Elite processor
• 6.8in, 120Hz, 2,800 x 1,280, LTPO OLED display
• Rear cameras: 50MP (f/1.4-2.0); 200MP (f/2.6) 3x telephoto; 50MP (f/2.2) ultrawide
• Selfie camera: 50MP (f/2.0)
• 16GB of RAM
• 512GB of storage
• 5,270mAh battery
• 100W wired charging; 80W wireless charging
• IP68/IP69 dust and water resistance rating
• Colours: Black; Lunar Shadow Grey; Breeze Blue (exclusive to Honor.com)
• UK price: £1,099
• UK release date: 17 January 2025; Check price at Honor

Honor Magic 7 Pro hands-on review: Design and first impressions

There’s plenty of Honor Magic 6 Pro DNA present in the design language here but there have been a few nips and tucks. Height and depth are roughly the same but the Magic 7 Pro is a little wider than its predecessor, with new measurements of 77 x 8.8 x 163mm. Despite being broader, it’s a couple of grams lighter at 223g.

The aluminium edges are now matte – I liked the look of last year’s polished metal rim but it did collect fingerprints, so this is probably a wise move in the long run – and they’re flatter this time around. Due to the extra width and flatter edges, the Magic 7 Pro feels more substantial in the hand, so those with smaller paws may be a little put off.

That sturdy feeling is well-founded, at least, with a robust IP68/IP69 dust and water resistance rating certifying the Magic 7 Pro able to withstand both submersion and high-pressure, high-temperature water jets. NanoCrystal Shield glass – Honor’s proprietary alternative to Gorilla Glass – provides a solid level of scratch resistance and is ten times more drop-resistant than regular glass.

Honor was keen to show off the phone’s durability during its unveiling, running a Magic 7 Pro through a dishwasher and chopping fruit right on the display of the Magic 7 Lite (which uses the same NanoCrystal Shield). Later on, I witnessed the Magic 7 Lite being run over by a quadbike and then dropped on the trail by the rider while moving at speed. It came away a little dusty but was otherwise unscathed.

On the rear, we see a minor design change to the camera module, which now has less pronounced corners. The Damascus Steel design between the lenses has been removed too. There’s now just a simple glass panel, which is stylish enough but more susceptible to fingerprint smudges.

Finally, looking at the internals, we’ve got an interesting switch-up in specs: the processor is the new Snapdragon 8 Elite, which is claimed to be a powerhouse of both performance and stamina, but the battery has a lower capacity than the Honor Magic 6 Pro (5,270mAh, compared to 5,600mAh). The latter delivered some of the best phone battery life we’ve ever recorded, so it will be interesting to see if the power efficiency of the Snapdragon 8 Elite will be enough to compensate for the lower capacity during testing.

Honor Magic 7 Pro hands-on review: Cameras

The cameras are very similar to those found on the Magic 6 Pro, with the 50-megapixel main camera returning, including its f/1.4-f/2.0 variable aperture, and the 50-megapixel (f/2.0) ultrawide shooter coming along for the ride. The periscope telephoto lens (f/2.6) gets a slight pixel bump; it’s now 200 megapixels, up from 180 megapixels. It still offers the same 3x optical zoom or up to 100x hybrid zoom in tandem with the main camera.

That hardware wouldn’t have a hope of competing with the zoom capabilities of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra or its upcoming S25 Ultra successor. True to the Magic name, however, Honor has a couple of tricks up its sleeve. While hybrid shots up to 30x are handled normally, anything between 30x and 100x sees a new icon pop up in the viewfinder, giving you the option to enable AI Super Zoom.

This feature takes your smudgy, dull hybrid zoom shots and intelligently touches them up, sharpening details, readjusting the contrast and transforming them into much crisper and more worthwhile zoomed images.

As with all things AI, this isn’t a flawless effect – if something is blocking your target in the foreground, for instance, the AI struggles to differentiate between objects, resulting in some random blurred spots – but with good lighting and a clear line of sight, it’s a fairly impressive process.

The only downside that cropped up during my testing was that the AI enhancement isn’t handled on the device, so you’ll need an internet connection to glow up your zoom shots. That’s slightly surprising given the purported AI-focused power of the Snapdragon 8 Elite and means that anyone hiking out in the wilderness won’t get the most out of these cameras.

Also new this year are AI Motion Sensing Capture and HD Super Burst, both of which are designed to deliver sharper images of moving objects. As with the AI Super Zoom, you need to activate these manually – first motion sensing, then burst shooting – so it can be a little tricky to get everything ready in time to capture a quick event. If you’re gearing up to photograph something planned like a downhill skier, however, it does a good job of capturing the moving object.

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Honor Magic 7 Pro hands-on review: Software and AI

On the software front, the Magic 7 Pro debuts Honor’s MagicOS 9.0. Based on Android 15, this launcher is fluid enough in use but still maintains a few design bugbears that have long irked me, such as the Apple-inspired split notification panel and the lack of an app drawer as standard. Familiar bloatware apps like booking.com and WPS Office rear their unwelcome heads but, to Honor’s credit, the list is blissfully short – though this may just be the case on my pre-launch version.

In keeping with Honor’s moves to more directly compete with Samsung, MagicOS 9.0 also brings in a smattering of AI productivity features, including live translations, transcribing and summarising notes and Google’s Gemini AI smart assistant. These are all things we saw with Galaxy AI last year – and the jury’s still out on how much of a draw these are – but it closes the gap between Honor and Samsung for those who want the latest AI features.

Honor Magic 7 Pro hands-on review: Early verdict

The Magic 7 Pro isn’t going toe-to-toe with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra anytime soon and Honor seems to know that. Its decision to keep the price at £1,099 (around £150 cheaper than we expect the S25 Ultra to cost) is a smart one that positions the Magic 7 Pro closer to entry-level flagship territory. However, its Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, robust camera suite and AI trickery should mean it’s in a decent position to compete with Samsung’s range-topper.

The upcoming OnePlus 13 is set to employ the Snapdragon 8 Elite for a couple of hundred pounds less than the Magic 7 Pro, so the latter’s photography chops will likely make or break its appeal as an alternative to the Galaxy S25 Ultra and Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max.

I’m currently putting the Honor Magic 7 Pro through its paces so check back soon for my full review to see how the performance, stamina, display quality and cameras stack up to the competition.