Honor Magic 4 and 4 Pro Review – Honor Magic 4 was officially announced in February 2022 alongside its big brother Magic 4 Pro. As of now, these phones are only available in Europe as of now and the company hasn’t revealed any plans for other regions. Also, it’s won’t come in the US as it’s under a ban there. With the Magic 4 series, Honor brought in some new refreshing changes to make the smartphone even more appealing.
They made some big improvements in the internals of the phone, which should give it a solid boost against the older Magic 3 series and other competitors. Being flagship smartphones, they have 5G connectivity with Dual sim 5G support. Both the Magic 4 and Magic 4 Pro features identical specs with slight changes in the display, camera, and battery technologies. Since they are mostly similar, we will review them together. With that said, let’s begin with the review of Honor Magic 4 and 4 Pro.
Table of Contents
Honor Magic 4 and 4 Pro Review
Highlights
- The Honor Magic 4 and 4 Pro features 6.81 inches LTPO OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate.
- Both smartphones are powered by the latest flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor.
- The smartphone is pre-loaded with the latest Android 12 OS with the Magic UI 6 user interface.
- The new and improved triple camera system features a 50MP main lens alongside a 12MP selfie sensor on both devices.
- The Phone has a Li-Po 4800 mAh battery for Magic 4 and Li-Po 4600 mAh battery capacity for the Magic 4 pro model.
Design and Display
The design of both smartphones is not so different from the previous models. It didn’t bring a redesign and in fact, the new phones feature the same circular camera module in the back as that of the Magic 3 series, but that’s okay. The design is quite good, but with the new phones, they have refreshed the design to make it even more attractive. The slightly enhanced camera module, superior rigidity of the phone, and reduced top and bottom bezel make these smartphones a pleasure to look at.
Both phones are almost identical and the only difference in terms of looks is that of the camera in the rear camera module and the pill-shaped dual-camera system in the Honor Magic 4 Pro. Apart from that, the Magic 4 non-pro has IP54 dust and water resistance, whereas the Pro model has IP68 water and dust along with Aluminosilicate Glass protection for the display. This display protection glass has a composition of Aluminum and Silicon, which promises to provide a Gorilla Glass Victus level of protection.
As for the display, both the phones feature 6.81 inches LTPO OLED technology with a 120Hz refresh rate, 1 billion colors, HDR10+, and a 1000 nits peak brightness but the difference lies in the resolution of both the smartphones. The Honor Magic 4 Pro smartphone has a higher screen resolution than the Magic 4. Besides this, both the smartphones come in Black, White, Cyan, and Gold color variants while the pro model has an additional orange color variant.
Memory and Internal
Both the Honor Magic 4 and 4 Pro smartphones feature the latest flagship 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset and go up to 3GHz clocking speed in both models. This processor has been known to heat up a bit and so many smartphone makers lower the highest clock speed to 2.84GHz from 3GHz to help lower the chances of heating, but the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in these phones runs at its full 3GHz clock speed without much heating.
This is due to the excellent vapor chamber cooling it has and partly due to the optimizations on the part of Honor. The Adreno 730 GPU inside the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is even more powerful than the Adreno 660 and it is capable of keeping your gaming session running for longer, thanks to higher efficiency. Games like BGMI and COD mobile runs flawlessly with this chipset.
The chipset is extremely powerful and capable of providing the best possible performance in the world of Android smartphones. Both the phones are running on Android 12 OS out of the box with the new Magic UI 6 customization. The Honor Magic 4 and 4 Pro models come with a combination of 8GB/12GB of RAM with 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB of internal storage.
Camera
Both the phones feature a triple camera system in the back, the only difference being the non-pro model has an 8MP Periscopic telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom, while the Pro model has a 64MP periscopic camera with 3.5x optical zoom. But apart from that, everything else is quite the same and that shows up in the results as well. Both the phones take incredibly detailed pictures and the colors look very natural, on point and true to life.
The ultra-wide camera also has a similar detail level and color science with a wider 120-degree field of view. Honestly, we believe this is the only ultra-wide camera that has the chance at beating iPhone 13 series’ ultra-wide camera. The dynamic range is perfect with a good amount of details in the highlights and the shadows. The 5x and the 3.5x telephoto zoom lens are also incredibly impressive. There’s a noticeable difference between the two optical zoom sensors, but so is the price difference between the two smartphones.
The 12MP selfie camera is also optimized to take very decent selfies with a good amount of detail. The night images are also equally impressive and the smartphone captures the images perfectly even during extremely low light scenarios. Unfortunately, only the periscopic zoom sensors have OIS and so they can provide a super steady motion while shooting videos from the zoom sensor. The other sensors only have EIS. Both the phones can shoot up to 4K@60FPS, while the selfie sensor can shoot videos at a maximum of 4K at 30FPS.
Battery and Others
The Honor Magic4 has a Li-Po 4800 mAh battery while the Magic4 Pro model equips a Li-Po 4600 mAh battery. The battery performance is great and should easily last a day. For charging, you get a 66W fast charger for the non-pro and 100W for the Pro and both of them are extremely fast. Both support 5W reverse charging, but only the Pro model has 100W wireless charging.
The fingerprint sensor is an under-display sensor and so it is fast, accurate, and very responsive. The device also comes equipped with other necessary comms and sensors. As for pricing, the Honor Magic 4 starts at a price of $975 (Rs. 74,499 in India) approx. and the Honor Magic 4 Pro starts at $1225 (Rs 92,990 in India) approx.
Honor Magic 4 Pro Pro and Cons
Honor Magic 4 and 4 Pro Specifications Detail
Down below you can see the full specifications of the Honor Magic 4 and 4 Pro smartphones.
| Specifications | Honor Magic 4 Pro 5G |
| Network | 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G |
| Announced | February 2022 |
| SIM | Dual SIM |
| Dimensions | 163.6 x 74.7 x 9.1 mm or 9.2 mm |
| Weight | 209-215 g |
| Size | 6.81 inches |
| Display | LTPO OLED 1B colors 120Hz HDR10+ 1000 nits peak brightness 19.5:9 ratio ~460 PPI density |
| Protection/Others | Aluminosilicate glass IP68 dust/water resistant (up to 1.5m for 30 mins) |
| Resolution | 1312 x 2848 pixels |
| OS | Android 12, Magic UI 6 Google Play Services |
| Chipset | 4nm – Qualcomm SM8450 Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 |
| CPU | Octa-core 1×3.00 GHz Cortex-X2 3×2.40 GHz Cortex-A710 4×1.70 GHz Cortex-A510 |
| GPU | Adreno 730 |
| Card slot | No |
| RAM | 8GB, 12GB |
| Internal | 256GB, 512GB |
| Camera | 64 MP (periscope telephoto), PDAF, OIS, 3.5x optical zoom 50 MP (wide), multi-directional PDAF, Laser AF 50 MP (122Ëšultrawide) TOF 3D (depth) LED flash, HDR, panorama Max – 4K@60fps, gyro-EIS, HDR10, 10-bit video |
| Selfie | 12 MP (100Ëšultrawide) TOF 3D, (depth/biometrics sensor) HDR Max – 4K@30fps |
| Loudspeaker | Yes (stereo speakers) |
| 3.5mm jack | No 24-bit audio stereo recording |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot |
| Bluetooth | 5.2, A2DP, LE, aptX HD |
| GPS | Yes, with A-GPS. Up to tri-band: GLONASS (1), BDS (3), GALILEO (2) |
| NFC | Yes |
| Infrared port | Yes |
| Radio | No |
| USB | USB Type-C 3.1, USB On-The-Go |
| Sensors | under-display fingerprint, Face ID, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, color spectrum Ultra-Wideband (UWB) support |
| Battery | Li-Po 4600 mAh Fast charging 100W Fast wireless charging 100W Reverse wireless charging Reverse charging 5W |
| Colors | Black, White, Cyan, Gold, Orange |
| Expected Price | $1225 (Rs 92,990 in India) approx |
Conclusion
The much-needed improvements in the camera, processor, display, and battery give the Honor Magic 4 and 4 Pro smartphones an incredible value in the flagship market. If you want a flagship smartphone with incredible cameras, then you can’t go wrong with either of these two smartphones. Both the smartphones will provide an excellent flagship experience but if you want a slight edge in the display, camera, charging capabilities, and water resistance, then the Honor Magic 4 Pro model makes more sense.
Considering the specs and the experience the phone provides, the price of both smartphones is justified. But if want an alternative to compare before you make your decision, then the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is quite the competitor and can go toe to toe with the new Magic 4 and Magic 4 Pro series.
