Honor’s Magic 7 The Pro is a refinement flagship Android phone which weaves the latest AI features with cutting-edge hardware. It excels everywhere that matters. You get an incredibly versatile camera, impressive durability, fast charging, silky smooth performance, and an excellent display. Several subtle but significant improvements over its predecessor elevate this smartphone to the next level.

Chinese phone manufacturer Honor has impressed me with its hardware of late, from last year Magic 6 Pro impossibly svelte Honor Magic V3. This year, it pays more attention to the software with some welcome polish. Its heavy investment in AI is starting to mature, with features that feel more practical in the Magic 7 Pro than its predecessors. It’s an expensive flagship at £1,099 ($1,346), and unfortunately it’s not officially sold in the US. But UK and European buyers shouldn’t sleep on the Magic.

Successful Refinements

At first glance, the Magic 7 Pro is similar to the 6 Pro, but I was happy to find a flat display and frame, which makes it more comfortable to use and less prone to accidental touches than the curved glass. . Honor has scaled back the camera module, although it’s big enough to unbalance the phone a bit. While this phone feels big after all with the Pixel 9it can be managed by management. I didn’t love the marble effect on my Lunar Shadow Gray review unit, but it’s more interesting than the plain blue or black alternatives.

The 6.8-inch screen is as good as any I’ve tested. It’s bright, smooth, and sharp. By the numbers, it has a 2,800 x 1,200-pixel resolution, a variable refresh rate up to 120 Hzand 1,600 nits of brightness (up to 5,000 nits for highlights). Video looks great on the 7 Pro, with support for Dolby Vision and HDR Vivid, and the speakers are nice and loud without distortion. Honor also includes several features intended to reduce eye fatigue and strain, but it is difficult to quantify.

Photo: Simon Hill

The only slight annoyance I have is the large cutout selfie camera, although you do get used to it. It’s a compromise I can accept for the convenience of secure face unlock—a rarity on Android phones, as it works with banking apps.

There’s plenty of power under the hood with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and 12 GB of RAM. As you’d expect, the benchmark results are up there, and this phone can outrun anything. There’s also a generous 512 GB of fast storage, which is more than most phones at this price offer. The Honor Magic 7 Pro has a IP68 and IP69 rating too, meaning it can be submerged and handle water jets or steam.

Stepping inside, a very high level of polish is evident throughout. Honor talked about AI in the Magic 7 Pro, and we’ll get into the specifics, but it permeates the phone. AI permeates the phone app to reduce background noise and make voices clearer, and there’s a privacy feature designed to prevent sound leakage and prevent eavesdroppers.