The company’s hot streak continues

Last year may have been the best year in Honor’s history yet, as the Magic V3 foldable won nearly every “foldable phone of the year” award from the tech media landscape, and finally the Magic slate was born 6 Pro — at least in my opinion — its distinct identity that sets it apart from other Android devices.

And so with the new year comes the Honor Magic 7 Pro, the sequel that adds more sparkle to the 6 Pro. More importantly, Honor continues to soften when other Android phones lag, giving us a device that stands out from the crowd a bit.

For example, Honor is pretty much the only Android phone brand that still offers us true 3D face unlock like the iPhone (which means the phone uses a depth mapping sensor to identify the unique contours of our faces). All other Android phones have decided to give us the less secure 2D face unlock (which only uses a single selfie camera to identify faces).

To be honest, the in-display fingerprint scanners on all Android phones are so good these days that I wouldn’t call 3D face scanning a must-have feature, but it’s nice to have. And the Honor Magic phones are the only ones that give us this on the Android side.

Also, the Magic 7 Pro, like some recent Magic phones, uses a slightly wider 19.5:9 aspect ratio (compared to the 20:9 used by other Android manufacturers), so the Magic’s 6.8-inch OLED display The 7 Pro is still slightly wider horizontally than other 6.8-inch Android phones. And that extra width matters to a fast typist like me. I find that typos happen a little less commonly when typing on a Magic 7 Pro compared to other phones because the keyboard isn’t as cramped.

camcorders

Honor Magic 7 Pro brings an impressive Periscope zoom lens: 200 megapixels, f/2.6 aperture, 1/1.4 inch image sensor size. These numbers, especially the size of the sensor, are very impressive – much larger than most other zoom phone cameras. But Honor is not the first to adopt this lens – Vivo has used it in its last two flagship phones.

Having such a large telephoto sensor allows the camera to produce natural bokeh and capture more detail and dynamic range. And this zoom lens delivers, it is absolutely one of the best zoom cameras out there.

But it is not better than the zoom lens of Vivo X200 Pro. Maybe it’s the Vivo that has had more time to adjust the lens, but side-by-side zoom shots between the two phones almost always have the Vivo image coming out superior. In the samples below, notice that the Vivo image on the right exhibits more bokeh and dynamic range. Honor’s image is not bad at all – this is a 10X image! It’s almost certainly better than what the iPhone can have. But Vivo’s image almost looks like it came from a real camera.

However, we must remember that Vivo phones have been recognized among phone users as the best camera phones for several years, so Honor coming in second place here is no shame.

In a vacuum (and I’m not lying) the Magic 7 Pro produces beautiful images, especially black-and-white portraits of human subjects, thanks to Honor’s partnership with Studio Harcourt.

The Magic 7 Pro’s main camera is also very good, but I’ve come to the conclusion that, in 2025, the only real differentiator between a great phone camera and a good phone camera is the telephoto lens. The differences between the quality of the main camera of the flagship phone are becoming less, as every phone, whether it is from Apple or Asus, Samsung or Xiaomi, will have a very capable main camera.

Software and performance

The Magic 7 Pro is powered by Qualcomm’s newest and highest-end chip, the confusingly named Snapdragon 8 Elite (this is the second time in four years that Qualcomm has completely revamped the naming scheme of its flagship silicon series) .

Performance is excellent, obviously, as mobile silicon has long exceeded what 99% of people need in a mobile device. Whether it’s splicing video clips in CapCut or scrolling through Instagram, sending emails or uploading files to Slack, this phone doesn’t miss a beat.

The software – MagicOS 9.0 – has a new look that I’m a fan of. There’s more customization than before, and the user interface in general has a fresher and more vibrant vibe. The phone also comes with a bunch of AI features like generative AI photo editing and AI translation, as well as connectivity with Windows laptops and Honor devices, but these aren’t really new in 2025, as most phones offer some version of this.

Battery life has been good, but not amazing, for me. On average the phone lasts about 10-11 hours for me outdoors before the battery drops below 10%. That’s a few hours shorter than say the iPhone 16 Pro Max or the Vivo X200 Pro, but it’s acceptable. I am a very heavy user who is constantly on the phone. And my 10-11 hours have me going around the city, without sitting in a place connected to WiFi.

Overall, the Magic 7 Pro is a very polished and well-rounded phone from Honor. As mentioned, I like that Honor does a few things differently than other Android phones, like true 3D face unlock and the slightly wider form factor, but otherwise, the best Android phones are starting to feel too familiar to belongs to the features. This is not a big deal for most people who use a phone for a year or three. But for me who jumps on my phones a lot, I’m starting to feel like I can recite the New Testament with these phones in my sleep.

The good news is that Honor has a completely different segment in which it is innovating – foldable devices. And if I had to bet, I’d say Honor will be the first to bring a triple to the international market.