We recently got our gaming paws on HONOR’s latest flagship phone, and here are our initial impressions of the phone.
The packaging:
The phone comes inside a regular rectangle black box with gold lettering stating the model, HONOR Magic6 Pro. There is no typo here, the number 6 is attached to the word Magic. Inside the box is the phone in Epi Green colourway, a 100W power charging brick, a charging data cable, a transparent TPU case, a sim tool and some paperwork.
The phone itself:
The Epi Green eco-leather back houses a huge cluster of triple camera setups on the top half, wrapped in a stylish rectangular dome-shaped bump with a shiny metallic ring that matches the sides of the camera. This eco-leather back with textured surface is very comfy in the hands and leaves absolutely no fingerprints at all.
HONOR Magic6 Pro is curved front and back and, on all sides, with the top and bottom curves being slightly less pronounced. Gaming on the HONOR Magic6 Pro is a very pleasing experience as the curves allow one to game on the phone for extended periods without any pain or pinching of the palms.
The display is a 6.8-inch LTPO OLED screen with a resolution of 1,280 by 2800 pixels. HONOR claims a maximum brightness of 5,000nits in HDR usage and 1,600nits in regular high-brightness mode. The display is indeed viewable in the open sunlight, making gaming on the go very doable especially when you really need to complete those pesky daily missions. Yay…
The HONOR Magic6 Pro is powered by a 5,600mAh battery, a much bigger upgrade than the previous Magic5 Pro with its 5,100mAh capacity. This contributes to lengthy gaming sessions on the Magic 6 Pro.
The cameras:
On the imaging capabilities, the HONOR Magic6 Pro have three rear and one front-facing camera. At the back, the trio are a 50MP main camera with Laser Auto Focus and OIS, a 180MP Telephoto OIS camera and a 50MP Ultrawide camera, with all three rear cameras able to capture 4K 60fps videos.
On the front is a 50MP selfie camera paired with a 3D ToF camera for secure depth and biometric recognition. The images captured by all four cameras turn out great in daylight and nighttime in low light. Even more impressive is the 2.5X optical zoom that can capture great images without needing to walk up closer.
The internals and software:
The Magic6 Pro is powered by the 4nm Qualcomm SM8650-AB Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, standard on all the latest flagship phones, with an Adreno 750 GPU. Onboard memory is 12GB/512GB UFS4.0 configuration.
The more than ample storage lets us install some very storage-demanding games, for example, 2 of the biggest and most popular mobile games Genshin Impact take up 28GB and Honkai: Star Rail eats up 19GB.
Magic6 Pro is the first HONOR phone to run the Magic OS 8.0, riding on top of Android 14. This OS features some nifty new tricks such as the Magic Portal – you can drag anything on your screen onto the bar at the side and drop it, allowing you to search, email, and put down a note about the highlighted item; and the Magic Capsule – the pill-shaped expanded area at the front-facing cameras that allows you to quickly control your music or YouTube apps. More details on these great features on our full review soon.
Gaming on the HONOR Magic6 Pro:
The SD8Gen3 and the Adreno 750 GPU handle with ease the most demanding Genshin Impact at High settings with buttery smooth 60fps all the time. The phone does get warm after a while playing Genshin Impact, but that is to be expected given the demanding settings and it shows little signs of thermal throttling.
The 5,600mAh battery provides ample juice for extended gaming sessions and the LTPO screen provides for some of the prettiest flashiest gaming we have seen on a mobile phone, and the stereo speakers are a blast, providing a full, rich and loud auditory gaming experience, whether indoors or outdoors. The same auditory experience is enhanced when is paired with a Bluetooth headset.
Overall, the initial experience of the HONOR Magic6 Pro is very impressive. A great looking phone with a gorgeous screen, long battery life and stable gaming performance. HONOR have hit it out of the park with their latest flagship.
