The Honor Magic 8 Professional Is My First Massive Telephone Disappointment of 2026

I will begin off with this shot above of a road in Edinburgh. At first look, it is high quality — the picture has an honest publicity (albeit with overly brightened shadows) and correct colours. It is truly one of many higher pictures I’ve taken with the cellphone. 

However a more in-depth look exhibits that issues begin to disintegrate. An disagreeable hazy halo surrounds the tower block, together with digital artifacts, the place the cellphone is clearly making an attempt to each cut back picture noise whereas additionally rising the sharpness. 

Punch into the iPhone’s picture, and it is clear that Apple is processing the main points much less. There’s nearly no fuzzy halo across the tower and no artifacts from noise discount or sharpening. The main points on the brickwork look higher too. 

Switching to the Honor’s ultrawide digicam does not assist issues, with extra haloing across the tower and particulars which have a bizarre oil portray impact as a result of digital sharpening. 

Once more, this picture above appears to be like high quality. It has a stable publicity and a shade steadiness that I truly assume appears to be like fairly good. 

However once more I see proof of heavy-handed digital processing, with the sky trying nearly minimize out in opposition to the sides of the buildings. If it appears like I am nitpicking, it is as a result of I’m. This cellphone is dear, and an elite price ticket ought to include elite efficiency.

We could take a look at some extra examples? In fact!

The main points on this sundown scene truly do not look as overcooked as within the earlier pictures, however the Magic 8 Professional has brightened the shadows a lot that it is misplaced a number of the great temper and drama that was current within the second. 

It is not that the digicam cannot take a very good shot — the {hardware} is greater than succesful. Have a look at this instance. The JPEG above has suffered by the hands of the cellphone’s processing, with unnaturally brightened shadows, crunchy particulars and overly vibrant colours. 

And above is similar scene, taken as a DNG uncooked picture utilizing the cellphone’s Professional mode and adjusted in Adobe Lightroom. I’ve maintained the great depth of the shadows, added nearly no additional picture sharpening and stored the colours at a pure stage. I truly actually like this shot and it goes to indicate that this cellphone is completely able to taking good photographs — it is the picture processing within the digicam that is going too exhausting. 

Working example, I took the shot above overlooking Edinburgh utilizing the three.7x telephoto lens. It is overly brilliant — each within the highlights and within the shadows — whereas the noise discount and sharpening have resulted in crunchy particulars that look disagreeable, particularly when seen shut up.

But the DNG uncooked file above appears to be like nice. I’ve barely touched this one because it did not want a lot. The drama of the sundown has been maintained with sturdy shadows and particulars that have not been destroyed by software program. 

Pushing the zoom to its 10x hybrid produced the decent-looking picture above of a lighthouse. However guess what.

That is proper, the Magic 8 Professional’s picture processing (left) has given it harsh, crunchy particulars that look disagreeable in comparison with the extra pure look of the iPhone 17 Professional’s picture (proper).

I did say I might taken some that I like, and certain, these photographs above are fairly first rate and never overly troubled by picture processing, for my part.

However at night time, the picture processing demon exhibits its hand but once more. The picture above is overly saturated with particulars misplaced in some areas because of noise discount whereas different areas have been over sharpened. Perhaps it is a one off?

Nope! The colours have been severely ramped up within the picture above whereas the noise discount and sharpening have once more had their enjoyable with the main points. 

This is how the iPhone 17 Professional dealt with the identical scene. It is extra pure.

And this is a bizarre one — the software program smoothed out a number of element on the buildings, giving them an unnatural easy look, however but there’s nonetheless an enormous quantity of picture noise within the sky and the darkish components of the river. 

It is not tremendous straightforward to see, however it’s even produced these odd sq. patches the place the colours have shifted, presumably an error in how the cellphone processes totally different components of the scene. 

The iPhone 17 Professional’s shot has higher dealing with of noise and better-looking particulars. I do choose the extra cyan tone of the sky within the Honor’s shot, however that is me actually greedy at straws in looking for some positives. 

And one other instance of the cellphone producing bizarre noise artifacts.

Nighttime outcomes from the ultrawide digicam are roughly in-line with what I noticed from the iPhone. The Honor’s publicity is slightly higher, however unsurprisingly, its particulars look far too digitally sharpened. 

And at 3.7x zoom, the Honor’s shot is barely brighter and better distinction than the iPhone 17 Professional’s, however sure, particulars do not look as pure. In all truthfully, although, neither cellphone has precisely excelled right here. 

Secure to say then that I am upset with the Magic 8 Professional’s digicam efficiency total. Like many cellphone producers, Honor is leaning more and more exhausting into its software program processing to beat the restrictions of small smartphone digicam sensors. However this cellphone is an ideal instance of issues going means too far. The DNG uncooked recordsdata I took present that the {hardware} is able to taking handsome pictures with pure publicity and clear particulars. Those self same pictures look, to my eye, really terrible when the cellphone’s picture processing has had a go on them.

Pictures is, in fact, a subjective matter, and what would possibly look good to at least one individual can look terrible to another person. So certain, possibly you like hyper saturation and shadows which are barely there. However a few of the larger issues — just like the picture noise in night time scenes or the blurring of particulars that ought to be clear — are goal indicators of unhealthy picture processing. So, Honor, I am begging you immediately now: You could have an excellent digicam right here — please cease ruining it together with your software program. 

Honor Magic 8 Professional: Show and processor efficiency

Shifting on to one thing extra optimistic now, I do just like the cellphone’s 6.71-inch show. It is brilliant and vibrant, which makes it simply seen underneath harsh out of doors sunshine and permits colourful YouTube movies to pop properly. It is pretty for gaming, too, due to its max 120Hz refresh fee that may dynamically shift to 1Hz to assist cut back the load in your battery. 

The cellphone is powered by Qualcomm’s newest Snapdragon Elite Gen 5 processor, which places in a few of the finest scores we have ever seen on our benchmark exams for each processor efficiency and graphics processing. It feels extraordinarily zippy in on a regular basis use. Enjoying demanding 3D video games like Genshin Influence was no drawback in any respect, even after I cranked the settings to the max. 

Honor Magic 8 Professional: Software program and AI additions

The cellphone runs Android 16 at its core, over which Honor has slapped its personal Magic OS 10 interface. It capabilities principally like every model of Android, however you can find some additions thrown in, largely within the type of AI instruments, together with ones like Google’s Gemini we might see on different Android gadgets.

The AI Photographs Agent lets you use generative AI to upscale, recompose or take away objects from a picture or rework it into a couple of restricted types together with “Cartoon” or “Animation,” which I’d have assumed are the identical factor. Does it work? Nicely, I will allow you to decide.

This is my unique selfie taken with the cellphone.

And this is what the cellphone’s “Cartoon” AI instrument has achieved to me. I do not even want to consider a sarcastic quip; it very a lot speaks for itself. 

Elsewhere, you may discover instruments like an AI settings agent, the place you may ask learn how to do issues like dim your display brightness, and an AI Recollections instrument, which largely appears to be a repository for screenshots. You will even have Google’s AI instruments like Gemini Dwell, Gemini Superior and Circle to Search, the latter of which may be accessed by way of a devoted button on the aspect of the cellphone. The button, nevertheless, can be programed to open and function the digicam — very similar to Apple’s digicam management button — and I discover it extra helpful in that type.

Honor has stated that the cellphone will obtain seven years of software program and safety help, which means this cellphone ought to nonetheless be good to make use of all over to 2033.

Honor Magic 8 Professional: Battery life and charging