The Honor Magic 4 Pro is Honor’s latest and hopefully biggest flagship, and it’s now launched in the UK. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because it was already unveiled at MWC 2022 in early March, but with no confirmed UK launch date. Now though, here it is.
If you haven’t already been swayed by the Samsung Galaxy S22 series or the OnePlus 10 Pro, then maybe the Honor Magic 4 Pro will be the phone to split your hard-earned cash with because it has things these phones don’t – notably 100W wireless charging.
That’s an incredible amount of charging power to deliver wirelessly and can deliver a 50% charge in just around 15 minutes. Unlike most phones, you don’t get more charging power if you plug it in, with wired charging also topping 100W, but that also beat most handsets.
Beyond that charge, the Honor Magic 4 Pro has a 4,600mAh battery, 6.81-inch 1312 x 2848 OLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, high-end chipset Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 range, 8 GB or 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB or 512 GB of storage.
It also has a quad-lens camera, with a 50MP wide sensor, 50MP ultrawide, 64MP telephoto (offering 3.5x optical zoom), and a depth sensor. Plus, it features a 12MP selfie camera and a premium design, with a glass back, metal frame, and IP68 water resistance.
The Honor Magic 4 Pro is also joined by the Honor Magic 4 Lite, which has already launched elsewhere as the Honor X9, so that’s not entirely new either.
It has a 6.81-inch 1080 x 2388 LCD display with 120Hz refresh rate, mid-range Snapdragon 695 chipset, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage, 4800mAh battery, charging 66W wired and a triple-lens camera, with a 48MP wide snapper, 2MP macro and 2MP depth sensor.
It’s unclear exactly when you’ll be able to buy the Honor Magic 4 Lite – or how much it will cost – but the Honor Magic 4 Pro will be available for pre-order from May 13, priced at £950 (around $1,175 / $1,680 TO). Don’t expect either in the US, as they haven’t been advertised there.
Analysis: key enemies
Given that the Honor Magic 4 Pro is Honor’s flagship, you might be wondering how it compares to key rivals like the aforementioned OnePlus 10 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, and on paper at least, the answer is quite good.
As noted, it has faster wireless charging than both. The OnePlus 10 Pro has 50W wireless charging or 80W wired charging, while the S22 Ultra has 15W wireless charging or 45W wired charging – so it also beats them for the power of wired charging. However, its battery is smaller, with both rivals having a 5,000mAh one.
The screen specs are broadly comparable, although the Honor Magic 4 Pro’s screen has a slightly lower resolution, and on paper they should all offer similar power.
The cameras are another difference though. The OnePlus 10 Pro has a 48MP wide, 50MP ultra-wide, and 8MP telephoto sensor, offering 3.3x optical zoom. So it’s not much different, but in terms of megapixels and zoom length, the Honor has the edge.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra is quite different here though, with a 108MP main sensor, 12MP ultrawide, 10MP telephoto (with 3x zoom), and a 10MP periscope camera with 10x optical zoom. Thus, Samsung wins for the length of the zoom and has a main sensor full of pixels, but less megapixels in the others.