HONOR Magic6 Pro Review – The Honorable Ace

HONOR Magic6 Pro Unboxing

Kicking off the HONOR Magic6 Pro review with the unboxing, it comes in a similar packaging as its predecessors. It’s clad in black and it’s rather minimalistic in nature as you only get the name of the device on the cover. Inside the box, we found the following items:

• USB-C to USB-C cable
• 80W HONOR SuperCharge charger
• SIM ejector pin
• Documentations
• Clear protective case
• The HONOR Magic6 Pro itself

Specifications

SoC	Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, 4nm 1 x Cortex-X4 @ 3.3 GHz + 3 x Cortex-A720 @ 3.2 GHz + 2 x Cortex-A720 @ 3 GHz + 2 x Cortex-A520 @ 2.3 GHz Adreno 750 GPU
RAM	12GB / 16GB
Storage	256GB / 512GB / 1TB UFS 4.0
Display	6.8″ (2800 x 1280) Quad Curved Floating LTPO OLED Display, 1.07 billion colors, 100% DCI-P3, HDR10+, Dolby Vision HONOR NanoCrystal Shield, Jurhino Glass 4320Hz PWM dimming, dynamic dimming, Nature Tone Display, TUV Rheinland Full Care, Flicker Free, and Circadian Friendly certifications 453ppi 5000 nits (peak) 1Hz to 120Hz Adaptive Refresh Rate
Rear Camera	HONOR Tele-Falcon Camera System 180MP f/2.6 Tele-Falcon camera, 2.5x optical zoom, 100x digital zoom 50MP f/1.4-2.0 Adjustable Aperture OIS, Super Dynamic Falcon Main Camera H9000 50MP f/2.0 122˚ ultra-wide HONOR Falcon Capture Algorithm: All-range AI Motion Sensing Capture SMA Actuator (AF+OIS 2-in-1), Multi-spectrum color temperature sensor, flicker sensor
Selfie Camera	50MP ultrawide-angle selfie cam 3D TOF Sensor
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6e/7, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct Bluetooth 5.3, A2DP, LE, aptX HD NFC USB-C 3.1 with OTG support
Battery	5600mAh HONOR Second Generation Silicon-carbon Battery 80W wired HONOR SuperCharge 66W wireless HONOR SuperCharge Power Enhanced Chip HONOR E1 HONOR Power Management System
Dimensions	162.5 x 75.8 x 8.9 mm 229g
Ingress Protection	IP68
Software	MagicOS 8.0 based on Android 14
Colours	Black, Green, Blue, Purple, White

Performance

Starting off our benchmark suite with Antutu v10, we can see that the HONOR Magic6 Pro had a strong showing, though it seemed to be falling behind flagships running the same chip. While it’s still an improvement over last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, it seems to have nearly the same amount of difference to that compared to one at the top of the charts, which is odd. I suspect it had something to do with thermal efficiency.

Then on Geekbench 6, the single core score is on par with the other Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 devices but is noticeably lagging behind in multi core performance. I’m thinking that the system could be intentionally downclocking the CPU speed to allow it to run more efficiently since it didn’t feel particularly warm. If that’s the case, I’m quite fine with this since it still achieved an admirable score and improving its efficiency results in lesser heat along with a longer battery life.

Moving on to 3DMark, the HONOR Magic6 Pro managed to take the top spot in Wild Life Extreme Unlimited and still had a strong showing in Solar Bay. The difference with the other devices running the same chip is negligible, so all of them are practically on par here.

Lastly on PCMark’s Work 3.0 benchmark, the HONOR Magic6 Pro managed an admirable score, taking the 2nd runner up spot. Even with that, the difference with two smartphones above it are too small to make a difference so you can practically expect the same level of experience when it comes to day-to-day use.

For those of you who are wondering about the battery life, the HONOR Magic6 Pro lasted 10 hours and 54 minutes (654 minutes) in PCMark’s Work 3.0 endurance test. This is with Dynamic Refresh Rate enabled, a feature that will provide an optimized viewing experience without killing off battery life. I did expect better given since it came with a 5,600mAh battery and similar competitors can last noticeably longer with just 5,000mAh but it’s still good and is still far from being horrendous.

To make up for it, the HONOR Magic6 Pro does come with a 80W HONOR SuperCharge brick inside the box, and it works pretty fast. From my own experience, here are the speeds I get from 2%:

• 15 minutes = 51% battery life
• 30 minutes = 82% battery life
• 44 minutes = 100% battery life

We couldn’t put the wireless charging capabilities to the test as the fastest wireless charger we have is only 15W, a far cry from the 66W supported here for wireless charging.

Camera

One of the biggest attraction points of the HONOR Magic6 Pro’s predecessor is its camera, and it manages to impress yet again this time around. The main camera is capable of capturing a healthily wide dynamic range and details with excellent clarity, and it still manages to retain a good amount of detail in low light, albeit with the occasional artifacts. While colors tend to be on the more natural side, the AI optimizations can get a bit overkill or bizarre but you can disable that if you wish.

The ultrawide camera on the other hand is close to the main camera’s quality with the exception of pictures looking slightly more dull and details being more softened up. The zoom camera is certainly impressive, looking pretty sharp up to 5x zoom, and even 10x zoom in a bright sunny day. Slightly above 10x zoom is still usable, provided it’s not dark, but a anything past that is basically mush. Selfies are surprisingly impressive, though it may not seem that way at first given its tendency to soften up the skin. Toy around with the settings a little and you’d be surprised to see how much details it can capture.

In case you want to compare it with its predecessor, check out our HONOR Magic5 Pro review by clicking right here.

The Good

There are a good number of reasons to consider getting the HONOR Magic6 Pro. For starters, you get a premium, attractive design that looks mostly similar to last year until you touch the rear. It’s a soft, faux leather that is grippy, nice to the touch and doesn’t attract fingerprint smudges. The large camera bump is still here in the same place, except that the outer ring has been augmented with a metal housing, which adds more emphasis and focus on it. It also doesn’t cut down on practicality either since it is IP68 water and dust resistant.

Moving over to the front and you get a 6.8-inch 2800 x 1280 resolution LTPO OLED display with a453ppi, adaptive refresh rate going from 1Hz to 120Hz and high frequency 4,320Hz PWM dimming. HONOR claims that it has a peak brightness of 5,000 nits but from our use case, it hasn’t come close to that as we get about 1,500 to 1,600 nits at most with adaptive brightness enabled, which is still more than adequate.

What’s insane here is the HONOR NanoCrystal Shield instead of the usual Gorilla Glass, which is said to be 10 times more drop resistant and is certified by SGS’s 5-star Glass Drop Resistance Ability. From what we saw at the launch event, it took quite a bit of extreme beatings from absurdly low temperatures to a stab from a steel knife and survived, so it’s built pretty rock solid. Feels like the motivation here is to be as close to the Nokia 3310 meme of olden days as close as possible.

Just as we saw in its predecessor, you get a solid dual-speaker setup here consisting of a top and bottom-firing ones with a balanced output and more than adequate volume. It doesn’t feel like it got any louder or better but since it already set the bar pretty high up, this is perfectly fine for me. If you watch movies or play games on your smartphone often, you will have a good time with this for sure.

In terms of security, you do get both under-display fingerprint and face recognition, so you can opt for whichever is more convenient for you. The fingerprint scanner itself works lightning fast and I’ve only ever had issues with it after washing my hands since my fingers are still somewhat wet. Face recognition works well enough, just not as fast as the fingerprint option and kind of an annoyance if you often wear a mask.

Lastly, you get a host of good connectivity options with the HONOR Magic6 Pro. You get Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth upgraded to version 5.3, and NFC. Once again, one of the most underrated features in a smartphone returns yet again; the IR Blaster. At this point in time, I’m sure many people will not make use of it but for those who do, it will add a whole other layer of convenience as you can use it to function an air conditioner remote, TV remote, and more.

The Bad

The HONOR Magic6 Pro is a pretty solid flagship but it does have its share of drawbacks. For starters, it feels like HONOR is falling behind in terms of software updates compared to its competitors. It’s not just about how fast you get an update but also that it comes with 4 major Android OS upgrades with 5 years of security updates. It’s not bad but if they want to take the top spot, they would need to come closer to some of its rivals. To the least, I hope to see improvements in terms of speed of updates arriving.

Another thing is on the display, and while the screen itself is wonderful, the pill-shaped cutout for the front camera is not pleasing to the eyes. It somewhat feels like we went back in time about 4-5 years ago given the look, and we get the same pill-shaped cutout as last year with the position changed to the center of the display’s upper portion. The only solace I can find here is that you can purposely make use of that cutout for some funny, immersive wallpaper ideas.

HONOR Magic6 Pro Verdict

The HONOR Magic6 Pro brings about some notable improvements over its already impressive predecessor, and there really isn’t much to complain about. If you still enjoy having curved displays, this will inevitably be at the top of the list given that some its competitors are moving towards a flat one, and its retail price of RM4,499 does give it a bit more edge compared to its competition. Given how durable it is, this is one of the few flagship phones you can use naked without issues, but it’s still nice of HONOR to provide a free protective case for good measure.

At the end of our HONOR Magic6 Pro review, I award this flagship smartphone with our coveted Gold Pokdeward.

Big thanks to HONOR Malaysia for sending us this smartphone for the purpose of this review.