HONOR Magic5 Lite review: Flagship features form an honourable mid-range effort
HONOR was established in 2013 as a Huawei sub-brand, but stepped out from their shadow to go it alone in 2020. They manufacture smartphones, laptops, and accessories, and their latest line of smartphones, the Magic 5 range, is a real lunge at independence.
Out of three devices, the Magic5 Lite sits on the bottom rung of the ladder, sporting flagship features with some corners cut to shave the retail price to just £329.99.
The HONOR Magic5 Lite comes in 3 colours, Titanium Silver, Emerald Green, and Midnight Black. It's light, coming in at just 175g. it measures 161.6mm × 73.9mm x 7.9mm, with a 6.67-inch OLED curved display that takes up 93% of the body of the phone.
The HONOR Magic5 Lite is striking in its design while being lightweight and thin. (HONOR)On the back of the phone is a huge ring for the camera setup, which is striking but might not be to everyone's taste, similar in looks to the Eye of Muse that was present on the Honor Magic4 Pro.
The screen on the Honor Magic5 Lite is fantastic - it's 6.67 inches from corner to corner and features 45-degree curvature. It displays 1.07 billion colours at a resolution of 2400 x 1080 and has a whopping 120 Hz refresh rate. The phone has a single speaker in the base, but it's underwhelming - the sound is loud but quite tinny.
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It peaks at 800 nits brightness but also features a TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light Certification, which is something that HONOR are very proud of. Eye care has been a big part of their last few design cycles, and they have pushed the envelope hard on this iteration, with even the HONOR Magic5 Lite being as kind to your eyes as a screen can be.
Overall, the screen is fantastic - it works well in all light conditions, is bright, clear, and crisp, and displays colour and contrast really well. It also houses a fingerprint lock and is made from reinforced glass for improved grip and durability - HONOR themselves told me they've run it over with a car in-house and offered to have me do the same, although I politely declined.
The HONOR Magic5 Lite comes in three colours, each of which great (HONOR)The device runs on Magic UI 6.1, which is HONOR's custom OS built on Android 12. Users of other Android devices will find it comfortable and familiar, although it can be a little clunky at times with large icons and a somewhat scarce settings menu.
You can resize things like display elements, text, and icons - but things like the notification bars and the swipe-down settings menu remain a fixed size, as well as the icons in the app drawer. That being said - the device would be excellent for someone with sight problems, since there is a lot of customisation and things are, by default, very clear and large.
The biggest pitfall of the device is the processor - HONOR have opted for a Snapdragon 695, which feels like a low-end choice compared to similar processors, such as the 778G, which offers significantly more power for a similar power draw.
We carried out each benchmark multiple times and took the average value. It's worth noting there was very little variance in any of the benchmarks, with the device consistently scoring very similarly on each attempt.
The screen is flagship quality, with high resolution, brightness, and great colour and contrast. (HONOR)First came Basemark Web 3.0, which tests the capability of the device in using web-based applications. It scored an average of 350.86 across 3 tests. This is a disappointing result but worth noting that the device only fell down on the more complex tasks, such as WebGL 2.0 tests.
This isn't a test of how good the device is at general web browsing, but more specifically at things like shader renders and draw calls done in a browser. In particular, the phone did great at page loading and resizing, coming in at 93.7% efficiency for both. It's also worth noting we used the pre-installed Google Chrome for this test, other browsers might see improved performance.
Next we tried Geekbench 5, a benchmarking tool specifically for testing the CPU. The device scored 666 single-core, and 1928 multi-core. This puts it slightly ahead of devices like the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite and the LG G7, but just behind phones like the Samsung Galaxy S9.
In terms of testing the GPU, we used 3DMark and averaged a score of 1208. Devices with similar scores included the Asus ROG Phone 3, and the Moto G100.
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The HONOR Magic5 Lite features a three-camera setup at the rear, and a single camera at the front (HONOR)In terms of benchmarks, it doesn't do great - when you put it in context, it's surrounded by phones that are around £100 cheaper than it is. That being said, the processor isn't everything, and for a lot of people, the Snapdragon 695 will do just fine. HONOR has had to make sacrifices somewhere to keep the price point where it is, and other features on the device arguably make up for it.
The phone comes with 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. There's also HONOR ram turbo, which offers up to an additional 5GB of ram to the device when you need it. This is actually an impressive amount of RAM, and will make up for the processor in some circumstances, particularly when it comes to multitasking.
The camera is impressive - there are three rear cameras, a 64MP Ultra-clear Camera (f/1.8 aperture), 5MP Wide Angle Camera (f/2.2 aperture), and a 2MP Macro Camera (f/2.4 aperture). The front camera is a single 16MP (f/2.45 aperture).
We all know by now that megapixels aren't everything anymore, but the HONOR Magic5 Lite really delivers in terms of megapixels and software. In addition to the hardware, you get all the bells and whistles you'd expect from a camera powered by an Android operating system, including portrait mode, aperture mode, and pro mode, letting you control specific parameters in your image.
Photos taken with the rear camera are of great quality, and even include the ability to blur the background (Stefan Mieszek)The photos the phone takes are exceptional in all lighting conditions, and I'm not convinced you'd find a device that can take photos as the Magic5 Lite does in this price bracket.
What's more, the video is also fantastic, with features like image stabilisation, picture-in-picture, and sensors in the front and back cameras. There's also dual-view recording and a single-view/dual-view switch. It captures in slow-motion, time-lapse, and to top it off it does it all in 4k.
HONOR is also proud of the battery in the Magic5 Lite - it's a 5100 mAh battery which they claim will last 2 days. This is one of the advantages of the processor choice - it's not equipped with a huge monster that will gobble up power in a few hours.
It doesn't come with a plug, but it does come with a USB-A to USB-C cable, which SuperCharges the device at speeds of up to 40W. The battery is also apparently very durable, maintaining 80% capacity after 1000 charging cycles.
There's no headphone jack, just the USB-C slot, which can be used for charging, headsets, or data transfer. It also carries Bluetooth 5.1, which supports BLE, SBC, AAC, and even LDAC.
HONOR Magic5 Lite verdict - 4/5
The Honor Magic5 Lite is a pleasantly strange device and one that's really difficult to compare to anything else thanks to the two sides of its coin being so far removed from each other.
On the plus side, the screen is amazing, the battery life is fantastic, and the camera is awesome. On the other side of the coin, the processor is lacklustre, and certain aspects of the design are lacking - particularly the speaker.
The device comes with 6GB of RAM, which is decent, but a strange choice alongside the Snapdragon 695. It's full of features though, from the Blue-Light specification to the overwhelming video capabilities.
HONOR has picked what matters to them, and they've done that right - even if it might be at the expense of things some users might prefer.
This device will appeal to a lot of people, primarily people who aren't interested in straining their phones with gaming or complex computing tasks.
If you just want a phone that will do the basics, but benefits from a great screen and battery with SuperCharge are important to you, then the HONOR Magic5 Lite will tick all the boxes.
The HONOR Magic5 Lite is available on 3 March 2023, with a retail price of £329.99.
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