Honor has lifted the lid on its new Magic 8 Pro in its home region of China – but how does it compare to the excellent Magic 7 Pro?
While the two devices look similar, there are key differences between the two in areas like design, screen tech, camera hardware, performance and even battery life that could sway your decision one way or the other – at least it will once the Magic 8 Pro releases internationally.
For now, here’s how the Honor Magic 8 Pro compares to the (still excellent) Honor Magic 7 Pro on paper.
Pricing and availability
The Honor Magic 8 Pro is available to buy in China following a mid-October 2025 launch – but you won’t find it in your local stores just yet. Honor has yet to confirm when the Magic 8 Pro global launch will take place, but given that it has shared some EU-specific specs, it’s certainly on the cards.
If we’re going by the Honor Magic 7 Pro release schedule, expect the Magic 8 Pro to appear internationally in early 2026.
The Honor Magic 7 Pro, on the other hand, has been readily available to buy since January, and while it initially came with a £1099 RRP, the phone is much cheaper at the time of writing.
The Honor Magic 8 Pro is thinner and lighter
This year’s Honor Magic 8 Pro takes a lot of design inspiration from last year’s Magic 7 Pro, with both featuring flat edges with micro-curved screens and even similar circular camera housing on the rear – but it’s much thinner and lighter too.
The Magic 7 Pro was one of the thicker flagships around in 2025, measuring in at 8.8mm thick and 223g, but the Magic 8 Pro manages to shave off half a millimetre to bring it down to a more acceptable 8.3mm and 219g.
This should translate to a slightly nicer in-hand feel without it feeling overly heavy, especially over longer periods of use – though we’ll have to confirm just how noticeable it is once we eventually go hands-on.
The reduction in thickness and weight doesn’t translate to less protection either; like the Magic 7 Pro, the Magic 8 Pro features both IP68 and IP69 dust and water resistance.
The Honor Magic 8 Pro display is brighter – but the 7 Pro’s screen is bigger
When it comes to screen tech, Honor has seemingly focused primarily on improving the brightness of the Magic 8 Pro.
The Magic 7 Pro already had a solid offering in this regard, hitting 1600nits in high brightness mode and 5000nits peak brightness when watching HDR content – but the Magic 8 Pro boosts this to 1800nits and 6000nits respectively. The latter number represents one of the brightest measurements in any smartphone right now.
Elsewhere, however, the screens are very similar; both OLED panels offer an LTPO-enabled 120Hz refresh rate, 4320Hz PWM dimming along with support for Dolby Vision and HDR Vivid, all of which should translate to a top-end screen experience in real-world use.
That said, the Honor Magic 7 Pro is actually the larger of the two phones at 6.8 inches compared to the 8 Pro’s 6.7 inches – though how much of a difference this will make in everyday use is yet to be seen. It’s likely negligible, but worth pointing out nonetheless.
The Magic 8 Pro also offers what Honor is calling ‘Giant Rhino Glass’ compared to the NanoCrystal Shield protection of the previous-gen flagship – though just how these two compare is yet to be seen.
The Honor Magic 8 Pro features the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
The Honor Magic 7 Pro features the capable Snapdragon 8 Elite, the chipset of choice for many flagship smartphones in 2025 – with performance to match. As we’ve seen from the litany of 8 Elite-equipped phones – including the Magic 7 Pro – performance is solid across the board, with the ability to compete with Apple’s own A-series chipsets for the first time.
The Honor Magic 8 Pro continues that trend with the upgraded Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, Qualcomm’s latest top-end chipset that only made its debut at the end of September.
It’s likely the chipset of choice for many 2026 flagships, and according to Qualcomm, it boasts improvements across the CPU, GPU and NPU – but we’ll have to wait and see how it performs in real-world use before we make any comments. There aren’t any Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5-equipped phones available in the Western market for now.
The two share very similar camera setups
When it comes to camera hardware, the two flagships are surprisingly similar.
Both feature the same 50MP primary camera with a wide f/1.6 aperture and a 1/1.3-inch sensor, with a matching 50MP 122-degree ultrawide, again with the same 1/2.88-inch sensor.
Even the zoom department, where much of Honor’s marketing focuses, is almost identical to last year’s alternative. Both feature a 200MP periscope lens on a large 1/1.4-inch sensor, with the same f/2.6 aperture and OIS – the only real difference is the base magnification. While the Honor Magic 7 Pro offered 3x, the Magic 8 Pro’s alternative starts at 3.7x.
Even then, the differences are pretty negligible, so it’ll be interesting to put the two side-by-side and see if there are any other differences not reflected in the spec sheet.
There is an improvement when it comes to video capture though; the Magic 8 Pro caps out at 4K@120fps, compared to the 4K@60fps limit on the previous-gen alternative.
Flip the phones around and you’ll be greeted with, again, identical 50MP f/2.0 selfie cameras, complete with Honor’s 3D depth sensor – essentially Honor’s version of Face ID, which in our experience, works very well.
The Honor Magic 8 Pro has a bigger battery and faster charging
The Honor Magic 8 Pro has seen significant gains in battery capacity, both in the Chinese model and the variant eventually headed to the global market. Honor has confirmed that the Magic 8 Pro boasts a massive 7200mAh cell in China, though with EU regulations on battery size, the version that ships worldwide will come with a slightly smaller 6270mAh battery.
While that’s not as good as it could be, it does still offer a sizeable jump over the Magic 7 Pro’s 5850mAh Chinese capacity and 5270mAh worldwide capacity that should hopefully translate to better battery life – but we can’t say for sure just yet.
It’s not just a bigger battery though; Honor has also paired it with faster 120W charging, compared to the 100W of the Magic 7 Pro – though you’ll need an Honor-branded charger to hit those top speeds.
What’s arguably more impressive is that Honor claims the smartphone can also handle up to 100W via regular USB-C PPS charging. Most smartphone manufacturers offer around half of that – especially if they’re trying to upsell their own proprietary smartphone charging tech.
It essentially means that, even if you don’t have an Honor charger handy, you’ll still be able to charge the phone pretty quickly.
Both phones also offer 80W wireless charging, but again, this requires an Honor-branded wireless charger.
Early thoughts
The Honor Magic 8 Pro, while offering the very best tech that Honor has to offer, is still fairly similar to the still-excellent Magic 7 Pro, with a very similar setup in key areas like screen tech and even cameras. Still, the addition of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and the promise of a bigger battery and faster charging are sure to tempt some.
That said, we’ll hold our final thoughts until we spend some time with the Honor Magic 8 Pro when it makes its global debut in the coming months.
