The Honor Magic 5 Pro is supposed to be groundbreaking, especially with its camera, which relies on a trio of 50-megapixel sensors and scored top marks in DxoMark. HONOR Magic 5 Pro features the best camera phone of 2023.
Design and display:
The design of the Honor Magic 5 Pro is definitely an eccentric one, both at the front and the back. The striking camera module dominates the back, which is arranged in a ring in typical Honor fashion.
When viewed from the front, there is also a curious look: The display is rounded on all four sides. This gives the Honor Magic 5 Pro a very round, flowing design that also feels good in the hand.
However, the display is certainly nice to look at. The 6.81-inch LTPO panel has a 2,848 x 1,312 pixels resolution and looks really chic. At least, that is what we thought at the Honor event during MWC 2023. The typical brightness stands at 120 nits in artificial light, and the Magic 5 Pro fires all the way to 800 nits under bright sunlight. The HDR10+-compatible display is even capable of delivering 1,800 nits for HDR content.
The display has a pixel density of 461 ppi and looks really fancy, no matter what you throw at it.
Camera:
The camera is the Magic 5 Pro’s biggest strength, so says Honor and DxOMark, who placed the smartphone first in their best camera list. The smartphone has the best capabilities to capture excellent photos with its trio of 50 MP cameras.
According to Honor, the main camera relies on a specially adapted Sony IMX878 sensor in a 1/1.2-inch format. The 50 MP telephoto camera offers a 3.5x magnification rate and relies on the Sony IMX858 sensor. Finally, the ultrawide camera houses the OmniVision OV64B chip with a Freeform lens.
Other camera hardware includes a ToF sensor (IMX516), a color temperature sensor, and a flicker sensor. Finally, all sorts of AI algorithms work together to conjure beautiful shots based on the image and depth information captured. For example, Honor promises a feature for action photography that automatically captures the highest point in a jump.
Unfortunately, we have not had the chance to take a slew of photos with the Honor Magic 5 Pro to date. However, we can already say that the camera app is well implemented, where the autofocus reacts quickly, even under difficult lighting conditions.
Apart from photos, the Magic 5 Pro also focuses on videos. The smartphone films in 4K resolution at 60 fps, optionally with HDR10+ or in log format with 10-bit color depth. Last but not least, there is a selfie camera in front with a 12 MP resolution and an unspecified 3D depth camera.
Conclusion:
The Honor Magic 5 Pro is a smartphone with rough edges, metaphorically speaking. The rounded front across all four sides and the eccentric camera module on the back are set to divide opinions. In short, the best camera phone of the year 2023.
