The Honor Magic 7 Pro is the perfect Samsung alternative

I'm excited to finally be sharing my thoughts on the Honor Magic 7 Pro, which is one of the best camera phones I've ever tested. I should mention that I first got my hands on the Magic 7 Pro earlier this year, when Honor invited me on a press trip to the stunning town of Bled in Slovenia. The company cleverly selected excursions for us to partake in that really showed off the uniqueness of this phone (like shooting from the peak of a mountain and running over the phone with a quad bike to prove its durability).

However, after returning home from Slovenia and handing the phone back, I requested to have another review sample sent over and to spend a little extra time with the Magic 7 Pro to fully review the camera hardware and offer a completely unbiased verdict on this latest flagship. In short, it offered exceptional all-around performance and produced high-quality photos with a few tricks up its sleeve.

I quickly fell in love with the 50MP main camera, as well as the 200MP telephoto camera on this phone, and as a diehard Samsung fan, it's been hard to ignore the similarities between the Honor Magic 7 series and the Galaxy S24 series. The performance is pretty close, and I even tested the Magic 7 Pro against my current Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in a fun camera phone shootout while in Slovenia.

Stick with me during this review as I dive into my experience testing the Honor Magic 7 Pro, with a focus on its camera performance above all else. If you're interested in some more camera phone recommendations, see my picks of the best budget camera phones (all under 1K) for some affordable suggestions, or take a look at our guide to the best iPhones for photography if you're loyal to Apple.

Price

• £1,099.99 in the UK
• Not available in the US or Australia

The Honor Magic 7 Pro is kind of competitively priced, yet still falls into the premium flagship category. I do think the £1,099.99 price tag is a little high, but we occasionally see this drop to £999 during promotional sales periods, which is instantly more fitting.

Considering that Honor is still a relatively unheard-of brand to a large chunk of consumers, it seems ambitious to be charging a premium price like this. For comparison, the Samsung S25 Ultra is priced at £1,249 (only £150 dearer), and the iPhone 16 Pro has an RRP of £1,199 (only £100 more), so given the choice, consumers unfamiliar with Honor may opt for more household names instead.

I do think the Magic 7 Pro is good value and offers a lot for its price, with great performance and a superb battery life. The AI features are just as advanced as you get with Samsung alternatives, and I have no complaints in the camera department either.

Value score: 3/5

Honor Magic 7 Pro: Key specifications

Cameras

• Excellent camera quality in general
• Advanced suite of AI editing tools
• AI Super Zoom feature is innovative
• Ultra-clear AI-enhanced Studio Harcourt Portrait styles

If you're a photographer or content creator, then you won't be disappointed with the Honor Magic 7 Pro's camera system. It has a 50MP main camera, a 50MP ultrawide camera, a 200MP telephoto camera, and a high-res 50MP selfie camera (with autofocus).

The feature that I've absolutely loved testing on this phone is the super macro and aperture camera modes, which can capture impressively sharp macro images with a beautiful bokeh and blurred depth of field that gives my Sony A7III and 90mm Macro G lens a run for its money. I tested this out very recently by pitting the Magic 7 Pro against the new Honor 400 Pro model in a macro camera phone shootout.

As I mentioned earlier, my first experience shooting with the Honor Magic 7 Pro was in Slovenia, and I managed to capture one of the most beautiful photos I've ever taken on a smartphone using this camera phone. It was a landscape shot of Lake Bled shot as the sun was setting for the evening, and I used RAW mode to ensure that every detail was captured true to the scene.

One thing about the Honor Magic 7 Pro's camera quality is that it can sometimes get too overpowered and overprocessed by AI. There is the option to fine-tune this or turn it off completely in the phone settings, but I think it's a great benefit for those seeking Instagram-ready shots with minimal effort, while smartphone shooters who prefer to make their own adjustments in post can still benefit from shooting RAW and in High-res mode.

The standout feature of the Honor Magic 7 Pro is arguably the new 200MP telephoto camera combined with AI Super Zoom features. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this feature, as some examples are extremely impressive while other attempts can be a complete flop with an AI result that resembles a watercolour painting. I tested this feature out the most from my hotel balcony in Slovenia, and found that it didn't quite hit the mark the first few times I experimented with it.

In any case, I applaud Honor for even trying to implement this as an AI feature, as I don't see Samsung or Apple trying anything this innovative with its camera modules. Take a look at the sample images below to see the results from testing the Honor Magic 7 Pro's 200MP telephoto camera all the way to 100X digital zoom.

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The last camera feature of the Honor Magic 7 Pro that I want to highlight is the Studio Harcourt portrait filters and styles that were first introduced with the Honor 200 Pro series (I attended the launch event for this phone in Paris last year). If you like shooting portraits of others, then this feature will be a game-changer for you.

In fact, it's so good that world-famous photographer Rankin hosted a live session demonstrating how to use this feature on the Honor 200 Pro series, and also shared his 8 steps to smartphone photography success with us too.

I could go on all day about how amazing the Honor Magic 7 Pro's camera unit is, but this review would get too long. I think I'd also rather let the image gallery below speak for itself. All of these images have been uploaded straight from the Magic 7 Pro with no editing or post-processing applied (except for the cases where I used Studio Harcourt filters, which are edited and enhanced at capture).

Camera score: 5/5

Sample images

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Portraits

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Design and display

• Cosmos-inspired sophisticated design
• IP68 / IP69 rated for water and dust protection
• SGS 5-star drop-resistance certification

The Honor Magic 7 Pro is more than just a pretty smartphone. I was sent the Lunar Shadow Grey model for testing, and while it has a gorgeous marble-style casing that shimmers in the light, it's also pretty indestructible. It can not only withstand extreme temperatures (including the freezing -30 conditions atop Vogel mountain in Slovenia), but has also been certified as 5-star drop resistant and IP-rated to withstand water and dust.

This Honor device is not marketed as a rugged phone, unlike others I've tested, such as the Doogee S200, but it could be an excellent choice for more adventurous types or those with active lifestyles who like to jump off cliffs and swim with sharks. The Honor NanoCrystal shield coating on the Honor Magic 7 Pro makes it virtually indestructible, and a group of us witnessed it survive being run over by the wheels of a quad bike, multiple times, while screen-down on a concrete path. This phone is so well-protected that you could use it worry-free without a case or screen protector.

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It's not just the standard Honor Magic 7 Pro that looks gorgeous either, but the company also produced a Magic 7 Pro RSR model in collaboration with Porsche (see above). This phone looks insanely elegant in person, with a hexagon-style camera design on the back. I had the chance to sit down and interview Tobias Hüttl, the Head of Design over at Porsche, to learn all about this unique Honor smartphone collab.

Design score: 5/5

Features and performance

• Honor Magic Ring ecosystem
• Google Gemini integration
• AI features galore (with 3D Avatars)

Most of the testing I've done with the Honor Magic 7 Pro has been less gaming-related and more general use, browsing, AI assistance, content creation, and photo editing – so these are the points I'm going to be focusing on in this performance review section.

For starters, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to use new Honor features like the Magic Portal, which lets you bring across information from one app to another, such as locations, text, links, and photos. I didn't think I'd get much use out of this tool, but I've also been using it with my Honor MagicPad 2 tablet as well, and it can come in really handy. Honor has what it calls its Magic Ring ecosystem, which I've also been using to share files and photos from the Magic 7 pro to my MagicPad 2 tablet. It's quick, easy, and feels very familiar.

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As a Samsung user primarily, I've noticed a lot of similarities between the Honor Magic 7 series and the Samsung Galaxy S24 series, and both device families now share AI features such as live translations, AI transcribing, and note assisting, which came in very handy while I interviewed people at a keynote in Slovenia. The Magic 7 Pro also relies on Google Gemini as an AI voice assistant and benefits from functions like Google's Circle to Search feature (first introduced with the S24 series).

While I don't necessarily think I could jump ship from Samsung to Honor tech altogether (excluding my MagicPad, which is one of the best purchases I made last year), I'm really surprised by how easy it is to get adjusted to Honor's Magic OS 9 as an existing Android user. However, Apple devotees may struggle a little at first.

No matter what task I did on the Honor Magic 7 Pro, it handled everything perfectly. Video editing with CapCut was a breeze, the battery life was impressive, and only needed charging once a day, if that. The sound quality was great too when watching YouTube, and the included NPU chip assisted performance when running multiple apps so I never experienced any lag. I think the performance may have even been better than my Samsung S24 Ultra at times, which suffers from poor battery life and lag on occasion (this also seems to be reflected in benchmark scores below).

Feature score: 4/5
Performance score: 5/5

Benchmark scoring

Who is it for?

• Android users who like things a little bit different
• Photo and video enthusiasts

The Honor Magic 7 Pro is an excellent smartphone for those who like to get really stuck in with photo editing and image adjustments, thanks to Honor's advanced AI editing suite.

You know that statistic that floats around that most people only use 20% (or something similar) of their smartphone capabilities, especially the camera features? It's a lot like that with the Honor Magic 7 Pro, and you could spend hours tweaking every single setting and playing around with each imaging tool to really get the most out of this phone camera, which some will thoroughly enjoy.

If you're looking for an Android smartphone that offers something a little different, with fun widgets, a Magic Portal for connecting apps, and plenty of unique features compared with Samsung and other brands, then I think you'll love what the Honor Magic 7 Pro has to offer.

Buy it if...

• You're really into content creation and like to edit on your phone
• You're intrigued by AI and its potential to assist you
• You want a great camera phone for both photo and video

Don't buy it if...

• You have a tighter budget to spend on a smartphone
• You're wary of using AI or it makes you uncomfortable
• You're not a fan of the Honor Magic OS. This takes some getting used to