Honor Magic 8 Lite review: Mid-range magic

Best Prices Today: Honor Magic 8 Lite

The Honor Magic 8 Lite is a well-balanced blend of flagship-level endurance and budget-friendly compromises, resulting in a surprisingly compelling device.

While its predecessor, the Magic 7 Lite, only launched in January, Honor has already upgraded this iteration with a new processor and a sturdier chassis, while offering improved dust and water protection. 

Also taking the limelight is the hefty 7,500mAh battery, designed to keep the phone running all day and well into the next. After in-depth testing, here are my detailed thoughts on the phone.

Design & Build

• Striking marble finish
• IP69K water and dust resistance
• Awkward camera placement

The Magic 8 Lite is a striking device, featuring a slim black bezel outlining the 6.79-inch OLED display and a discreet hole-punch notch. The plastic back is reminiscent of marble, featuring a cloud-like pattern that reveals itself when tilted against the light. 

The finish is superbly smooth without being slippery or prone to fingerprints. It’s available in three finishes: Forest Green, Midnight Black, and Reddish Brown.

The finish is superbly smooth without being slippery or prone to fingerprints

Equally striking – though perhaps less practical – is the massive circular camera array. While it makes the Magic 8 Lite recognisable, the placement means your fingertips often brush against the lenses when holding the phone in one hand.

On the right-hand side are the volume buttons and the power button. When pressed twice rapidly, the latter turns on the flashlight, while holding it down will trigger Google Gemini. These are both handy features, and more subtle than the gesture controls from other smartphone manufacturers like Motorola, for example, whose devices require a more visible karate chop to activate the torch.

Weighing in at 189g, it is three grams heavier than the Google Pixel 9a – likely to be its main rival at this price point – but it strikes a solid balance between lightweight comfort and durability. 

With IP68 and IP69K ratings, the device can withstand high-pressure sprays and submersion up to 1 metre for 30 minutes.

Screen & Speakers

• Bright OLED display
• Smooth 120Hz motion
• Average audio quality

The screen Honor has fitted here is impressive, with a claimed 6000 nits peak brightness that ensures legibility even in direct sunlight. It features a crisp 2640 x 1200 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate that keeps scrolling and animations buttery smooth.

Watching Her (2013), the display handled the film’s melancholy palette with nuance. Where lesser devices often render shadowed urban scenes as a mundane grey, the Magic 8 Lite maintains distinct contrast, allowing the red of Theodore Twombly’s (Joaquin Phoenix) jacket to pop against the concrete and muted-blue sky.

Skin tones are naturally conveyed, avoiding the washed-out look common among budget handsets. When Twombly returns home to his murky apartment, the display captures both the darkness and the detail. 

You can make out the hints of his kitchen appliances in the corner of the room with much greater detail on the right side of the scene, while the left side plunges into darkness. It’s contrasted against the red of his room, which, on the Magic 8 Lite, comes across nice and brightly.

Skin tones are naturally conveyed, avoiding the washed-out look common among budget handsets

Audio quality is acceptable for the small stereo speakers, though it tends to edge toward harshness at maximum volume. For the best experience, pairing the device with decent headphones is recommended.

Specs & Performance

• Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chip
• Solid gaming performance

Under the hood, the Magic 8 Lite is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chip, paired with 8GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of storage. For the most part, this setup keeps the phone running smoothly.

While scrolling through social media and firing off texts feels fluid, the device isn’t quite as snappy as it could be. There is occasionally a perceptible delay when typing, searching, or launching heavy apps.

In an attempt to put it through its paces playing Wuthering Waves, gameplay was more than passable on its default settings, with no significant frame rate dips. While a flagship phone will naturally offer higher fidelity and greater responses, mobile gamers looking to play titles on the go won’t be disappointed.

Gameplay was more than passable on its default settings, with no significant frame rate dips

Cameras

• Same camera hardware as last two iterations
• Oversaturated colour tones
• Weak zoom detail

The biggest let-down is that Honor has not upgraded the camera hardware from the Magic 6 Lite or 7 Lite. We are once again presented with a 108Mp main sensor, a 5Mp ultra-wide, and a 16Mp selfie lens.

The colour science leaves something to be desired, suffering from the oversaturation often seen in Chinese Android devices. While the palette makes a strong first impression, a comparison between the screen and reality reveals that most images are more false than faithful to reality.

Most images are more false than faithful to reality

Plants appear unnaturally lush, and blue skies look like a travel advert. This aesthetic may appeal to social media users, but those seeking accuracy will prefer the more natural processing of Google’s Pixel line or the iPhone.

With no telephoto lens, zoom capabilities are also limited. Quality holds up at 2x zoom, but push it to 3x – or the maximum 10x – and the device struggles to resolve the fine detail that discerning users expect.

In low light, the Magic 8 Lite performs adequately, producing decent images despite a lack of fine texture. The selfie camera, meanwhile, is serviceable and generally matches the competition on the market.

Battery Life & Charging

• 7500mAh silicon-carbon battery
• Incredible three-day battery life
• 66W fast charging, but charger sold separately

The battery that Honor has equipped the Magic 8 Lite with is astonishingly good. Despite a svelte design, opting for silicon-carbon (Si/C) technology means you get a massive 7500mAh capacity.

It took approximately three days of casually watching videos, scrolling social media, answering emails, and looking at maps before the Magic 8 Lite finally gave out on me. So even with the most demanding day imaginable, you won’t have to worry about whether it’ll make it to bedtime.

The device also supports up to 66W fast charging using an official Honor charger. Unfortunately, you’ll need to supply your own brick, as one is not included in the box, and the cable is an out-of-date USB-A to USB-C.

Software & Features

• Magic OS 9 over Android 16
• Lots of AI tools
• Too much bloatware
• Six years of OS and security updates

The Magic 8 Lite runs Magic OS 9, Honor’s skin based on Android 15. Honor layers its own suite of applications over the Google defaults – including its own Health, Calendar, and Gallery apps. 

Depending on how invested you are in the Honor ecosystem, cleaning these off your home screen may take some time.

In some ways, it feels more like Apple’s iOS than Android. The notification centre is reached by swiping vertically down on the left side of the phone, while the control centre is on the right. 

Honor also has a ‘Connect’ function for seamlessly transferring tasks, notifications, and your wi-fi hotspot between other Honor tablets and laptops, just like Apple does with the iPad and MacBooks. The ‘Magic Capsule’ feature also acts like the Dynamic Island does, showing a wider artificial notch for recording, media playback, and clock functions like timers.

Honor is also leaning heavily into artificial intelligence. There are AI translation, summarisation, subtitles, and writing tools, plus a ‘Magic Portal’ that works similarly to Google’s Circle to Search. 

By drawing around text or an image with your knuckle (complete with some magic-wand-like sparkles), a sidebar will open on the right side of the phone for quick sharing to email or messages, or fast-copying text.

In photos and videos, Honor has an AI editing suite. This includes an ‘AI eraser’ that will remove inconvenient aspects such as signage or people from the background of your photos or get rid of the reflection from photos taken through windows, both of which work very well.

Honor’s software support policy is very good, offering six years of both major Android OS updates and security patches

Other tools include ‘AI Upscaler’, which attempts to make blurry and low resolution photos clearer, but did little more than sharpen the edges of objects in the photos tested; an ‘AI Outpainting’ mode, which uses generative technology to expand an image to a certain aspect ratio in a way that was quite effective; and an instant ‘AI Beauty’ mode that brightens an image and whitens the skin in a way I really don’t like.

Honor’s software support policy is very good, offering six years of both major Android OS updates and security patches. However, support is drastically cut to just two years of updates outside of Europe, and it’s unclear when Android 16 will be available on the Magic 8 Lite.

Price & Availability

The Honor Magic 8 Lite is an attractive mid-range choice, but we don’t know how much it’ll cost – yet.

However, it’s unlikely to be hugely different to the Magic 7 Lite, which started at £399 at launch.

For now, all you can do is sign up for notifications via the Honor UK website, and it’s unclear when the phone will actually be available.

Assuming it remains as one of the cheaper mid-range phones on the market, rivals include the Google Pixel 9a, Samsung Galaxy A56, Oppo Reno 13 FS and Nothing Phone (3a) Pro.

Should you buy the Honor Magic 8 Lite?

The Magic 8 Lite has a lot going for it. Its standout features – the massive 7,500 mAh battery, a vibrant 6.79-inch OLED screen, and a strong suite of AI capabilities – deliver a premium feel worth far more than its expected cost. 

While it is held back by a merely adequate, inherited camera system and the pre-loaded Honor bloatware, the Magic 8 Lite offers enough top-tier endurance and display quality to be confidently recommended – provided you live in Europe, where long-term support is guaranteed.

Specs

• Magic OS 9 over Android 15
• 6.79-inch, 2640 x 1200, 120Hz
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 4
• 8GB RAM
• 256/512GB storage
• Front camera: 16Mp (f/2.45)
• Rear cameras: 108Mp (f/1.75) Ultra-Sensing main, 5MP (f/2.2) ultrawide
• On-screen fingerprint reader, Face unlock
• 5G
• Wi-Fi 6
• Bluetooth 5.2
• USB-C
• 7500mAh silicon-carbon battery
• 161.9mm (L) x 76.1mm (W) x 7.76mm (D)
• W189g
• Launch Colours: Forest Green, Midnight Black, Reddish Brown