A couple of years after increasing into Europe, Honor is hoping the flagship Magic 7 Professional will persuade much more customers to provide the model a strive outdoors of China. With superior silicon-carbon battery tech, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, and rising AI software program, the Honor Magic 7 Professional would possibly make a compelling case. The smartphone race outdoors of North America is commonly received by a tool’s digital camera system — simply have a look at what manufacturers like Vivo are doing — so if Honor needs to win, it will need the Magic 7 Professional to ship standout digital camera efficiency.
I’ve spent the previous couple of weeks pushing the Magic 7 Professional’s “Falcon Digicam” to its limits, snapping photographs and taking movies throughout two continents. Honor despatched me to Bled, Slovenia for the Magic 7 Professional world launch occasion, the place I bought to check this cellphone’s digital camera whereas scaling the Slovenian Alps, visiting ski slops, and driving ATVs. Again dwelling, I attempted out the Magic 7 Professional digital camera system within the completely-different desert terrain of Phoenix, Arizona.
So, how does the Honor Magic 7 Professional digital camera carry out? It is difficult, as a result of the uncooked digital camera {hardware} is downright spectacular. As an example, the telephoto digital camera has a big sensor measurement and a excessive megapixel rely, growing its versatility. The issue is that the Falcon digital camera’s AI engine might be each overreaching and underwhelming at occasions, and a few of Honor’s claims — just like the 100x AI Tremendous Zoom — ought to be taken with quite a lot of grains of salt.
All advised, the Honor Magic 7 Professional does have a number of the greatest digital camera methods out there in a flagship. It isn’t fairly on the stage of Vivo handsets, but it surely’s nearer than ever. And for the second straight yr, the Honor Magic flagship takes the most effective movement photographs of any smartphone.
Major digital camera
Like most Android flagships, the Magic 7 Professional has a “professional” digital camera mode that allows you to view and tweak nearly each setting. Nonetheless, the reality is that almost all customers will take pictures utilizing the straightforward point-and-shoot technique, and that is how I examined the Honor Magic 7 Professional because of this.
You will instantly discover that opening the digital camera and snapping a photograph is faster than ever on an Honor cellphone, as a result of the Magic 7 Professional lastly helps double-clicking the ability button to launch the digital camera from anyplace. This was shockingly not out there on the Magic 6 Professional, and one thing my colleague Nicholas Sutrich identified in final yr’s digital camera assessment. Now that this has been corrected, it takes merely a second or two to take an image with the Magic 7 Professional.
A lot of the pictures you will take with this cellphone can be with the principle digital camera. It makes use of a 50MP, f/1.4-2.0 vast lens with multi-directional section detection autofocus (PDAF) and optical picture stabilization (OIS). This seems to be principally the identical sensor as Honor used within the Magic 6 Professional.
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All fashionable flagship digital camera telephones — from the Google Pixel 9 Professional to the iPhone 16 Professional to the Galaxy S24 Extremely and Galaxy S25 Extremely — have massive primary digital camera sensors that may present a terrific stage of element in photographs. One factor that separates these telephones, greater than element, is their capacity to deal with mild and colour.
I’ve actually loved how the Honor Magic 7 Professional has carried out on this side. I’ve examined the most recent Pixel telephones to supply pictures with poor colour accuracy and overaggressive computational images. By comparability, the Honor imaging engine performs nearer to that of Apple’s or Samsung’s, and that is a superb factor. The colours captured within the pictures above felt consultant of what I used to be seeing with my very own eyes.
Even on a sunny day, the principle sensor was in a position to seize the second with out dropping element or colour accuracy as a result of overexposure. These photographs symbolize the most effective of what the Honor Falcon digital camera can do — it performs excellently through the daytime with restricted to no AI processing wanted.
I additionally need to point out that the most effective AI options, at the least the place pictures are involved, might not contain computational images in any respect. The third picture within the gallery above is of a Slovenian plaque, one that’s considerably deteriorated and written in a language I can not natively learn. After snapping the image with the Magic 7 Professional, I used to be in a position to make use of Circle to Search to translate the textual content and make sense of it — even with out having the complete textual content. To me, it is a a lot better use of AI than altering the bodily attributes of a photograph.
Telephoto & ultrawide digital camera
As soon as a shortcoming for Honor, the Magic 7 Professional’s telephoto digital camera is now a promoting level for the system. Final yr, the Magic 6 Professional had a telephoto lens that would solely do 2.5x optical zoom, which paled compared to the 10x optical zoom of the Galaxy S23 Extremely or the 5x optical zoom of the iPhone 15 Professional Max. Now, the Honor Magic 7 Professional’s telephoto digital camera can ship optical-quality zoom at 6x, which is correct in keeping with the highest Android zoom lenses.
The best way Honor achieves it is a little outdoors the field, however in my testing, it really works. The model is utilizing a 200MP, f/2.6 periscope telephoto lens with a 1/1.4-inch sensor measurement and native 3x optical zoom. In comparison with final yr, the Magic 7 Professional has higher optical zoom capabilities and a better megapixel rely. Extra importantly, the big sensor measurement and excessive megapixel rely means the picture might be cropped in software program with out a loss in high quality — that is how Honor can ship 6x zoom in “optical high quality.”
This distinctive telephoto sensor additionally allows the Magic 7 Professional’s zoom lens for use for portrait mode, which is neat. Within the picture gallery under, you will see how the Magic 7 Professional performs throughout 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 3x, and 6x zoom ranges. Based mostly on the outcomes, it is clear this cellphone can certainly ship optical-level zoom at each 3x and 6x lengths.
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The primary picture in that set was taken at 0.5x with the Magic 7 Professional’s ultrawide digital camera, which is a 50MP, f/2.0 sensor with a 122-degree discipline of view. I personally discover myself utilizing ultrawide cameras the least out of contemporary cellphone lenses, and this one performs about as anticipated. It captures a wider body whereas not dropping an excessive amount of element and ought to be a possible different to the old-school panorama.
Past the usual zoom distances (0.5x-6x), the Magic 7 Professional is claimed to shoot as much as 100x utilizing a mixture of digital zoom and AI enhancements. The characteristic known as “AI Tremendous Zoom,” and whereas cool, I would not rely on it. For starters, solely zoom photographs as much as 30x might be processed on-device, whereas AI Tremendous Zoom (as much as 100x) requires a mobile connection for processing. This could be a deterrent for you or be outdoors your consolation stage.
Even when AI Tremendous Zoom is accessible, it’s kind of sluggish, and you’ll solely do it instantly after you are taking the shot. It would be good in case you might accomplish that after the actual fact, form of like how Google’s Video Increase works for Pixels. Furthermore, outcomes might be blended at greatest, as you’ll be able to see under.
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The primary set of pictures within the gallery above can provide you an thought of the best-case state of affairs for AI Tremendous Zoom. The unique picture is blurry, grainy, and it is exhausting to make out the main points. In the meantime, the AI Tremendous Zoom model appears to be like rather a lot sharper, even when it’s kind of too sharp to be a pure picture.
Then again, the second set of pictures can symbolize a number of the worst-case situations. With AI Tremendous Zoom, all of the detailed and sharp cuts within the snow had been utterly lined up by broad-stroking AI enhancement. The primary-aid emblem on the snowmobile was misplaced to the enhancement as nicely. It is clear that, after a number of checks, AI Tremendous Zoom could also be simply as prone to make a photograph worse with a watercolor-like picture void of element.
Total, I assumed native photographs from the ultrawide and telephoto lens appeared sharp, however AI Tremendous Zoom wasn’t fairly pretty much as good as marketed.
Low-light & movement seize
It is time to give the Honor Magic 7 Professional its flowers: that is the most effective motion-capture digital camera cellphone I’ve ever examined. At a time when the final Samsung Galaxy S24 collection had critical movement blur points, and the iPhone 16 Professional collection has extra movement blur than any iPhone in current reminiscence, the Magic 7 Professional could not be extra completely different. It snaps clear pictures of topics in movement persistently, whether or not you are utilizing the common digital camera mode or one specialised for movement.
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As you’ll be able to see within the photos above, whether or not I used to be capturing a darting pet, a gentle Gondola carry, or a skier, the Magic 7 Professional delivered a transparent shot. If you happen to hate movement blur, that is the digital camera cellphone for you.
Honor has a number of capturing modes particularly for capturing movement. There’s AI Movement Sensing Seize, which was launched final yr and might take pictures for you when a topic strikes. New this yr is HD Tremendous Burst, which takes a burst of pictures and works nice in movement. You may see HD Tremendous Burst in motion within the gallery under, and the outcomes are spectacular.
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Low-light efficiency is a bit shakier, relying on the scenario. Honor deserves some credit score for not including a ton of sunshine to nighttime photographs on the Magic 7 Professional, to be clear. At any time when I take night time photographs with an iPhone or Pixel and are available again to them a number of months later, it is exhausting to see that it actually was an evening from the synthetic brightness of the picture. With the Magic 7 Professional, photographs are darkish, however they are often too darkish at occasions.
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The excellent news is that the Magic 7 Professional digital camera adjusts rapidly to modifications in lighting; it might regulate publicity and light-weight stability inside a second or two after opening the digital camera app. In my testing, there wasn’t a lot of a distinction when utilizing night time mode versus normal mode. You may choose up on some variations, notably with brilliant mild sources — like a streetlamp or lighted signal.
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Within the comparisons above, you will see that night time mode tries to mute these brilliant mild sources. Nonetheless, I wasn’t fully thrilled with the outcomes — Honor’s processing appears to smoothen out the sunshine sources in a method that is clearly unnatural. For that purpose, I typically most well-liked the unique shot over the night time shot.
Entrance-facing digital camera
I will be the primary to confess that I am not that large a person of the front-facing digital camera on smartphones. With that being stated, in case you love selfies, video calls, or social media, the Magic 7 Professional’s entrance digital camera can do the job. It has a 50MP, f/2.0 sensor with PDAF, which is greater than you’d sometimes see on a front-facing sensor. Honor additionally put a depth sensor beside the digital camera for biometrics, and this explains the pill-shaped cutout within the show.
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Selfies and portrait photographs turned out nicely, not solely capturing me but additionally a number of the particulars within the landscapes behind me. When utilizing portrait mode, bokeh remains to be turned off by default, so hold that in thoughts in case you get pleasure from background blur. It solely takes one faucet to show bokeh on, however you may argue that is another faucet than it ought to take with portrait mode lively.
Video
Contemplating the movement seize efficiency of the Magic 7 Professional, it should not be a shock that this cellphone additionally handles video fairly nicely. It formally helps 4K decision at both 60 or 30fps, which is not industry-leading for a flagship however remains to be greater than succesful.
For video, the Honor Magic 7 Professional makes use of digital picture stabilization (EIS). This is not often a superb factor as a result of EIS is commonly much less dependable and extra jarring than OIS. Regardless of utilizing EIS and solely 60fps, I assumed the Magic 7 Professional recorded stable video, even whereas sledding down a small ski hill.
One other difficult check concerned mounting the Magic 7 Professional to the highest of an ATV whereas driving it by way of the town of Bled. This is able to be exhausting for any smartphone to deal with because of the tough terrain and engine vibrations coming from the ATV.
The Magic 7 Professional did not carry out completely — it struggled to concentrate on the panorama versus the mounting clamp partially within the body. The cellphone’s EIS additionally could not stabilize sufficient to compensate for the engine vibrations, which is to be anticipated. Even with these circumstances, I assumed this cellphone carried out nicely, though the iPhone 16 Professional Max might be nonetheless the video king.
Conclusion
If you happen to can look previous all of the AI noise, the Honor Magic 7 Professional has a digital camera system able to hanging with the most effective of the bunch — even when it might’t usurp Vivo flagships simply but. There are some AI and digital camera options, like AI Movement Sensing Seize and HD Tremendous Burst, which can be genuinely nice. Nonetheless, I feel too lots of them, reminiscent of AI Tremendous Zoom and even the over-aggressive night time mode, can take away from the Magic 7 Professional’s high quality digital camera {hardware}.
This cellphone’s calling card is its capacity to seize mainly any form of shot with zero movement blur. For many who are getting uninterested in movement blur — and after spending time with the Galaxy S24 collection and iPhone 16 Professional collection, I’m — the Honor Magic 7 Professional seems like a breath of recent air.
