Here’s all we’ve discovered so far about the Honor Magic 5.
When will the Honor Magic 5 be released?
There’s no official release date for the Magic 5 at the time of writing, so we need to look at the previous generations to see if there are patterns we can use to work out when the new phone may appear. Here’s when they made their debuts:
Honor Magic 4 – February 2022Honor Magic 3 – August 2021 (China-only)
The Magic 3 generation were the first flagship phones to be released after Honor became an independent party, instead of being part of the Huawei brand as it was previously. This means looking back any further wouldn’t necessarily give us a good picture of how the new company will behave. The most important clue is probably that the Magic 4 series was unveiled at the MWC tradeshow last year. Honor is already confirmed to have a booth at MWC 2023, which runs 27 February – 2 March, so it seems pretty plausible that this is when we’ll meet the Magic 5 line. As you can see from above, the Magic 3 phones didn’t get a worldwide release, although one was initially promised, while the Magic 4 generation had a couple of models come to Europe and other territories, but the standard and Ultimate models remained only available in China. As with previous models, you most likely won’t be able to buy the Magic 5 in North America. Chinese tech leaker Digital Chat Station has spotted a device that’s been listed on the Chinese certification site MITT, which is suspected to be from the Magic 5 range. This would mean that the generation is about on course for a release in early 2023.
How much will the Honor Magic 5 cost?
Again, there’s no official word from Honor about the price of the upcoming models, so we need to consider how much the previous generations cost:
Honor Magic 4 – ¥6,725 (approx. $999/£818/€922)Honor Magic 4 Pro – £949/€1,099 (approx. $1,159)Honor Magic 4 Lite 5G – £299/€349 (approx. $365)Honor Magic 4 Ultimate – ¥8,677 (approx. $1,289/£1,055/€1,190)Honor Magic 3 – €899 (approx. $973/£797)Honor Magic 3 Pro – €1,099 (approx. $1,189/£975)Honor Magic 3 Pro Plus – €1,499 (approx $1,622/£1,328)
This list above makes for confusing reading, as we have a mixture of currencies which might not take into account local taxes and suchlike. Honor announced the Magic 3 range with prices in Euros, although it then didn’t release the phones in that territory. The Magic 4 phones had two western models, and two that remained in China, with the prices reflecting that. Piecing it all together, and assuming that Honor mimics the lineup of the Magic 4 generation, here’s the rough prices we think you’ll be likely to see when the Magic 5 models appear:
Honor Magic 5 – $999/£799/€899Honor Magic 5 Pro – $1,149/£949/€1,099Honor Magic 5 Ultimate – $1,299/£1,049/€1,199Honor Magic 5 Lite – $369/£299/€349
Obviously these prices are speculative, but we think they should be in the right ballpark. We have seen one report online that featured a supposed spec sheet for the new models (the details of which we cover below) and that had three models with the following prices:
Honor Magic 5 – ¥4,999 (approx $740/£599/€679)Honor Magic 5 Pro – ¥5,999 (approx $888/£719/€819)Honor Magic 5 Prestige – ¥7,999 (approx $1,185/£959/€1,093)
These appear cheaper, which would be a welcome change in these days of ever increasing price tags.
What features will we see in the Honor Magic 5?
As with the other sections in this article, we’re still awaiting announcements from Honor about the specs on its upcoming handsets. But, a few leaks have already made their way out in the public, and there’s some educating calculations we can make about what the Magic 5 range will look like. There have been a few design renders appearing, with this one from Twitter leaker @rodent950 being the most fleshed out. It shows a similar layout to the Magic 4 generation of devices, with the circular camera section the main feature on the back. A recent post on Weibo from the wonderfully named The Factory Manager is Classmate Guan also seems to outline what the three potential Magic 5 devices will include. In a leaked spec sheet shown in the post, it details that there will be a Magic 5, Magic 5 Pro and Magic 5 Prestige – which seems to be this year’s version of the Pro Plus or Ultimate. All will feature Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipsets, 6.8in LTPO AMOLED panels with variable refresh rates from 1-120Hz, 2160Hz high-frequency dimming, HDR10+, 480Hz touch rate, under-display fingerprint sensors, and a maximum brightness of 1,100nits. Not bad at all. The Magic 5 and Magic 5 Pro will come in 8+256GB, 12+256GB, and 12+512GB configurations, while the Magic 5 Prestige offers a solitary 12+512GB model. Memory is LPDDR5X and storage is UFS 4.0. Front cameras are the same across the range, with a 13Mp Sony IMX688 sensor, but there are a few differences in the rear arrays. The Magic 5 should come with a triple line-up of a 54Mp Sony IMX800 primary, 50Mp Sony IMX758, and 64Mp OmniVision OV64B. There are a few tweaks with the Magic 5 Pro, which is listed as featuring a new Sony IMX878 sensor that comes with OIS support. The OmniVision OV64B reappears, but this time it’s joined by a Sony IMX516 sensor. For the Magic 5 Prestige the listing has the 1in Sony IMX989 sensor with OIS, a 50Mp Sony IMX758, a Sony IMX516 sensor, plus an additional unspecified camera. Battery life should be good, with a 5000mAh battery fitted in the Magic 5 (including 66W fast charging), and 4800mAh batteries (100W wired/50W wireless) for both the Pro and Prestige. A few other differences include IPX54 waterproofing for the Magic 5 and IP68 for the others, while the Magic 5 will get 2D facial recognition with the two remaining models using superior 3D recognition capabilities. Many of the rest of the specs are standard across all three models, including Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, USB 3.1, NFC, and MagicOS 7.0. Hopefully it won’t be long until we can see the Honor Magic 5 devices for ourselves, but until then you can check out our guide to the best smartphones to see which models the range will have to overcome, along with the best phones coming out in 2023. Martyn has been involved with tech ever since the arrival of his ZX Spectrum back in the early 80s. He covers iOS, Android, Windows and macOS, writing tutorials, buying guides and reviews for Macworld and its sister site Tech Advisor.
