The Honor Magic 5 Pro could be one of the most exciting phones to be unveiled at this year’s MWC in Barcelona – and indeed the best mobile from the Chinese brand.
The fast-growing manufacturer has emerged from the shadow of its old parent company, Huawei, with a mission to compete with the likes of Samsung and Apple in the premium smartphone market.
Honor started this mission last year with the excellent Honor Magic 4 Pro – the brand’s first true premium smartphone to be launched outside of China – and we know that the next device, styled after the Honor Magic5 Pro, will debut at MWC 2023. The program, which will start on February 27, it will also host the international launch of the Honor Magic Vs foldable.
Ahead of the phone’s official announcement, we’ve put together this comprehensive guide to all the latest rumors and confirmed details about the Honor Magic 5 Pro. Below you’ll find detailed information on the expected camera, design and performance features, as well as our predictions for its price.
Honor Magic 5 Pro: release date
Honor confirmed (opens in a new tab) that it will officially unveil the Honor Magic 5 series – which we know will include the Honor Magic 5 Pro – at MWC Barcelona, its annual mobile trade show. The company’s press conference is scheduled to take place at 7:30am ET / 4:30am PT / 2:30pm GMT on February 27, which is 1:30am the next day in Australia.
Most likely, the Honor Magic 5 Pro will be available for pre-order that day, with the actual release date coming a few months later. Its predecessor, the Magic 4 Pro, hit store shelves on May 13, 2022, so Honor may pick a similar date this year.
It’s not worth anything though that the Magic 5 Pro probably won’t be available in the US. Huawei sold Honor in 2020 to avoid putting its one-time sub-brand on the US import blacklist, so there’s no legal reason why Honor couldn’t sell its upcoming flagship across the Atlantic, but it’s not something we’ve seen growing the brand is doing.
The Magic 4 Pro is available for purchase in the UK and Europe, so we expect Honor to follow suit by making the Magic 5 Pro available in those regions as well. Availability in Australia, however, seems unlikely.
Honor Magic 5 Pro: Price
Honor has not yet released pricing information for the Magic 5 Pro – these details are likely to appear at MWC Barcelona on February 27.
However, the company’s pricing strategy for the Magic 4 Pro gives us a general idea of what to expect from the next flagship phone. Honor launched the Magic 4 Pro for £949.99 / €1,099 (or around $1,160 / AU$1,700) and we don’t expect Magic 5 retail sales to be much higher in the UK and Europe.
Honor Magic 5 Pro: News and Leaks
Of course, Honor is waiting for MWC Barcelona to reveal the secrets of the Honor Magic 5 Pro, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know what to expect from the device.
Let’s start with the official stuff. We know what the Magic 5 Pro will look like – at least from the front – thanks to a last tweet (opens in a new tab) from Honor itself. The brand has collaborated with the Guinness Book of World Records to tease the inclusion of an AI-powered camera feature in the phone while sharing a carefully positioned photo of the Magic 5 Pro.
Based on the image above, the Honor Magic 5 Pro will closely resemble its predecessor from a forward-facing design perspective. We haven’t seen any official photos of the back of the device yet, but a detailed render of the design from a Twitter leaker @ rodent950 (opens in a new tab) suggests the Magic 5 Pro will feature a striking triple-camera setup.
#HONORMagic5Pro concept based on leaks pic.twitter.com/6Vd8Ure5yuJanuary 9, 2023
For obvious reasons, we’re hesitant to take the above renders as gospel, but a dimmed Magic 5 Pro teaser on Honor’s own website suggests @rodent950’s leaked design images are accurate – at least as far as the phone’s rear camera is concerned.
Recent under the hood Weibo post (opens in a new tab) from a leaker named – wait for it – the factory manager is classmate Guan suggests the Magic 5 Pro will arrive with a powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and a 6.8-inch LTPO AMOLED display panel.
The latter is allegedly boasting 2160Hz high-frequency dimming, HDR10+, under-display fingerprint sensors, and a peak brightness of 1100 nits – which would be an impressive result for a brand whose first premium smartphone came out just a year ago.
The same Weibo post also mentions three configurations of the Honor Magic 5 Pro – 8GB RAM/256GB storage, 12GB RAM/256GB and 12GB/512GB – as well as a 4,800mAh battery. Again, we’d advise taking these supposedly leaked specs with a grain of salt, but it would be great to see the Magic 5 Pro better – or at least match – its predecessor in these performance departments.
As for the phone’s rear camera setup, the latest intel suggests that the Magic 5 Pro will feature three powerful Sony cameras, although we don’t have much else to say at this point. We know the device will get some form of AI-powered shooting mode – Honor teased about it in the aforementioned article tweet (opens in a new tab) – but the jury still doesn’t know how powerful the Magic 5 Pro cameras will be.
#HONORMagic5 Pro surprises us with its AI function – see how it automatically records the moment of breaking GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™! Discover what else it can do to #UnleashThePowerofMagic at #MWC23! @GWR #GuinnessWorldRecords pic.twitter.com/d0fy7FVZWNFebruary 13, 2023
For context, the Magic Pro 4 has 50MP wide and ultra-wide sensors, a 64MP telephoto lens, and a time-of-flight (ToF) sensor. There are two selfie sensors on the front – a 12MP ultra wide-angle camera with a 100-degree field of view and a 3D depth sensor. We would expect its successor to match or improve on any of these snappers.
In a press release sent to TechRadar, Honor said that the Honor Magic 5 Pro will “bring some great innovations to photography.” [to the table]so we can’t wait to see what new features the camera will reveal on February 27.