News is starting to emerge about the next series of flagship phones from Chinese manufacturer Honor, the Magic 5. It’s been almost a year since the last generation arrived, so it seems likely that a launch is coming soon.
Here’s everything we’ve discovered about the Honor Magic 5 so far.
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’ll have to look at previous generations to see if there are any models we can use to determine when the new phone might appear. Here’s when they debuted:
The Magic 3 generation was the first flagship phone to come out after Honor became an independent party, instead of being part of the Huawei brand as it was before. This means that looking back further won’t necessarily give us a good picture of how the new company will behave.
Probably the biggest clue is that the Magic 4 series was unveiled at MWC last year. Honor is already confirmed to have a booth at MWC 2023, which is taking place February 27 – March 2so it seems quite plausible that this is when we encounter the Magic 5 range.
As you can see above, the Magic 3 phones did not get a worldwide release, although a release was originally promised, while the Magic 4 generation had a few models that came to Europe and other territories , but the standard and Ultimate models remained only available in China. As with previous models, you probably won’t be able to buy the Magic 5 in North America.
Chinese tech leaker Digital Chat Station has spotted a device that has been listed on Chinese certification site MITT, which is believed to be from the Magic 5 lineup. This would mean the gen is set to release in early 2023 .
How much will the Honor Magic 5 cost?
Again, there’s no official word from Honor on the price of upcoming models, so we have to consider how much previous generations cost:
- Honor Magic 4 – ¥6,725 (about $999 / £818 / $922)
- Honor Magic 4 Pro – £949 / $1,099 (around $1,159)
- Honor Magic 4 Lite 5G – £299 / $349 (around $365)
- Honor Magic 4 Ultimate – ¥8,677 (about $1,289/£1,055/$1,190)
- Honor Magic 3 – $899 (about $973 / £797)
- Honor Magic 3 Pro – $1,099 (about $1,189 / £975)
- Honor Magic 3 Pro Plus – $1,499 (about $1,622 / £1,328)
This list above makes for confusing reading as we have a mix of currencies which may not take into account local and other taxes. Honor announced the Magic 3 range with Euro pricing, although it didn’t release the phones in that territory. The Magic 4 phones had two Western models and two that remained in China, with prices reflecting this.
Putting it all together and assuming Honor mimics the Magic 4 generation lineup, here are the approximate prices we think you’re likely to see when the Magic 5 models appear:
- Honor Magic 5 – $999 / £799 / $899
- Honor Magic 5 Pro – $1,149 / £949 / $1,099
- Honor Magic 5 Ultimate – $1,299 / £1,049 / $1,199
- Honor Magic 5 Lite – $369 / £299 / $349
Obviously, these prices are speculative, but we think they should be in the right range. We saw a report online that featured a supposed spec sheet for the new models (the details of which we cover below) and had three models with the following prices:
- Honor Magic 5 – ¥4,999 (about $740/£599/$679)
- Honor Magic 5 Pro – ¥5,999 (about $888 / £719 / $819)
- Honor Magic 5 Prestige – ¥7,999 (about $1,185/£959/$1,093)
These seem cheaper, which would be a welcome change in these days of ever-increasing prices.
What features will we see in the Honor Magic 5?
As with the other sections of this article, we are still awaiting announcements from Honor regarding the specs of its upcoming handsets. But, a few leaks have already made their way into the public eye, and we can do some educational math on what the Magic 5 lineup will look like.
A few design renders have surfaced, with this one from Twitter leaker @ rodent950 being the most extensive. 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 Weibo post 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 featured in the post, it says there will be a Magic 5, Magic 5 Pro and Magic 5 Prestige – which appears to be this year’s version of the Pro Plus or Ultimate.
All will feature Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipsets, 6.8-inch LTPO AMOLED panels with 1-120Hz variable refresh rates, 2160Hz high-frequency dimming, HDR10+, 480Hz touch frequency, sensors under-display fingerprint sensor and a peak brightness of 1,100 nits. Not bad at all.
The Magic 5 and Magic 5 Pro will be available 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.
The front cameras are the same across the range, with a 13Mp Sony IMX688 sensor, but there are some differences in the rear bays. The Magic 5 is expected to come with a triple array of primary 54Mp Sony IMX800, 50Mp Sony IMX758 and 64Mp OmniVision OV64B.
There are some 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 list includes the Sony IMX989 1-inch sensor with OIS, a Sony IMX758 50Mp sensor, a Sony IMX516 sensor, plus an unspecified additional camera.
Battery life should be good, with a 5000mAh battery installed in the Magic 5 (including 66W fast charging) and 4800mAh batteries (100W wired/50W wireless) for 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 benefit from 2D facial recognition with the remaining two models using superior 3D recognition capabilities.
Most other specs are standard on all three models, including Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, USB 3.1, NFC, and MagicOS 7.0.
Hopefully it won’t be long before we 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 lineup will have to top, as well as the best phones coming out in 2023. .
