The HONOR Magic8 Lite is the most affordable member of the Magic8 series. This is not a phone for the same consumer base as the HONOR Magic8 Pro , not at all, but it sure is worth considering if you’re on a budget, or you simply don’t need a flagship device. We’ve had the pleasure of using the HONOR Magic8 Lite for a little while now and are ready to share our review of the device.
If you’re on a £399 budget, this phone could get pretty interesting to you real quick. There are plenty of devices out there that are in this price range, but not many of them are good. Depending on what you need from a phone, the HONOR Magic8 Lite may do the trick. We’ll start with its specs, and then we’ll talk about various other aspects of the phone. We do hope that this review will give you a good idea as to what the phone offers, and whether it’s worth getting. Let’s get to it.
- Specs
- HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Design
- HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: What’s in the Box?
- HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Display
- HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Performance
- HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Battery Life
- HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Camera
- HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Software
- HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Audio
- HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Should you buy it?
A budget phone that looks premium and lasts longer than most.
Pros
- Looks more premium that it is
- Lighter than you may think
- Thin, uniform bezels
- Solid display with high-frequency PWM dimming
- Excellent battery life
- Good performance
- Great ingress protection
Cons
- No charger in the box
- No MagicOS 10 out of the box
HONOR supplied us with a review unit of the HONOR Magic8 Lite, but didn’t have a say in our opinion, nor did they see this review before you. We’ve been using the device for about two weeks before forming an opinion.
Specs
HONOR Magic8 Lite Specs
| Display Size | 6.79 inches |
|---|---|
| Display Resolution | 2640 x 1200 |
| Refresh Rate | 120Hz |
| Dimensions | 161.9 x 76.1 x 7.76mm |
| Weight | 189 grams |
| Chipset | Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Storage | 256GB/512GB |
| Battery | 7,500mAh |
| Charging | 66W wired (charger not included) |
| OS | Android 15 with MagicOS 9 |
| Main Camera | 108MP (f/1.75 aperture) |
| Ultrawide Camera | 8MP (f/2.2 aperture) |
| Telephoto Camera | N/A |
| Periscope Telephoto Camera | N/A |
| Front-Facing Camera | 16MP (f/2.45 aperture) |
| Network and Connectivity | Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC |
| Water Resistance | IP66, IP68, IP69K |
| Colors | Forest Green, Midnight Black, Reddish Brown |
HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Design
The HONOR Magic8 Lite is actually a really nice-looking smartphone. In fact, you’d hardly guess its price tag, as it looks more expensive than it really is. There are a number of reasons why. The main one, for me, is the bezels. Bezels around its display are uniform, and they’re also rather thin for a phone in this price range. Not many devices that cost this much can say that for themselves, so that’s nice to see.
It has a large display with thin, uniform bezels
The device is large, though, no doubt about that. It does have a 6.79-inch display after all. Still, it could have been a lot bigger if the bezels were thicker. It feels nice to hold, and it’s actually quite light for its size at 189 grams. I’ve been using various flagships and book-style foldables beforehand, so it feels featherlight to me personally. The weight distribution is also good, or at least it feels that way. I didn’t notice the top part of the phone flipping over or carrying noticeably more weight.
The frame on the phone is flat all around, as is its backplate. The power/lock and volume rocker buttons are placed on the right side, and they’re quite clicky. There’s nothing on the left side, while the speaker grilles sit on top and bottom of the phone. If we move to the back, you’ll notice a circular camera island, with a black strip which includes the phone’s dual camera system, and an LED flash. The whole camera island does protrude a bit, but not by much. It actually looks nice and different at the same time.
Our model looks great, but it picks up smudges rather easily
The documentation that HONOR provided did not mention the materials used for the frame and the backplate. The frame does feel like it’s made out of metal, most probably aluminum, while the backplate is almost certainly plastic. That backplate looks great on this ‘Forest Green’ color model, though. It changes colors based on the lighting, and it jumps between green and gray, kind of. It’s one of the nicest backplates I’ve seen in a long time, color-wise. The downside is, it picks up usage marks rather easily. Just oil from your hands gets stuck on there, and it’s not that easy to clean. It’s visible in some photos, as wiping it with a sleeve or a microfiber cloth didn’t do much good.
The phone has excellent ingress protection
The HONOR Magic8 Lite also comes with IP66, IP68, and IP69K certifications. That’s a huge improvement over Magic7 Lite’s IP64 certification. The phone delivers “exceptional protection against drops, water, and dust”, says the company. IT is built with a 6-layer drop-resistant structure and the advanced HONOR Ultra-Bounc Anti-Drop Technology. It can withstand falls from heights of up to 2.5 meters, though that’s not something I tested. I was caught in the rain twice, and it had no problems with that, but it’s apparently much stronger than it seems.
While the phone is slippery in the hand, it didn’t feel as slippery as most other devices I’ve used this year. Matte finish on the frame helps a lot with that, I’d say, at least it did for me. All in all, I’m left quite impressed with the build here, especially considering the price tag.
HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: What’s in the Box?
This is where we usually talk about accessories in our reviews, but I’ve decided to change that to ‘What’s in the Box’ for the Magic8 Lite, as the contents of the box are fairly light. There is no charger included, and you also won’t be getting a case either. HONOR used to put first-hand cases inside retail boxes with phones, which was appreciated, but that’s no longer the case. What you’ll find in there is a phone, a Type-C to Type-C cable, a SIM ejector tool, and some paperwork. The box itself is quite thin, actually.
HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Display
The HONOR Magic8 Lite features a large 6.79-inch FullView display. This is an OLED panel, and it offers a resolution of 2640 x 1200. The refresh rate on offer here is 120Hz, and the phone also supports a 3,840Hz PWM high-frequency dimming. This display can project up to 1.07 billion colors, and it has a 100% DCI-P3 color ratio. The peak brightness it can offer, in theory, is 6,000 nits. The brightness is definitely not an issue here, even though you’ll never come near this level.
Those are the specs. The question is, is the display any good? Well, yes, especially for this price range. I’ve compared it to much higher-end panels, and it’s easy to see the difference in a direct comparison. However, this display is not really lacking in any way. If you’re not too demanding, you’ll be perfectly happy with this panel. It covers all the basics, and it has some features that very few phones in this price range offer.
The display is sharp, vivid, and has some advanced features
The display is plenty sharp, while it has really good viewing angles too. It is vivid, and it offers good touch response. It also gets plenty bright when you need it to, and you can, of course, fine-tune it to your preference. I’ve noticed that it leans more on the cool color spectrum, at least by default, as that’s how we always test display, how they come out of the box. A 120Hz refresh rate makes sure the content on the screen runs smoothly, and a 3,840Hz high-frequency dimming is much appreciated. My eyes are kind of sensitive to flickering and light changes, so that’s really nice to have.
Are there better displays out there? Of course. Is it a good display, yes. There’s not much to complain about here. The display is easily visible in any lighting condition, it’s vivid, sharp, and much more.
HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Performance
This phone is fueled by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chip. That chip is on the company’s budget end of chips, and nowhere near its best offerings on the market, so keep that in mind. That chip comes with the Adreno A810 GPU, and is backed by 8GB of RAM. The Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 is not an old chip, though, and it does have some flagship features built-in, so it’s not a bad choice for this phone at all. It launched back in February this year, and it’s a notable improvement over the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 that was used in the HONOR Magic7 Lite.
The performance is good, just like you’d expect
Now, that processor may scare off some of you. If you’re expecting outstanding gaming performance or something, you’re expecting too much. If you’re expecting a phone that will offer good performance day-to-day, well, you won’t be disappointed. Yes, the Magic8 Lite did have more hiccups than much more powreful devices, but that’s per course with such phones. No, I’m not talking about lag or anything, just general frame drops and so on. Generally speaking, the performance was really good.
I even decided to put it under a bit of stress by running a video in the background, and then doing some heavy multitasking and what not, and the Magic8 Lite handled that well. Not as well as much more powerful devices, but that’s about to be expected. You will be getting good performance considering the price, though, and that’s all we ask for. You cannot really judge a phone while comparing it to a device that costs 4-5 times more, that just wouldn’t be fair.
This is not a gaming phone, but…
What about gaming? Well, you’ll be able to play games here, of course. I’ve fired up 8 Ball Pool, Subway Surfers, Call of Duty: Mobile, and Genshin Impact on the device. The first two games, the phone handled like a champ, everything ran flawlessly. Now, it can run Genshin Impact and COD: Mobile as well, the performance was not outstanding, though. Both of those games are more than playable, but don’t expect them to run very smooth without lowering the details. You can get that sweet spot, though, I did, and rather fast, actually.
Benchmarks:
Geekbench:
| Device | Single-Core | Multi-Core | GPU |
|---|---|---|---|
| HONOR Magic8 Lite | 1,096 | 3,104 | 2,901 |
| Motorola Moto G 2026 | 696 | 1,991 | 1,448 |
| Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G 2024 | 935 | 2,746 | 1,341 |
3D Mark (Wildlife Extreme Stress Test):
| Device | Best Loop | Lowest Loop | Stability |
|---|---|---|---|
| HONOR Magic8 Lite | 992 | 988 | 99.6% |
| Motorola Moto G 2026 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G 2024 | 611 | 604 | 98.8% |
Capcut video export:
| Device | Time to export (seconds) |
|---|---|
| HONOR Magic8 Lite | 26.27 |
| Motorola Moto G 2026 | 29.29 |
| Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G 2024 | 23.79 |
Thermals:
3D Mark (Wildlife Extreme Stress Test) thermals:
| Device | Temperature (F) |
|---|---|
| HONOR Magic8 Lite | 95 |
| Motorola Moto G 2026 | N/A |
| Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G 2024 | 99.1 |
Genshin Impact thermals:
| Device | Temperature (F) |
|---|---|
| HONOR Magic8 Lite | 102.2 |
| Motorola Moto G 2026 | N/A |
| Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G 2024 | 108.6 |
HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Battery Life
The HONOR Magic8 Lite packs in a 7,500mAh silicon-carbon battery. That fact alone gives us plenty of reasons to expect great battery life from this phone. Well, the HONOR Magic8 Lite did not disappoint, that’s for sure, quite the contrary. That huge battery in combination with the power-efficient Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 processor, is a recipe for great battery life. This phone went above and beyond compared to some of its competitors, like the Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G, which we reviewed last year, and the HONOR 400. Those two phones simply cannot come close to what the Magic8 Lite offers in terms of battery longevity. Just to be clear, both of those phones offered good battery life, which is saying a lot.
The battery life is excellent
With plenty of use, we were unable to kill the phone’s battery in a single day. I was playing several games for testing purposes for around two hours, followed by plenty of pictures, browsing, messaging, and image editing. At the end of the day, the phone was at around 8 hours of screen-on time with plenty left in the tank, it could have gone over 10 hours of screen-on time. In all honesty, for most people, this device will probably be a two-day smartphone, easy, maybe more, depending on your use. Even its standby time is really good, which is something I’ve noticed in the last two days as I haven’t used it that much (I jumped to another review device). It has outstanding battery life in every way.
It can be fully charged in an hour and 10 minutes
Alright, so what about charging? Well, the HONOR Magic8 Lite does not come with a charger in the box, unfortunately. The phone does support 66W wired SuperCharge charging, though, and it comes with a 3A-rated cable. That’s also a minus, as you’ll need a 6A-rated cable in order to utilize full 66W charging, so get the combo if you’re buying an official charger. With that combination, the phone can be fully charged in around an hour and 10 minutes. That fluctuated between charges, of course, by a couple of minutes, but no more.
| Device | Battery life | Charging |
|---|---|---|
| HONOR Magic8 Lite | 25:13:09 | 1:10:07 |
| Motorola Moto G 2026 | 21:35:40 | 1:21:25 |
| Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G 2024 | 19:29:53 | 1:30:17 |
HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Camera
The HONOR Magic 8 Lite has two cameras on the back and one on the front. A 108-megapixel main camera (Samsung’s ISOCELL HM6 1/1.67-inch sensor, f/1.75 aperture, OIS, PDAF) is used, along with a 5-megapixel ultrawide unit (f/2.2 aperture). On the front, you’ll find a 16-megapixel shooter (f/2.45 aperture). We’ll talk about each of those cameras, of course, starting with the main one, which is by far the best one on the phone.
The main camera is actually quite good
That 108-megapixel main camera takes pixel-binned 12-megapixel pictures by default. The results are actually good. They’re not great, but they’re good. You have to manage your expectations when it comes to budget phones. The colors look good, they’re not oversaturated. The white balance is good, but the dynamic range could be better, and the same goes for contrast in daytime photos. Yes, you can take 108-megapixel images, but you shouldn’t. They will be a bit more detailed, but not by much, and they won’t be as well-balanced, not to mention that the file sizes will be much larger.
Even digital zoom is not bad, up to 3x
The camera can take photos really fast during the day. Digital zoom at 2x and 3x also looks quite good. The camera does a good job with both humans, nature, and other scenarios equally well, and the same goes for portraits. It also triggers night mode automatically for the main camera. The results from that auto night mode and dedicated night mode are pretty much the same, so we used the auto mode at all times. This phone actually surprised us with its nighttime shots. They’re not spectacular, but they’re certainly better than we expected out of a phone at this price range. The thing is, you should stick to the main camera, as the ultrawide is not that good.
Main camera samples (daytime) :
Main camera samples (low light):
The Ultrawide camera is forgettable
That 5-megapixel ultrawide camera on the phone is not good at all. The images it captures are quite soft, and the dynamic range is not good either. The same can be said for contrast, and even the colors are noticeably worse than what the main camera can provide. Auto night mode does not work for the ultrawide camera, and you’ll need it if you’re shooting in low light. The images won’t be impressive, but they’ll be better than what you’ll get with the auto mode (which is what we used for most shots below). Either way, you should stick with the main camera if you’re shooting in low light.
Ultrawide camera samples:
The selfie camera is good, but not great. Fixed focus is an issue, but the images in general do turn out pretty nice. Saturated and relatively detailed, too. You should stick with well-lit environments, though, but that applies to any selfie camera, basically.
HONOR’s camera app is very functional
The camera app, on the other hand, is good. You can easily switch between camera modes below, and utilize zoom via swipes or taps as well. Additional options and settings are available at the top. We don’t have a complaint when it comes to that UI, it works well, and it’s quite intuitive as well.
Camera UI:
4K video recording thermals:
| Device | 5 minutes | 10 minutes |
|---|---|---|
| HONOR Magic8 Lite | 96.8 | 100.5 |
| Motorola Moto G 2026 | N/A | N/A |
| Motorola Moto G Stylus 2024 | 100.4 | 102.7 |
HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Software
The HONOR Magic8 Lite, unfortunately, comes with Android 15 out of the box. That also means that MagicOS 9 comes pre-installed on it. We were expecting Android 16 with MagicOS 10, but that’ll hopefully happen soon. With that being said, MagicOS 9 is a good Android skin, and it does the job well. It’s different than stock Android, of course, both with features and look, but the general premise is the same. If you’ve used an Android phone, you’ll quickly get the hang of it.
MagicOS is a bit different than what you may be used to
There are some differences from what you may be used to, though. For example, for home screen settings, you need to pinch in on the home screen, not do a long-press. That’s just one example. All the standard features you’d expect are still here, though, ranging from choosing between an app drawer or running with all your apps on the home screen, to a regular quick toggles screen. You’ll be accessing that one a bit differently, though, but it’s still just a swipe away.
I won’t bore you with the basics, as everything you’d expect is here. MagicOS 9 is customizable, to an extent. More advanced customization features that you’d find in some third-party launchers are not here. Such as choosing wild grid sizes on the home screen, etc. HONOR did include some of its own customizations, though. So, you can change the fonts, choose between some themes, and also tweak the icons. Third-party icon packs are not supported, though, unfortunately. You also get the option to tweak the Always-On Display and choose between a ton of different lock screen styles.
HONOR has included an AI suite full of features here
HONOR has its own AI suite here as well. That includes AI Suggestions, Magic Text, Magic Portal, AI Subtitles, AI Translate, and AI Writing. There’s also one-handed mode included, and various shortcuts and gestures. For example, you can set a three-finger swipe to trigger a screenshot, while you can also change shortcuts for pressing and holding the power button, or double-pressing it.
In general, MagicOS 9 works really well on the Magic8 Lite. It’s smooth and responsive. I still believe it’s a bit non-consistent in terms of design, but MagicOS 10 will hopefully change that.
HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Audio
The HONOR Magic8 Lite is equipped with stereo speakers. There’s one at the very bottom of the phone, and one in an earpiece. The one at the bottom is more powerful, needless to say, but in tandem, they do work quite well. Thanks to some tricks on HONOR’s part, with boost step enhancement, the speakers are actually really good. In fact, they’re above average for this price segment.
The phone is also equipped with Bluetooth 5.2. It’s not the latest version of Bluetooth, but it does the trick. We’ve had no issue with Bluetooth connectivity on the device. A smartwatch was connected at all times (from Huawei), and we’ve also used both headphones and earphones occasionally for testing purposes.
HONOR Magic8 Lite Review: Should you buy it?
The HONOR Magic8 Lite is a great offering at its price tag, that’s for sure. This is not a flagship phone, it’s a mid-range phone, and proud of it. It has some features that only flagships offer, that’s for sure. It looks more expensive than it is, and has plenty to offer in general. That ranges from a really good display with high-frequency PWM dimming, all the way to outstanding battery life. If it’s within your budget, the HONOR Magic8 Lite is a solid choice. It’s one of the best budget phones out there at the moment.
You should buy the HONOR Magic8 Lite if you:
- Want a large display with thin, uniform bezels
- Need excellent battery life
- Think phones nowadays are too heavy
- Want a large phone that fits well in the hand
- Appreciate good ingress protection
You shouldn’t buy the HONOR Magic8 Lite if you:
- Play demanding games
- Don’t want to buy a charger separately
- Want a compact device
