Skilled's Ranking
Professionals
- Robust battery life
- Refined design
- Correct OLED show
Cons
- Outdated chipset
- No bundled charger
- Mono speaker
Our Verdict
Honor’s inexpensive mid-ranger is likely one of the most tasty telephones in its class, with a flagship-esque appear and feel. Its OLED show and epic battery life are additionally praiseworthy. Efficiency and digital camera output is merely atypical, nevertheless, and the shortage of a bundled charging brick appears like a little bit of an oversight.
Value When Reviewed
Not obtainable within the US
By no means let it's mentioned that former Huawei sub-brand Honor doesn’t study its classes. Final yr’s Honor Magic 4 Lite supplied a reliable if deeply unremarkable mid-range smartphone package deal with excellent battery life, nevertheless it was considerably unwieldy, its show lacked pop, and its cameras weren’t a lot cop.
The Honor Magic 5 Lite returns with a thoughtfully refined providing much more spectacular stamina in a smaller kind issue, and with the advantages of an AMOLED show. Its digital camera syste,, too, has obtained a delicate overhaul.
Not all the things speaks to progress, nevertheless, with an similar Snapdragon 695 chip to its predecessor guaranteeing related efficiency to the Magic 4 Lite. The dearth of a bundled-in charger and help for a slower charging normal is one other notable backwards step.
In the meantime, Honor has been unable to flee the price of dwelling squeeze, with a £30 bump to the Magic 5 Lite’s asking worth within the UK. The query is, does the Honor Magic 5 Lite really feel like good worth in a market filled with mid-range marvels?
Design & construct
- Appears and feels much more costly than it's
- Twin-curved show and glass again
- No IP certification
Whereas it may need branched out into extra premium telephones of late, Honor constructed its model on cheaper telephones that punched above their weight. That experience is on show right here, as you wouldn’t know the Magic 5 Lite was a sub-£350 cellphone just by dealing with it.
Jon Mundy / Foundry
The cellphone appears decidedly premium, with a slim 7.9mm physique, a dual-curved show, and a sensible glass rear. My mannequin comes with a frosted, rainbow-shimmering white again, often called Titanium Silver, however you can too get the cellphone within the much less glitzy Emerald Inexperienced or Midnight Black.
This can be a smaller cellphone than the surfboard-proportioned Magic 4 Lite, due to a diminished 6.67-inch show. It’s additionally considerably lighter at 175g, regardless of packing in a bigger battery.
The rear of the cellphone sees the return of the Magic 4 Lite’s ring-shaped digital camera motif. Certainly, Honor has actually leaned into this so-called ‘Matrix Star Ring’ design right here, producing an much more pronounced photographic donut with a bigger ‘gap’ that now matches the color – if not the premium materials – of the remainder of the rear panel.
Jon Mundy / Foundry
Whereas the aspect body is as skinny as you want, with skinny and clicky quantity and energy keys on the correct edge, Honor has flattened out the highest and backside edges.
One other signal that that is certainly a less expensive cellphone comes from the whole lack of IP certification. Greatest maintain this one away from our bodies of water.
Display & audio system
- 6.67in OLED
- Full HD+
- 120Hz refresh fee
- Mono speaker
One of many greatest drags with the Magic 4 Lite was its use of an LCD slightly than an OLED show. Honor hasn’t made the identical mistake with the Magic 5 Lite, supplying a 6.67in FHD+ (2,400 x 1,080) OLED with a 120Hz refresh fee. It’s smaller than its predecessor, however that simply makes it simpler to wield.
Moreover, the advantages are value it. Colors pop, blacks are actually black, and all is correct with the world – particularly in the case of color accuracy. I recorded a gamut protection of 96.5% sRGB and a gamut quantity of 98.3% sRGB within the better-balanced Regular color profile, and a mean Delta E of 0.93. These are glorious outcomes.
Jon Mundy / Foundry
In terms of brightness, the Magic 5 Lite will get to a respectably shiny 510 nits with auto-brightness turned off within the aforementioned Regular show mode. You’ll get barely brighter with the default Vivid mode, however the colors will probably be extra garish.
Audio output is much less spectacular. The underside fringe of the cellphone homes its sole speaker, and the shortage of true stereo sound is a little bit of a disgrace. As it's, this solo speaker yields a transparent if inherently restricted sound profile.
Specs & efficiency
- Ageing Snapdragon 695 5G chip
- 6GB RAM
- 128GB storage
Honor has geared up the Magic 5 Lite with the very same Snapdragon 695 5G chip because the Magic 4 Lite, which is a little bit of a disappointment. True, we mentioned that final yr’s mannequin “punches above its weight” in efficiency phrases, however a yr is a very long time in smartphones.
We lately noticed the equally priced Poco X5 Professional change as much as the Snapdragon 778G, leading to a major bump in efficiency from the Poco X4 Professional and its Snapdragon 695. It’s a disgrace Honor didn’t comply with go well with.
Positive sufficient, our traditional suite of benchmark exams reveals that the Magic 5 Lite performs very equally to its predecessor in CPU and GPU phrases, and a good bit worse than some equally priced rivals.
Away from such synthetic exams the Honor Magic 5 Lite performs fairly effectively usually, although the cellphone’s premium construct performs a humorous trick together with your expectations. It’s like your mind expects flagship-level efficiency to go together with that stylish design and slick show, which makes each time an app takes an additional beat to load up or a scrolling animation hitches barely stick out like a sore thumb.
It’s not that the Magic 5 Lite’s efficiency is dangerous, although, and it’s definitely aggressive with different equally priced rivals just like the Moto Edge 30 Neo, which options the very same chipset.
Elsewhere you get a fairly 6GB of RAM and 128GB of inside storage. We’ve seen cheaper telephones doubling that storage allowance, so it’s not fairly as beneficiant as it'd as soon as have appeared.
Digicam
- 64Mp primary sensor
- 5Mp ultrawide
- 2Mp macro
- 16Mp selfie digital camera
Honor has gone with a extra pixel-packed 64Mp primary digital camera sensor for the Magic 5 Lite, and it’s additionally added a 5Mp ultrawide this time round. There’s nonetheless a pointless 2Mp macro sensor, although.
Jon Mundy / Foundry
That primary sensor produces first rate, sharp, fairly well-exposed photographs in good lighting. I significantly appreciated how pure colors look right here, with little of the oversaturation that many low cost telephones fall again on. It does fairly effectively in HDR situations too, balancing out gentle and shade properly.
The 5Mp ultrawide isn’t anyplace close to as completed as that primary sensor, producing an enormous drop off intimately and a way more muted palette. You count on that form of factor in a less expensive cellphone, although.
So-called Tremendous Macro photographs utilizing the 2Mp macro digital camera are just about a waste of time. It’s very laborious to get a correctly targeted shot, and even while you do the photographs are usually extraordinarily fuzzy and washed out. I received significantly better outcomes capturing close-up photographs utilizing the principle digital camera.
Capturing in low gentle utilizing that primary sensor is a considerably hit or miss affair. Hit the Evening mode button and take the time to line up your shot, retaining a gentle hand, and you may seize some spectacular crisp photographs. Nevertheless, it’s straightforward to lose definition if you happen to don’t body correctly. The dearth of OIS may need one thing to do with that.
The 16Mp entrance digital camera is able to taking first rate selfies, although the selfie portrait mode smudges edges and pores and skin tones alike.
Battery life & charging
- 5100mAh battery
- 40W charging help
- No adapter included
The standout spec with the Honor Magic 5 Lite is its 5100mAh battery. That represents a uncommon bump over the common, and a good enhance over the Magic 4 Lite’s 4800mAh cell.
In sensible phrases, I discovered that this resulted in real two-day battery life for the Magic 5 Lite. You'll be able to count on to get by way of a full day of moderate-to-intensive utilization, with round 4 hours of screen-on time, and nonetheless have greater than half a tank left.
It’s not all excellent news, nevertheless. Curiously, the Honor Magic 5 Lite scored worse than the Magic 4 Lite in our PCMark Battery Work 3.0 take a look at, which fashions fixed on a regular basis utilization. At 12 hours and 58 minutes, it fell an excellent two hours quick.
That is regardless of operating on the very same chip and having a bigger battery. I can solely assume that the Magic 5 Lite’s superior OLED show is behind this drop in stamina.
Jon Mundy / Foundry
One other unfavorable is the charging provision, and it’s a little bit of a double whammy. Not solely does the Magic 5 Lite solely help 40W charging (down from the Magic 4 Lite’s 66W), nevertheless it doesn’t embrace a charger within the field both.
Of all of the chargers I've in my possession (and that’s quite a bit), I didn’t have a 40W unit handy. Utilizing each a 60W and a 67W charger, nevertheless, the cellphone constantly hit round 13% in quarter-hour from empty, and 25% after half-hour. That’s not too speedy.
Software program
As with final yr’s mannequin, the Honor Magic 5 Lite runs on a technically outdated model of Android. On this case it’s Android 12, whereas lots of first rate telephones have upgraded to Android 13.
That’s not all that consequential, nevertheless, as a result of your primary level of interplay comes by way of the customized Magic UI, which is on model 6.1 right here. It’s one other stable, if considerably busy interface.
Jon Mundy / Foundry
As soon as once more, there are just a few too many customized apps clogging up the house display screen, together with Honor’s personal app retailer, App Market, its personal Themes retailer, and the My Honor system manager-meets-user handbook app. If you happen to’re something like me, your first intuition is to clear all such apps right into a folder, and there’s quite a bit to clear away.
As well as, you’ll be given a bunch of third get together pre-installations, together with Fb, Netflix, TikTok, and Reserving.com.
Value & availability
The Honor Magic 5 Lite is out there now over on the official Honor web site, however you can too choose it up from Amazon. It’s priced at £329/€369 for the only real mannequin, which provides you 6GB of RAM and 128GB of inside storage.
This worth positions the Honor Magic 5 Lite up towards the Poco X5 Professional, which prices a bit extra at £369 and doesn’t look or really feel half pretty much as good. Nevertheless, it does provide you with double the storage (256GB) and a superior processor.
The Motorola Edge 30 Neo, in the meantime, prices £350, which will get you an identical processor because the Magic 5 Lite and quicker charging.
Jon Mundy / Foundry
Try our full rating of the perfect mid-range telephones for different choices, or the perfect price range telephones for one thing a bit cheaper.
Verdict
The Honor Magic 5 Lite is one other stable lower-mid-range providing from the model, supplying an uncommon degree of match and end for the cash. It’s an altogether extra aesthetically pleasing cellphone than the Magic 4 Lite, with a significantly better OLED show.
Simply as spectacular is the Magic 5 Lite’s bigger battery, which produces a degree of stamina that may simply stretch throughout two days of standard utilization. It’s only a disgrace that Honor has cheaped out with slower charging and no bundled brick.
It’s additionally a little bit of a disgrace that there’s been completely no advance on the efficiency of the Magic 5 Lite. It runs simply superb, however now you can get quicker for related cash.
Specs
- Android 12
- 6.67in, FHD+, OLED, 120Hz, curved show
- In-display fingerprint sensor
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 695
- 6GB RAM
- 128GB storage
- Digicam:
- 64Mp, f/1.8 primary digital camera
- 5Mp ultra-wide digital camera
- 2Mp macro digital camera
- As much as 1080p @ 30fps rear video
- 16Mp front-facing digital camera
- Mono speaker
- Twin-SIM
- Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
- Bluetooth 5.1
- 5100mAh battery
- 40W charging (no charger in field)
- 161.6 x 73.9 x 7.9 mm
- 175g
- Launch colors: Midnight Black, Emerald Inexperienced, Titanium Silver