Why you’ll be able to belief Android Central
Our skilled reviewers spend hours testing and evaluating services and products so you’ll be able to select the most effective for you. Discover out extra about how we check.
After 18 years of reviewing expertise, it’s fairly uncommon that smartphones can really shock or excite me, however final yr marked an enormous second. I really like small telephones and skinny telephones, which bucks the pattern of larger units, and the iPhone Air and Galaxy S25 Edge each left me enamored after they have been introduced.
But neither turned my major cellphone for one key motive: compromises. Each telephones characteristic appreciable compromises in comparison with their non-thin counterparts, particularly because the latter change into more and more thinner with every era.
Meet the most effective skinny cellphone ever made: the Honor Magic 8 Professional Air. It’s so good, it’s my favourite cellphone to make use of proper now.
The Honor Magic 8 Professional Air is barely thicker than the Galaxy S25 Edge and the iPhone Air, however it is a worthwhile trade-off. The Magic 8 Professional Air measures 6.1mm skinny, in comparison with 5.6mm for the iPhone Air and 5.8mm for the Galaxy S25 Edge, however whereas it is 0.6mm thicker, you’ll be glad about it.
Specs | Honor Magic 8 Professional Air |
|---|---|
Construct | 150.5 x 71.9 x 6.1 mm |
Show | 6.31-inch LTPO OLED Dolby Imaginative and prescient, HDR 1800 nits HBM/6,000 nits peak brightness |
Chipset | MediaTek Dimensity 9500 SoC |
Reminiscence/Storage | 12GB RAM/256GB 12GB RAM/512GB 16GB RAM/512GB 16GB RAM/1TB |
Foremost Digital camera | 50MP, f/1.6, 23mm, 1.2µm, multi-directional PDAF, OIS |
Ultrawide Digital camera | 50MP, f/2.2, 16mm, 112° field-of-view |
Telephoto Digital camera | 64MP periscope telephoto, f/2.6, 74mm, 3.2x optical zoom, OIS |
Selfie Digital camera | 50MP, f/2.1, 21mm |
Battery | 5,500 mAh Silicon Carbon |
Charging | 80W wired charging 55W wi-fi charging |
Connectivity | Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, NFC, GPS, USB-C 2.0 OTG |
Colours | Black, White, Purple, Orange |
Value | ¥4,999 (~$717) |
The explanation? A lot better cameras, a a lot bigger battery, and significantly quicker charging. The result’s the one skinny cellphone that feels prefer it doesn’t actually compromise the flagship cellphone expertise, particularly in comparison with the competitors.
It’s additionally price noting that Honor managed to do all of this in a physique that’s smaller than the competitors as effectively, which makes the Magic 8 Professional Air much more gratifying to make use of.
The Magic 8 Professional Air includes a vibrant 6.31-inch show, full with Dolby Imaginative and prescient and 6,000 nits peak brightness, and it resonates with me as a result of I really like small telephones; that is far more comfy to make use of in a single hand than the 6.5-inch show on the iPhone Air (which is close to completely sized) and the 6.7-inch show within the Galaxy S25 Edge, which I discover slightly too massive.
If Honor had picked a bigger show, it may not have been as gratifying for me, however there’s a powerful probability they may have made it thinner as effectively. Regardless, that is among the many best-designed telephones I’ve utilized in years, and as we’ll see, it lastly addresses the important thing compromises of different skinny telephones. It additionally is available in 4 colours — Black, White, Purple, and Orange — and sure, I’m utilizing the now-very-familiar Orange variant that appears simply as fashionable as my iPhone 17 Professional.
Battery and charging are key areas by which the Magic 8 Professional Air excels in comparison with the competitors, and concurrently solves the most important concern with different skinny telephones.
The iPhone Air includes a 3,149 mAh battery, with Apple additionally making a separate iPhone Air MagSafe battery pack that near doubles the capability. At round 7mm thick, this greater than doubles the iPhone Air’s total thickness to ~13mm when used collectively. In the meantime, the Galaxy S25 Edge includes a bigger 3,900 mAh battery with no official Qi2 battery pack.
Compared, the Magic 8 Professional Air excels significantly, that includes a 5,500 mAh battery with help for 80W wired charging and 50W wi-fi charging. For context, that is bigger than the battery within the iPhone 17 Professional Max, the brand new Galaxy S26 Extremely, and even folding telephones just like the Galaxy Z Fold 7. It takes round 50 minutes to cost the Magic 8 Professional Air to full, which can also be quicker than each the iPhone Air and the Galaxy S25 Edge.
I used to be shocked by the battery measurement, after which much more shocked when it delivered the precise all-day battery life I’ve been ready for from a skinny cellphone. Over the previous few weeks, the battery life has averaged round 5-6 hours of display screen time per day, which is greater than sufficient, however I’ve additionally had it go over seven hours when used totally on Wi-Fi. That is unimaginable, and easily put, the Magic 8 Professional Air is the primary skinny cellphone to supply true flagship battery life.
The digicam is one other space by which the Magic 8 Professional Air excels. The iPhone Air includes a single 48MP digicam, whereas the Galaxy S25 Edge includes a 200MP major digicam and a 12MP ultrawide digicam. But each lack the total vary of digicam options you’d discover in both firm’s flagship telephones, which is another excuse some prospects could have opted in opposition to the skinny variants.
The Honor Magic 8 Professional Air doesn’t have such compromises.
Picture 1 of 20
The Magic 8 Professional Air exhibits that skinny telephones can have nice cameras, due to a 50MP major digicam with f/1.6 aperture, a 50MP ultrawide digicam, and a 64MP periscope telephoto digicam with 3.2x optical zoom.
Picture 1 of 5
That is just about similar to the digicam system discovered within the new Honor Magic V6 folding cellphone, however the Magic 8 Professional Air additionally has a a lot better 50MP selfie digicam.
Picture 1 of 7
I’ve been ready for a skinny cellphone that truly delivers within the digicam division, and that is the primary cellphone to not disappoint: the Honor Magic 8 Professional Air is the primary skinny cellphone to really ship a flagship digicam expertise, and it’s completely great to make use of in real-world utilization.
Skinny telephones usually wrestle with cooling underneath heavy efficiency, however the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 processor contained in the Magic 8 Professional Air stays noticeably cooler than every other skinny cellphone, even when utilizing on-device AI options.
Equally, Honor’s software program is well-optimized for each the shape issue and the shortage of thermal window, and the cellphone has but to wrestle, crash, or lag in any method. Sure, it runs a Chinese language ROM, so you’ll be able to’t set a special default launcher, however apart from that small level, Honor’s Magic UI is improbable and intuitive to make use of.
There’s additionally full help for Google Apps, help for eSIMs — which is extraordinarily uncommon on Chinese language telephones — and even a SIM tray, which is lacking from the iPhone Air. This might simply launch globally with only a few tweaks to the UX.
The under-display fingerprint sensor works effectively, however I do want Honor had adopted a fingerprint sensor on the facility button as a substitute. And simply to show it’s really a flagship, there’s additionally IP68 and IP69 mud and water resistance, with the latter proving to be a key differentiator that many non-thin telephones don’t even provide.
The Magic 8 Professional Air is the most effective skinny cellphone ever made.
It is a large assertion, and the caveat is that there aren’t that many. Having tried each skinny cellphone — together with the Tecno, Huawei, and Motorola variations which might be restricted to China or elsewhere — one factor is evident: the Magic 8 Professional Air is the most effective skinny cellphone ever made.
I’ll take it a step additional: it’s one of many greatest telephones ever made, skinny or in any other case. Honor has confirmed that skinny telephones will be made with out many compromises, and in doing so, it’s set a benchmark for different corporations to comply with. If a skinny cellphone will be this good, what does it imply for non-thin telephones going ahead? Regardless, it is already one in every of my favourite Android telephones, and apart from the greatest folding telephones, it is setting a benchmark that I am unsure the competitors will beat.
The one draw back to the Magic 8 Professional Air? It’s unique to China solely, a minimum of proper now. It begins at ¥4,999 (~$717) for the 12/256GB model in China, with the highest variant costing ¥5,999 for 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. It might be dearer in international markets, however there’s little question in my thoughts that Honor must convey this to international markets. It’s that good that each nation deserves to have the ability to purchase this.