Honor Magic6 Pro takes the lead with 158 points, surpassing Huawei Mate60 Pro+ and OPPO Find X7 Ultra to become the new global champion on the DXOMARK smartphone camera leaderboard.
The Honor Magic6 Pro has excelled in nearly every test environment, showing no significant weaknesses and a notable improvement in overall performance compared to its predecessor, the Magic5 Pro.
In terms of photography, the Magic6 Pro scored top marks for color accuracy, dynamic range, and autofocus performance, even under challenging lighting conditions. Like other brands, the Honor Magic6 Pro is equipped with an f/1.4-2.0 variable aperture, though not as wide as the Huawei Mate 60 Pro+ and Xiaomi 14 Ultra (both of which have an aperture range of f/1.4-4.0). However, this device offers a wider depth of field in group photos, providing a clear advantage over devices lacking this feature.
The zoom capabilities of the Honor Magic 6 Pro are exceptional, particularly its ultra-wide camera and video zoom performance, achieving the best zoom test scores to date. While it can't compete with top-tier products in terms of telephoto zoom, its image fusion technology is highly effective.
In video recording, the Magic6 Pro's color rendering and transitions are particularly impressive, especially in HDR mode. Stabilization is excellent in well-lit conditions, though some sharpness differences between frames can be noticed when recording in low light.
Overall, the Honor Magic6 Pro shines across all categories, setting new high scores in photography and bokeh.
Photography New High Scores
The Honor Magic6, with its excellent exposure control, color rendering, and autofocus performance, ties with the Huawei Mate 60 Pro+ for the highest score in the photography sub-category. While it performs well in dynamic range and contrast, there are occasional issues with exposure stability and facial texture rendering. Overall, the device provides excellent exposure effects under any lighting conditions, achieving great facial exposures and a wide dynamic range.
Even in challenging backlit scenarios, the device excels at restoring highlight details, surpassing many competitors. It stands out in contrast performance, outperforming most similar products. In terms of white balance, the Magic6 Pro delivers a natural, comfortable effect, ranking at the top among all devices tested by DXOMARK. While some pinkish tones may be observed in low-light scenes and saturation slightly exceeds real-life scenes, overall color rendition is vivid and vibrant. Notably, the device maintains a comfortable skin tone even in extremely challenging backlight environments.
The device's autofocus system operates flawlessly, swiftly capturing clear subjects in any situation. Its outstanding speed aids in effortlessly capturing moments in dynamic scenes. Overall, the Magic6 Pro is an excellent device for photo and video capture, although it has some minor drawbacks in low-light conditions, its performance in autofocus, noise management, dynamic range, and color rendering is exceptional.
Best Bokeh Effect Yet
The Magic6 Pro, in its portrait mode, excels at accurately estimating depth of field and isolating subjects to produce a simulated bokeh effect with minimal artifacts around the foreground subject. Moreover, it renders skin tones exceptionally naturally. The device demonstrates remarkable stability in applying the bokeh effect, showcasing significant improvements over previous Honor models. It's worth noting that the Magic6 Pro exhibits no inconsistencies in focus when using the blur mode, further enhancing its performance.
Top-notch Zoom Performance
The Magic6 Pro has achieved the highest score to date in terms of zoom capabilities, thanks to its excellent consistency and outstanding repeatability across almost the entire zoom range. Its ultra-wide-angle lens delivers exceptional imaging results, surpassing all smartphones tested by DXOMARK.
While the device exhibits slightly prominent tone rendering in certain scenes, its ultra-wide-angle lens performs exceptionally well, boasting high levels of detail, accurate exposure, and dynamic range. In terms of long-range zooming, while the Honor phone performs admirably overall, it still lags slightly behind top-tier devices like the OPPO Find X7 Ultra, vivo X100 Pro, and Huawei P60 Pro, especially in capturing details at longer distances.
The telephoto lens of the Honor Magic6 Pro features a large 1/1.4-inch image sensor, leveraging the image fusion capability between the main camera and the telephoto lens to enhance details at the center of the frame. It delivers excellent image quality even at close zoom settings. However, at longer zoom ranges, there's some instability, occasionally resulting in unnatural facial details. With its high pixel count, the telephoto module maintains detail well even during digital zoom in daylight conditions.
Outstanding Video Recording Features
Compared to its predecessor, the Magic5 Pro, the Honor Magic6 Pro has significantly improved its video capabilities. However, it still falls short when placed side by side with top-tier devices like the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max and the OPPO Find X7 Ultra, showing there's room for optimization.
Overall, it delivers an impressive video recording experience with accurate color representation, stable exposure, and effective video stabilization, even during intense movements. Yet, there are occasional issues like loss of fine detail, unstable auto-focus, and exposure fluctuations in indoor settings. But on the whole, the Magic6 Pro maintains pleasing color accuracy, precise skin tone rendering, and a satisfactory dynamic range. It strikes a good balance between texture preservation and noise reduction. In terms of stabilization, the Magic6 Pro performs exceptionally well during walking and running, though it exhibits more noticeable differences in sharpness between frames under low light conditions, making its score slightly lower than that of the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max in this particular aspect.
