Tech Blog #233 | Honor Magic8 Pro Air : Small without Compromises...

Honor seems to be trying something pretty bold with the Honor Magic8 Pro Air. The name suggests lightness, but this phone also packs flagship-level hardware and a serious camera setup. It feels like Honor’s attempt to blend sleek design with performance and photography chops. Let’s see how well it actually pulls that off.

Right away, you notice how thin and light the Magic8 Pro Air is. It measures just 6.1mm in thickness and weighs around 155g, which is extremely rare for a modern flagship with a big battery. Honor managed this without major sacrifices in features or durability, and it even has dual dust and water resistance with IP68 + IP69 certification.

The display is a 6.31-inch LTPO OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ support. Resolution sits around 2.5K with vibrant colours and sharp detail. Honor claims a very high peak brightness, about 6000nits and also includes high-frequency PWM dimming for better comfort at low brightness levels. It’s a smaller screen compared to other large flagships, but it looks premium and easy to handle in daily use.

Under the hood is the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chipset built on a 3nm process, paired with up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 1TB UFS 4.0 storage. This is flagship-class silicon, so performance is smooth in everyday tasks, heavy apps, and gaming alike. Honor also uses MagicOS 10 on top of Android 16, which feels modern and responsive with useful customisations.

The camera setup is one of the biggest highlights here. You get a 50MP main sensor with optical image stabilisation, a 50MP ultra-wide camera with a 112-degree field of view, and a 64MP periscope telephoto camera with 3.2x optical zoom and up to 100x digital zoom. Honor also introduced a new AI zoom array flash system that aims to improve portrait lighting at different zoom levels, plus a CCD strobe portrait mode for tricky low-light situations. The front camera is also a 50MP unit capable of 4K video.

Battery life is impressive for such a slim build. The Magic8 Pro Air packs a 5500mAh silicon-carbon battery, which has one of the highest energy densities for its class. Fast charging support includes 80W wired and 50W wireless, so topping up doesn’t take long either. Achieving this battery capacity in a phone so thin is a bit of a flex.

On the connectivity and extras front, you get Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, NFC, dual SIM with eSIM support, stereo speakers, and an in-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor. Honor also kept a 3.5mm headphone jack in some regions, which many users will appreciate.

It’s not perfect though. A few reviewers and users online have pointed out that the USB port may be limited to USB 2.0 speeds, which could slow data transfer compared to other flagships. There’s also no microSD card slot, so storage upgrades depend entirely on the built-in options. And of course, how well the cameras perform in real life will depend heavily on processing and software optimisation.

So, the Honor Magic8 Pro Air brings premium hardware, a sleek and lightweight design, flagship-level performance, and a strong camera lineup into a surprisingly slim smartphone. It’s especially interesting for those who want a flagship without the bulk. If you prioritise portability with serious power and camera capabilities, this phone deserves a hard look. If you care most about fastest data speeds or expandable storage, you might want to weigh those factors before committing.