The midranger in Honor's flagship Magic series comes back for another round in 2023 and offers quite a few upgrades over its predecessor. While last year's Magic4 Lite was somewhat underwhelming, we have higher hopes for the Magic5 Lite, mostly because it rights some wrongs from the past.
Notably, the Honor Magic5 Lite is a rebranded Honor x9a, which was released back in January in some Asian markets, so you can use this review to help you decide whether the x9a is worthwhile. The two handsets are identical.
The updated Lite comes with a superior OLED panel instead of IPS while still running at 120Hz, it has a better main camera, adds an ultrawide on the back, bumps up the battery capacity and offers a fresh new back design.
The phone still uses Honor's established design language, but we like the minimalist ring on the back better than before. Moreover, it's a distinctive look that no other midranger has.
The device also ships with an updated Magic UI 6.1 based on Android 12, which promises more features and under-the-hood improvements. Of course, Google's Mobile Services are on board since the company is now a separate entity from Huawei.
Honor Magic5 Lite / Honor x9a specs at a glance:
Body: 161.6x73.9x7.9mm, 175g; glas front, plastic back and side frame.
Display: 6.67" AMOLED, 1B colors, 120Hz, 800 nits (HBM), 1080x2400px resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, 395ppi.
Chipset: Qualcomm SM6375 Snapdragon 695 5G (6 nm): Octa-core (2x2.2 GHz Kryo 660 Gold & 6x1.7 GHz Kryo 660 Silver); Adreno 619.
Memory: 128GB 6GB RAM, 128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 8GB RAM.
OS/Software: Android 12, Magic UI 6.1.
Rear camera: Wide (main): 64 MP, f/1.8, PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 5 MP, f/2.2; Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4.
Front camera: 16 MP, f/2.5, (wide).
Video capture: Rear camera: 1080p@30fps; Front camera: 1080p@30fps.
Battery: 5100mAh; 40W wired.
Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); NFC; Infrared port.
One thing has remained unchanged, and that's the chipset. The new model shares the Snapdragon 695 SoC of its predecessor, which is a capable mid-range silicon but lacks 4K video recording capabilities. And that's our only beef with Qualcomm's offering. We'll make sure to check how well that chipset fares in the context of this year's midrangers in the following pages, so continue reading to find out more.
Unboxing the Honor Magic5 Lite
To our surprise, the Magic5 Lite arrived without a charger in the box. There is only a USB-A to USB-C cable used for charging and data transfers.
There wasn't any case inside the box either. Now, we can't be sure whether all markets get the same retail package, but our unit didn't get a charger. And yes, last year's Magic4 Lite had the appropriate 66W charger.
