Honor is one of the first manufacturers to launch a new smartphone in 2024. We were able to try the latest Honor Magic6 Lite and it surprised us with its robustness.
Honor will not have waited very long to unveil its first smartphone of 2024: the Honor Magic6 Lite. Designed as an affordable smartphone, the latter is notably praised by the manufacturer as extremely resistant to shocks and falls.
Following in the footsteps of a probable Honor Magic6 Pro coming this year, the Magic6 Lite therefore intends to offer a satisfactory smartphone experience while remaining at a relatively low price. We were able to benefit from a test copy for several weeks in order to test the Honor Magic6 Lite and check its strengths, but also its faults.
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A recognizable design inspired by Rolex
The design of the Honor Magic6 Lite contrasts with what can be found among other Android competitors. The back of the device quickly reveals a rather protruding photo module in the shape of a circle called “Matrix ring”. This module takes its inspiration from the notched wheels of Rolex watches to offer a design that leans towards more high-end smartphones. It includes a main sensor, an ultra wide angle and a macro lens which we will come back to in a dedicated section.
The back of our test copy has a semi-glossy “Midnight Black” color where the brand name is written on the lower part of the phone. Its coating is very pleasing to the eye and once again makes us forget the fact that we are dealing with an entry-level smartphone. In addition, the back of the Magic6 Lite retains little fingerprints, despite numerous uses. A good point then.
At the front, we find a screen with beautifully curved edges which once again brings to mind more high-end smartphones. We also find the selfie camera housed in the center of the upper edge of the phone. We could possibly complain about the slightly pronounced black borders which cut the immersion a little during a game or a series.
The volume and power buttons are located on the right edge of the Magic6 Lite. These are relatively well located and fall well under the thumb.
The overall handling of the Honor Magic6 Lite is quite pleasant on a daily basis. Its fairly thin format (less than 8 mm thick) and its curved edges make it an easy device to store in a pocket or small handbag.
A bright, fluid and (a little) colorful screen
Among the good points of the previous Magic5 Lite, many specialist journalists cited its OLED screen. It is clear that this is still the case this year. The Honor Magic6 Lite screen is an AMOLED FHD+ panel capable of displaying more than a billion colors and offering a brightness of 1200 nits.
The Magic6 Lite’s screen is very pleasing to the eyes. Whether displaying photos, text content, a film or a video game, the details displayed are numerous and fairly well transcribed. We will still notice colors that are sometimes a bit too garish, even when using the “normal” color mode which should reduce this feeling.
In terms of fluidity, the Honor Magic6 Lite is capable of displaying a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. This guarantees in particular a fluid display within your applications and games which are much more pleasant in their animations. This rate of 120 Hz can in particular be dynamic (it will automatically lower when you do not need great fluidity, when consulting a text for example), fixed at 120 Hz, or lowered to 60 Hz to save Energy.
Despite its falls, the Honor (Magic6 Lite) is safe
We are not used to testing the resistance of a smartphone to Internet users. With Honor placing great emphasis on the durability and resistance of the Magic6 Lite screen for its communication, we are taking the liberty of a small deviation to verify the firm’s claims.
We therefore subjected the Honor Magic6 Lite screen to several resistance tests, such as hitting a nail, a screwdriver or even concrete on the ground by dropping the smartphone from our pocket.
Our tests surprised us: despite several blows to the screen and various falls of the smartphone, the latter does not display any apparent breakage or even scratches. Honor therefore seems to have delivered on its main point, and so you shouldn’t be afraid of dropping the Magic6 Lite if you’re a little clumsy.
Average performance
The Honor Magic6 Lite is equipped with a Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 processor. This Qualcomm chip, released almost two years ago today, allows Honor’s latest smartphone to deliver enough power to manage your favorite games. Titles that are particularly demanding in graphics resources like Genshin Impact or Tower of Fantasy run quite well on the Honor Magic6 Lite. However, we will avoid pushing the graphics to the limit otherwise we will experience slowdowns in the game and a slight heating of the smartphone. This goes hand in hand with the Magic6 Lite’s battery life which runs out quickly during long gaming sessions.
On a daily basis, however, the smartphone’s animations remain very fluid. We move from one application to another without any difficulty or slowdown and using the Magic6 Lite is pleasant and intuitive. Even the camera, which took a few seconds to launch on the Magic5 Lite, now displays quickly.
Pre-installed applications, do you want some here?
The Honor Magic6 Lite runs Android 13 and MagicOS 7.2 which is the latest version of the manufacturer’s software overlay. Unlike its big brother Huawei, the Honor company still has Google software such as the Play Store to download applications, Gmail, Google Maps, etc…
Unfortunately, Honor smartphones are often riddled with bloatware, these small applications pre-installed upon purchase of the phone and the result of commercial partnerships between the manufacturer and the brands. If this certainly allows Honor to lower the final cost of the smartphone, the latter suddenly finds itself full of pre-installed applications that we will quickly delete as they take up space on the storage and screen of the smartphone. home of the device.
Concerning software monitoring, Honor promises two years of updates for MagicOS which will only allow the Magic6 Lite to install Android 14 and 15, but no more. A rather surprising and disappointing choice on the part of the firm as more and more manufacturers are now extending the duration of security and OS updates for their devices.
A photo part that is behind or even downright disappointing
To offer a smartphone with a good design and great performance at an affordable price, Honor certainly had to make concessions somewhere. These can be found on the side of the photographs taken with the Magic6 Lite. The smartphone is equipped with three sensors to capture your everyday photos: a main lens, an ultra wide angle and a macro sensor.
The main sensor of the Magic6 Lite has difficulty restoring the finest details such as hair, sculptures or vegetation. The rendering of the photos captured with the latest phone from Honor turns out to be quite bland. The colors are poorly reproduced and this gives a very “dull” look to the photographs taken. In our shot of a sunset, the main sensor will completely darken the lawn even though it appeared very green and visible in reality. The ultra wide angle fares barely better and fails to restore sufficient detail.
At night, the same story: the sensors of the Honor Magic6 Lite are unable to restore the details of the different elements of our scenes. The result is numerous blurs or approximations of the camera which tries as best it can to understand what is photographed and restore a more or less usable result. The lack of brightness is counterbalanced by an exaggeration of the algorithmic processing of the device with colors (of the sky in particular) much too light compared to reality.
This is particularly visible in our photo of the Madeleine church where the sky appears a very clear blue even though it was close to 10 p.m. and we were plunged into darkness. The different sources of light coming from public lighting or Christmas garlands also appear blurry because the Magic6 Lite’s sensors cannot manage them correctly.
Note also that the Honor Magic6 Lite has a night mode to improve photos taken during a lack of light. Unfortunately, the latter only accentuates the colors to the point of distorting them, and takes several long seconds before being triggered. You will therefore need to ensure that your subject does not move too much while taking the photo.
The Honor Magic6 Lite is also equipped with a 16 Mpx selfie camera to render faces and apply a portrait effect around them. Without going into too much detail, this sensor does the job and allows you to take some beautiful photos despite a lack of detail around the sectioning of the hair when you apply a Bokeh effect (blur in the background).
Correct autonomy for a fairly average charge
Honor announces a battery life of 11 hours on big games like PUBG mobile and 13 hours on social networks like Facebook and X (formally Twitter). In use, we found that the Honor Magic6 Lite is capable of lasting a little more than a day of use. You should therefore be able to use the smartphone long enough before having to recharge, but don’t count on being able to use it for two consecutive days either.
Once the Honor Magic6 Lite battery runs out, it’s time to recharge it. The manufacturer announces rapid charging to 100% in 81 minutes. We were able to test that promise and fully charge the Magic6 Lite in a little less time than that (around 76 minutes). A rather average score which could have been made up with the addition of a charger in the box.
Our conclusion to the Honor Magic6 Lite test
At our recommended retail price of 399 euros, the Honor Magic6 Lite goes up against a major competitor like Samsung with its Galaxy A54 5G, but also against its own brother, the Honor 70 released a few months ago. Where the Magic6 Lite loses a lot in photo quality, it certainly gains in design. The Honor smartphone is much more pleasant to look at and use than a mid-range phone from Samsung.
We will especially remember the Honor Magic6 Lite for its very good handling, its impressive resistance, its pleasant screen to view and its rather good performance. These adjectives do not, however, make us forget a photo part which leaves something to be desired and software support for only two major updates.