Honor Magic 5 series Malaysia: Everything you need to know

Just over a month has passed since Honor showed off their Magic 5 and Magic 5 Pro at Mobile World Congress 2023, and now the Chinese manufacturer is bringing their latest flagships to our shores. Honor has made some big claims here with their new flagship smartphones, with the Magic 5 Pro in particular said to have a better display, larger battery and improved cameras than their previous devices.

Honor Magic 5 series Malaysia pricing and availability

The Honor Magic 5 Pro will be available in just one spec, with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. It’s priced at RM4,299 and you can pre-order it from now till the 13th of April, with Honor throwing in free gifts worth up to RM1,200 if you pre-order it, such as a wireless car charger, a portable Bluetooth speaker, an extra year of warranty and 180 days of screen crack protection. You’ll be able to find it on sale at the Honor Malaysia website, Honor Experience Store, their official stores on Lazada and Shopee as well as their retail partners nationwide.

Meanwhile, the Honor Magic 5 will go on sale on the 28th of April. It too is available in just one specification with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and is priced at RM3,499. Honor will be giving early bird purchasers free gifts worth up to RM700 too.

Honor Magic 5 Pro specs

Starting with their top end model, the Honor Magic 5 Pro has given the display a notable upgrade. The screen is now a 6.81-inch, ‘quad curved’ OLED display with a 2848 x 1312p resolution that’s capable of a variable 1-120Hz refresh rate thanks to its LTPO backplane. It’s also now able to push a peak HDR brightness of up to 1800nits, which is even brighter than the Samsung Galaxy S23. This new display has a 2160Hz PWM dimming too as well as 1.07 billion colours.

Under the hood, the Honor Magic 5 Pro packs in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 system-on-chip with up to 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. You’ll find Android 13 out of the box here too with the MagicOS 7.1 skin over it. Honor is also guaranteeing a minimum of 3 major Android OS upgrades on the Magic 5 Pro along with 5 years of security patches too.

It’s in the camera department though where Honor has put in most of the upgrades. You would have noticed the new ‘Eye of Muse’ design on the back already, which is a little polarising to say the least. Housed in that raised camera bump though is a 50MP, f/1.6 main camera using a 1/1.2-inch sensor, with optical image stabilisation and its AI-powered Falcon Capture algorithm to improve image quality.

Alongside the main camera is a 50MP, f/2.0 ultrawide shooter and a 50MP, f/3.0 periscope telephoto camera offering a 3.5x optical zoom with up to a 100x digital zoom possible as well as optical image stabilisation. One of the new photography features on the Magic 5 Pro is an AI Motion Sensing Capture feature that uses AI to automagically take a photo when it detects action going on like when shooting at sports events.

Rounding it off is a pill-shaped punch hole cutout on the top left of the display housing a 12MP selfie shooter with a 3D depth sensor next to it. Honor seems fairly confident in the capabilities of the Magic 5 Pro’s camera setup here, with the device even being awarded the best smartphone camera by DxOMark.

Elsewhere the Magic 5 Pro has a 5,100mAh battery with 66W Honor SuperCharge fast charging as well as 50W wireless SuperCharge charging. You’re also getting stereo speakers, an in-display fingerprint sensor and an IP68 dust and water resistance rating here, together with support for WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.2, 5G and NFC. Weighing in at 219g and measuring 8.77mm thick, the Honor Magic 5 Pro will be available in Meadow Green and Black colourways.

Honor Magic 5 specs

If you don’t require the best-of-the-best option from Honor, you can also take a look at the Honor Magic 5. In fact, Malaysia appears to be the only country other than China to offer this device, perhaps a sign of just how important of a market we are to Honor. It offers a slightly smaller 6.73-inch quad curved OLED display, pushing a 2688 x 1224p resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. Honor has also kitted it with a 2160Hz PWM dimming along with a peak brightness of 1600nits.

Despite being positioned lower than the Magic 5 Pro, the Magic 5 still gets the same flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 system-on-chip with up to 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM though curiously gets 256GB of slightly slower UFS 3.1 storage. You’ll still get the Android 13-based MagicOS 7.1 operating system here out of the box, with the 3 years of major OS upgrades and 5 years of security patches.

In the camera department meanwhile, there’s a slightly different camera setup here on the non-Pro device. The Magic 5 features a main 54MP, f/1.9 camera flanked by a 50MP, f/2.0 ultrawide shooter as well as a 32MP, f/2.4 telephoto camera with OIS offering a 2.5x optical zoom and a 50x digital zoom. In front meanwhile is a 12MP selfie camera though there’s no 3D depth sensor here.

Elsewhere the Magic 5 has a 5,100mAh battery with 66W Honor SuperCharge wired fast charging, but lacks wireless charging here. It also has stereo speakers, an in-display fingerprint sensor and support for NFC, WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.2 and 5G wireless connectivity. The Magic 5 will be available in Glacier Blue and Black colourways.