The Honor Magic 5 Lite has just been presented. Light, thin mid-range, equipped with an Oled screen and at a reasonable price, we have been able to take it in hand.
What is a good mid-range phone? Given the contained price, Honor, like any brand, must make decisions, because it is impossible to want to put everything in a phone, especially if it is not a flagship. After a somewhat disappointing Honor Magic 4 Lite, Huawei’s independent Chinese brand for almost three years seems to have listened to our criticisms with the Honor Magic 5 Lite.
Exit the LCD screen, hello the 6.67-inch Oled panel at 120 Hz and Full HD +. The interface has also had a lot of revamp since we went directly from Magic UI 4 to Magic UI 6 (Android 12). During a brief grab, these two items immediately jump out at you as real assets that were missing from the previous generation. The screen seems a bit saturated, but not unpleasant, and the impression of fluidity, both in the panel and in the interface, is very present.
A slim design for a large 5100 mAh battery
The other advantage that is immediately obvious is the thickness and weight of the Honor Magic 5 Lite. It could be said that Honor achieves an all-in on the subject, since the brand even justifies the absence of IP certification for this format, to say the least attractive and comfortable. The curved screen ends up making the grip quite pleasant. Let’s add that the brand integrates a detection technology on the edges of the screen supposedly to avoid the inconvenience of the curved shape. If the manufacturer does not integrate Gorilla Glass, the manufacturer of the screen, BOE, still goes for its own certification and also protects it with reinforced glass.
If it is thin, the Honor Magic 4 Lite does not forget to be autonomous, at least on paper, since Honor promises no less than two days of autonomy. We tend to believe them, because the phone packs a 5100 mAh battery. A very good capacity that is supposed to guarantee 24 hours of streaming on YouTube.
understandable concessions
Autonomy, Oled screen, beautiful design… on paper it is therefore a phone that seems more attractive than last year, especially for its relatively contained price of 379 euros. On the other hand, as indicated above, it is not without its concessions. We are thinking, for example, of its Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G chip, which may be a bit light, or the absence of a charger in the box, but capable of up to 40 W. This is another concession: last year the Magic 4 Lite was even 66W. The promised length of software support also seems a bit tight, we’re told of an Android 14-only follow-up. Lastly, let’s mention the photo, with 64-megapixel sensors in the wide-angle, 5-megapixel in the ultra-wide, and one 2-megapixel macro, but this is more common in this price range.
All these concessions, unavoidable in this price range, still seem more legitimate than on the Magic 4 Lite. It’s a safe bet that the target audience (15-45 year olds) doesn’t hold it against them, and instead benefits from a beautiful screen and a product that seems relatively clean.