Technologies

The Honor Magic 8 Pro Is My First Big Phone Disappointment of 2026

Having tested multiple models of this phone, I’m confident that this one is a let down.

When I first started testing the Honor Magic 8 Pro, I found significant purple fringing on images from the ultrawide camera. Honor identified the fringing as a fault with my first review unit and sent me new review samples to test. Having subsequently tested two additional Magic 8 Pro models, I can confidently say that this particular camera problem is not an issue on final retail handsets. But I do still have complaints about this phone’s camera, and since it’s a flagship handset with a high price, I definitely expected more.

The Magic 8 Pro is Honor’s first major Android phone of 2026, and it’s has some potent tech, including the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, which delivered some of the best scores I’ve ever seen in our benchmark tests. I like the display, too. The Magic 8 Pro has features like 100W fast charging, various AI skills and a generous seven years of software and security support.

But I wasn’t blown away by the phone’s battery life despite its large capacity. Plus, the exceptionally heavy-handed image processing on the camera means that this phone falls down in two significant areas for me. At £1,099 in the UK, this phone needed to impress more than it does. Honor doesn’t officially sell its phones in the US, but for reference, that price converts to roughly $1,480.

The camera is the big issue for me, so let’s start there.

Honor Magic 8 Pro: Problematic camera

I’ve shot hundreds of photos across three models of the Honor Magic 8 Pro, and in all honesty, I haven’t been able to take many images that I especially like. This wasn’t helped by my first handset having early teething troubles, but even putting that aside, this phone camera did not live up to my expectations at all. All images shown here were taken using the replacement models which are the same units that people are able to buy in stores.

On paper, the camera hardware is solid: A 50-megapixel main camera leads the way, backed up by 50-megapixel ultrawide and a 200-megapixel telephoto with a lens that offers 3.7x optical zoom and 10x hybrid. But the hardware’s not the problem — it’s Honor’s software processing that’s ruining the fun here.

I’ll start off with this shot above of a street in Edinburgh. At first glance, it’s fine — the photo has a decent exposure (albeit with overly brightened shadows) and accurate colors. It’s actually one of the better shots I’ve taken with the phone.

But a closer look shows that things start to fall apart. An unpleasant hazy halo surrounds the tower block, along with digital artifacts, where the phone is clearly trying to both reduce image noise while also increasing the sharpness.

Here’s a comparison from the iPhone 16 Pro. The shadows haven’t been lightened as much, which gives the image a more natural feel.

Punch into the iPhone’s image, and it’s clear that Apple is processing the details less. There is almost no fuzzy halo around the tower and no artifacts from noise reduction or sharpening. The details on the brickwork look better too.

Switching to the Honor’s ultrawide camera doesn’t help matters, with more haloing around the tower and details that have a weird oil painting effect due to the digital sharpening.

Again, this image above looks fine. It has a solid exposure and a color balance that I actually think looks pretty good.

But again I see evidence of heavy-handed digital processing, with the sky looking almost cut out against the edges of the buildings. If it feels like I’m nitpicking, it’s because I am. This phone is expensive, and an elite price tag should come with elite performance.

Shall we have a look at some more examples? Of course!

The details in this sunset scene actually don’t look as overcooked as in the previous images, but the Magic 8 Pro has brightened the shadows so much that it’s lost a lot of the nice mood and drama that was present in the moment.

Even the iPhone 17 Pro lightened things a bit, but nowhere near to the same extent, resulting in a much more natural-looking image.

It’s not that the camera can’t take a good shot — the hardware is more than capable. Look at this example. The JPEG above has suffered at the hands of the phone’s processing, with unnaturally brightened shadows, crunchy details and overly vibrant colors.

And above is the same scene, taken as a DNG raw image using the phone’s Pro mode and adjusted in Adobe Lightroom. I’ve maintained the nice depth of the shadows, added almost no extra image sharpening and kept the colors at a natural level. I actually really like this shot and it goes to show that this phone is perfectly capable of taking good photos — it’s the image processing in the camera that’s going too hard.

Case in point, I took the shot above overlooking Edinburgh using the 3.7x telephoto lens. It’s overly bright — both in the highlights and in the shadows — while the noise reduction and sharpening have resulted in crunchy details that look unpleasant, especially when viewed close up.

Yet the DNG raw file above looks great. I’ve barely touched this one as it didn’t need much. The drama of the sunset has been maintained with strong shadows and details that haven’t been destroyed by software.

Pushing the zoom to its 10x hybrid produced the decent-looking image above of a lighthouse. But guess what.

That’s right, the Magic 8 Pro’s image processing (left) has given it harsh, crunchy details that look unpleasant compared to the more natural look of the iPhone 17 Pro’s image (right).

I did say I’d taken some that I like, and sure, these photos above are pretty decent and not overly troubled by image processing, in my opinion.

But at night, the image processing demon shows its hand yet again. The image above is overly saturated with details lost in some areas due to noise reduction while other areas have been over sharpened. Maybe it’s a one off?

Nope! The colors have been seriously ramped up in the image above while the noise reduction and sharpening have again had their fun with the details.

Here’s how the iPhone 17 Pro handled the same scene. It’s far more natural.

And here’s a weird one — the software smoothed out a lot of detail on the buildings, giving them an unnatural smooth look, but yet there’s still a huge amount of image noise in the sky and the dark parts of the river.

It’s not super easy to see, but it’s even produced these odd square patches where the colors have shifted, presumably an error in how the phone processes different parts of the scene.

The iPhone 17 Pro’s shot has better handling of noise and better-looking details. I do prefer the more cyan tone of the sky in the Honor’s shot, but that’s me really grasping at straws in trying to find some positives.

And another example of the phone producing weird noise artifacts.

Nighttime results from the ultrawide camera are roughly in-line with what I saw from the iPhone. The Honor’s exposure is a little better, but unsurprisingly, its details look far too digitally sharpened.

And at 3.7x zoom, the Honor’s shot is slightly brighter and higher contrast than the iPhone 17 Pro’s, but yes, details don’t look as natural. In all honestly, though, neither phone has exactly excelled here.

Safe to say then that I’m disappointed with the Magic 8 Pro’s camera performance overall. Like many phone manufacturers, Honor is leaning increasingly hard into its software processing to overcome the limitations of small smartphone camera sensors. But this phone is a perfect example of things going way too far. The DNG raw files I took show that the hardware is capable of taking good-looking images with natural exposure and clear details. Those same images look, to my eye, truly awful when the phone’s image processing has had a go on them.

Photography is, of course, a subjective matter, and what might look good to one person can look awful to someone else. So sure, maybe you love hyper saturation and shadows that are barely there. But some of the bigger problems — like the image noise in night scenes or the blurring of details that should be clear — are objective signs of bad image processing. So, Honor, I’m begging you directly now: You have a great camera here — please stop ruining it with your software.

Honor Magic 8 Pro: Display and processor performance

Moving on to something more positive now, I do like the phone’s 6.71-inch display. It’s bright and vibrant, which makes it easily visible under harsh outdoor sunshine and allows colorful YouTube videos to pop nicely. It’s lovely for gaming, too, thanks to its max 120Hz refresh rate that can dynamically shift to 1Hz to help reduce the load on your battery.

Honor Magic 8 Pro performance compared

Honor Magic 8 Pro 3,705 11,333 8,036Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra 3,053 9,707 6,950Oppo Find X9 Pro 3,171 9,357 7,281

Geekbench 6 (single core)
Geekbench 6 (multi-core)
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme

Note: Longer bars equals better performance.

The phone is powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon Elite Gen 5 processor, which puts in some of the best scores we’ve ever seen on our benchmark tests for both processor performance and graphics processing. It feels extremely zippy in everyday use. Playing demanding 3D games like Genshin Impact was no problem at all, even when I cranked the settings to the max.

Honor Magic 8 Pro: Software and AI additions

The phone runs Android 16 at its core, over which Honor has slapped its own Magic OS 10 interface. It functions basically like any version of Android, but you will find some additions thrown in, mostly in the form of AI tools, including ones like Google’s Gemini we would see on other Android devices.

The AI Photos Agent allows you to use generative AI to upscale, recompose or remove objects from an image or transform it into a few limited styles including “Cartoon” or “Animation,” which I would have assumed are the same thing. Does it work? Well, I’ll let you judge.

Here’s my original selfie taken with the phone.

And here’s what the phone’s “Cartoon” AI tool has done to me. I don’t even need to think of a sarcastic quip; it very much speaks for itself.

Elsewhere, you’ll find tools like an AI settings agent, where you can ask how to do things like dim your screen brightness, and an AI Memories tool, which largely seems to be a repository for screenshots. You’ll also have Google’s AI tools like Gemini Live, Gemini Advanced and Circle to Search, the latter of which can be accessed through a dedicated button on the side of the phone. The button, however, can also be programed to open and operate the camera — much like Apple’s camera control button — and I find it more useful in that form.

Honor has said that the phone will receive seven years of software and security support, meaning this phone should still be good to use all the way through to 2033.

Honor Magic 8 Pro: Battery life and charging

The phone runs on a 6,270-mAh battery, which, while sizable, only gave average results on our battery drain tests. Battery performance sits more alongside phones like the Galaxy S25 or Google Pixel 10, but it’s a big step below the iPhone 17 Pro Max or OnePlus 15.

It does, however, offer 100W wired charging, which should make it extremely quick to juice it back up, as long as you have a compatible charger. It also offers 80W wireless charging, but you’ll need a proprietary charger to hit those speeds as the phone doesn’t support Qi2.2 accessories.

Honor Magic 8 Pro: Should you buy it?

I’m glad I retested this phone on multiple units. It showed me that the early issue I found with the camera was not a problem, but it also proved to me that the cameras on this thing still need a lot of work. I’m disappointed with Honor here, as the phone’s hardware is probably good, but its image processing all but ruins otherwise solid photos. I wouldn’t mind so much, but with a flagship price over £1,000 here in the UK, I expect better.

Sure, you can shoot in raw all the time and edit your images in Lightroom like you might with a regular camera. But you shouldn’t have to circumvent the phone’s efforts in order to get something usable. There’s a chance, of course, that you love saturated images with lightened shadows and details that look like they’ve been given an oil painting filter from a free Play Store editing app. If that sounds like you, then you’ll probably get on extremely well with this phone.

It’s not all bad of course, the Magic 8 Pro is hugely powerful. I love the generous software support period, and while some of Honor’s own AI additions are fairly redundant, the overall interface of the phone is pleasant to use. Battery life could certainly be better, but I’ve seen much worse.

For the high price, I think your money is better spent on rival Android phones. Want a better camera? Go with the Oppo Find X9 Pro. Want better battery life? The OnePlus 15 is for you.

How we test phones

Every phone tested by CNET’s reviews team was used in the real world. We test a phone’s features, play games and take photos. We examine the display to see if it’s bright, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and build to determine how it holds up and whether it has an IP rating for water resistance. We push the processor’s performance to the extremes using standardized benchmark tools like Geekbench and 3DMark, along with our own anecdotal observations navigating the interface, recording high-resolution videos and playing graphically intense games at high-refresh rates.

All the cameras are tested in a variety of conditions, from bright sunlight to dark indoor scenes. We try out special features, like night mode and portrait mode, and compare our findings against similarly priced competing phones. We also check out the battery life by using it daily, as well as running a series of battery drain tests.

We also consider additional features, such as support for 5G, satellite connectivity, fingerprint and face sensors, stylus support, fast charging speeds and foldable displays, among others, that can be beneficial. We balance all of this against the price to give you the verdict on whether that phone, regardless of its price, actually represents good value. While these tests may not always be reflected in CNET’s initial review, we conduct follow-up and long-term testing in most circumstances.

Technologies

China indicates rare earths will keep flowing to EU, regardless of U.S. trade deal expiration

European trade commissioner Maroš Sefčovič met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing last week.

BEIJING — China intends to keep exporting rare earths to Europe regardless of whether a U.S. trade deal with Beijing gets extended past January.

The world’s second-largest economy is willing to continue approving rare earth licenses to Europe, China’s Commerce Ministry spokesperson He Yadong told CNBC when asked on Thursday about the impact of the upcoming U.S. deadline.

Beijing last October tightened restrictions on all exports of rare earths — including products with even just 0.1% of China-sourced rare earths. The move followed a new U.S. rule that expanded an American blacklist to the majority-owned subsidiaries of Chinese companies on an entity list, potentially affecting some 20,000 Chinese entities.

However, both the U.S. and China agreed to suspend those measures for one year at a meeting in late October 2025 between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump. Ahead of the leaders’ latest summit last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the truce was extended by two months to January.

Trade tensions between the EU and Beijing cooled last week after European trade commissioner Maroš Sefčovič met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing. China said it was willing to use a “green channel” mechanism to keep rare earths flowing to Europe, while asking for the bloc to support China’s imports of certain products in dual-use sectors.

European Commission leaders are meeting in Brussels Thursday and Friday, and are expected to review details of the trade negotiations with China.

Technologies

Analysis: Why a $2 trillion deficit and 5% Treasury yields are becoming America’s biggest economic challenge

Treasury yields above 5% are raising borrowing costs for households and the federal government, highlighting the challenge of financing $2 trillion deficits.

Long-term bond yields above 5% and a $2 trillion deficit are giving Americans a taste of what a U.S. debt crisis would be like. A true emergency would hurt much more, and isn’t baked in. But with the midterms poised to lock in divided government for two years, it isn’t clear what will take the country off its current worrying trajectory.

Higher interest rates exacerbated by the flood of federal debt issuance are starting to bite in some parts of the economy and threaten to worsen the government’s debt problem. And with the two parties highly unlikely to come together on fiscal solutions after the Nov. 3 midterms, any fixes are years off in the future.

The housing market is showing signs of slowing as the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage hovers around 7.5%. Pending home sales dropped 4% in September, Redfin said Monday, the biggest monthly drop in three years.

Mortgage rates track the 10-year Treasury yield

Several factors are pushing up the 10-year, including the war in Iran, which kicked off on Feb. 28 and precipitated the rise in long-term yields. Oil and diesel prices are up sharply, and that has bond traders asking for more yield to account for the possibility that central banks such as the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates.

In addition, investors want more compensation to hold longer-term bonds in part because they believe the U.S. government will continue to flood the market with them. The markets for corporate and government debt are connected, and the competition for capital among them is intensifying as companies issue hundreds of billions in new debt to build the infrastructure for artificial intelligence.

Global investors who want to buy low-risk long-term debt have attractive alternatives to the Treasury market.

If the U.S. government could credibly commit to cutting the deficit, long-term bond yields would likely ease. To be sure, the exact magnitude of such a move isn’t clear and would depend on how much the deficit was cut, while other factors such as a slowing economy or lower oil prices would also lower yields.

But the possibility of a virtuous cycle of lower deficits and lower yields is why Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has argued that the U.S. ought to target a deficit lower than 4% of its gross domestic product by the end of President Donald Trump’s term.

There is almost no way the U.S. will hit that target. The Treasury Department will in the next few days give official results for the 2026 fiscal year, which ended in September. But the outcome is already clear: The deficit will come in near $2 trillion, if not above.

That is likely to put the deficit in the range of 6.0-6.2% of gross domestic product for the year, based on the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of a $1.993 trillion deficit and a projection of third quarter GDP.

Higher rates make debt reduction tougher. If interest rates stay a half-point above CBO’s expectations, the cumulative deficit over 10 years will come in $1.9 trillion higher, the agency estimates. If rates overshoot by 1.5 points, that adds $6 trillion in deficits.

CBO expects the 10-year Treasury to average 4.3% over that period, compared to 5.3% today. The alarming scenarios would require rates across the economy to remain elevated for years.

“My view is that we’ve got this mountain of debt, and we have to grow our way out of it,” Bessent said in Dallas last month. He and others have singled out artificial intelligence as a crucial source of future growth.

AI could help but can’t fix the problem entirely. It would take a decade of 7.2% growth to balance the budget with growth alone, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a research group that advocates for balanced budgets.

GDP growth was recently revised up for the second quarter from 1.5% to 2.2% at an annualized rate. The acceleration that quickly would get us to 7.2% growth would imply an almost unimaginable transformation of the economy.

Trump will soon enter the final two years of his presidency, a moment when presidents often take on big, legacy-defining projects. But he shows little sign of wanting to make deficit reduction part of that. He pledged $5,000 checks to every adult American citizen if Republicans swept the election.

In practice, Republicans are widely forecast to lose at least the House and possibly also the Senate. Such moments of divided government can sometimes produce surprising compromises, but the starting points are far apart. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Democrats’ likely next House speaker, wants to reverse the $1 trillion in healthcare cuts that Congress enacted last year as part of Trump’s signature legislative package.

And that’s leaving aside the deep animosity between the parties.

The overall U.S. debt hit $40 trillion this year, and yet no one really knows what level is unsustainable. A full-on debt crisis likely remains much farther out in the future. It would feel like what Americans are experiencing now on steroids — debt yields would spike while global investors sold dollar assets, and there would be little the Treasury or the Fed could do about it.

For now, though higher yields are also attracting investors to U.S. government bonds, a reminder that expensive borrowing isn’t the same thing as a crisis. But the bottom line is that economics alone can’t solve the problem. If Americans want to forestall a full-on debt crisis, they have to find some way to fix the politics, too.

Technologies

Key Details on Starshield, SpaceX’s Defense-Oriented Starlink Network

Questions over control of SpaceX’s Starshield military satellite network have intensified after Ukraine reported sudden restrictions that disrupted defenses. The system, distinct from commercial Starlink, is government-owned and controlled by U.S. authorities.

Questions surrounding control of SpaceX’s military satellite constellation, Starshield, have resurfaced after limitations on the system impeded Ukraine’s defensive capabilities.

Kyiv has leveled accusations against SpaceX

Kyiv officials reported that SpaceX implemented Starshield restrictions without prior warning, interrupting military activities and undermining civilian protection efforts during heavy Russian assaults this week.

Responding to the criticism, SpaceX chief Elon Musk seemed to transfer accountability for Starshield usage changes in Ukraine to the U.S. government and President Donald Trump. Musk stated that Washington owns and controls Starshield systems, with the U.S. military and ultimately the president setting any usage boundaries. The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to Verum’s request for comment.

Here’s an overview of Starshield and its distinctions from Starlink.

What is Starshield and how does it function?

Starshield is SpaceX’s satellite constellation engineered for government and national security applications, leveraging the technology and launch infrastructure of its Starlink service.

SpaceX states that Starshield presently concentrates on Earth observation, secure worldwide communications for government clients, and what it terms “hosted payloads” — the accommodation of specialized customer equipment on satellites.

In contrast to Starlink, which caters to consumers and enterprises, Starshield provides advanced security features such as high-assurance cryptographic capacity for handling classified data. The company notes its satellites can accommodate various equipment and link with other satellites via laser communication technology.

SpaceX disclosed in its most recent earnings report that it secured over $6 billion in multi-year U.S. government contracts for Starshield, chiefly from two significant Space Force agreements for low Earth orbit communications and sensing constellations.

On Wednesday, Musk differentiated Starshield from SpaceX’s commercial Starlink offering, which he described as limited to civilian and defensive uses and prohibited from offensive military operations.

How does Starshield contrast with Starlink?

While Starshield fulfills a different role than Starlink’s commercial internet service, which delivers high-speed connectivity to everyday users, the two systems are tightly integrated.

Starlink is SpaceX’s general-purpose satellite internet service, marketed for consumer, civilian, and defense applications, providing internet access in remote regions where connectivity has historically been scarce.

Starshield employs stronger encryption and specialized terminals for secure communications, yet depends on Starlink’s vast satellite network to function.

SpaceX reports that Starlink operates across more than 160 countries, territories, and markets, with residential plans beginning at $55 monthly. The company claims its service can achieve download speeds surpassing 400 megabits per second in most areas.