‘I can't put it down’ — the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air is everything I hoped the i Phone Air and Galaxy S25 Edge would be, but aren't | Tech Radar

Overview

News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest smartphones

News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets

Details

Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more

Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards.

‘I can't put it down’ — the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air is everything I hoped the i Phone Air and Galaxy S25 Edge would be, but aren't

Being the absolute thinnest phone has too many compromises. Honor took a different route, and its Air is all the better for it.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Unlock instant access to exclusive member features.

Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.

The Honor Magic 8 Pro Air is one of the most surprising phones I've used this year. While Samsung and Apple have reportedly abandoned their thin phone endeavors (or at least been disappointed by the sales of their respective slim devices, the Galaxy S25 Edge and i Phone Air), Honor has gone ahead and proven that thin phones can be great.

I’ve used every 'thin phone' made so far, including the Tecno Spark Slim and the Huawei Mate 70 Air, both of which had very limited launches. They, too, were markedly different from the Galaxy S25 Edge and i Phone Air, but neither quite hit the mark.

How, then, did Honor manage to succeed when everyone else didn’t? The answer is actually quite straightforward: the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air is a bona fide flagship.

Hands on with the Honor Magic V6, the new wafer-thin foldable battery behemoth

‘The most conflicted I’ve ever been about a phone’ — reappraising the i Phone Air, 6 months later

Best phones of MWC 2026: the 6 phones worth knowing about

The secret to the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air's success is in its name: this is a Pro phone. The biggest challenge with other thin phones is that they feel like compromises, whereas Honor chose to make a thin phone that doesn't feel like an objectively worse phone than its flagship Honor Magic 8 Pro.

The i Phone Air prioritized a thin profile over everything else, necessitating its external Mag Safe battery pack and single camera. The display is absolutely fantastic, and its size is fantastic too, but the rest of the phone still requires a series of conscious choices. It’s an excellent phone, but it’s not excellent for everyone — Tech Radar's Axel Metz recently described it as "Apple's most beautiful, most frustrating i Phone."

The Galaxy S25 Edge is slightly thicker than the Air, but it still has a smaller battery than the rest of the Galaxy S25 lineup. And although it has one more camera than Apple's phone, it still doesn’t match the camera credentials of the Galaxy S25 or Galaxy S25 Plus, let alone the new Galaxy S26 series, including the excellent Galaxy S26 Ultra.

Then there’s the Huawei Mate 70 Air, which marks a considerable step towards the sweet spot that, I think, the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air hits. However, Huawei's phone still asks you to make a conscious choice about which features truly matter to you. One particular downside of the Mate 70 Air is its considerably slow charging; another is the quality of its three cameras.

Yes, three is better than two and definitely better than one. But the main camera is 50MP, the telephoto is 12MP, and the ultra-wide is just 8MP. That's not a flagship trio by any stretch. These cameras also come in a body that measures 6.6mm, which is a whole 1mm thicker than the i Phone Air. Granted, the Huawei Mate 70 Air does have the biggest battery of any thin phone at 6,500 m Ah, but it’s a noticeably thicker device than the chief competition.

Then there’s the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air, and Honor made a key decision here that makes the phone truly special.

Rather than consciously choosing weaker specs than those in its flagship sibling, the Honor Magic 8 Pro, Honor instead equipped the 8 Pro Air with a specially developed, thinner version of a nearly identical camera stack. In fact, in many ways, the Magic 8 Pro Air is the representation of what a non-folding version of the new Honor Magic V6 would be.

Red Magic 11 Air review: performance over prettiness

This i Phone 17 rival proves non-Pro phones don't have to compromise on cameras and battery life

It features the same triple-camera setup as Honor’s newest folding phone, including a 50MP main camera, a 50MP ultra-wide camera, and a 64MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom. There’s also a 50MP selfie camera and a color spectrum sensor. In short, it’s an excellent camera array that’s far better than what you'll find in any other so-called 'thin phone'. This is particularly crucial given how important the camera is for many customers at the sharper end of the smartphone price spectrum.

The other key area that's important to most, if not all, customers is battery life, and this is where the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air absolutely excels.

It uses Honor’s latest third-generation silicon-carbon battery technology and packs a 5,500m Ah battery with 80W wired charging, 50W wireless charging, and 5W reverse wired charging. The phone's Media Tek Dimensity 9500 chipset also blends efficiency and performance, delivering flagship-level power without the thermal overhead demanded by processors like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

Those specs wouldn’t look out of place in a regular-thickness phone, but the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air is remarkable in that it boasts all of that hardware in a body that’s just 6.1mm thick. Yes, it does feel a little thicker than the i Phone Air, but I actually love the design, and it feels more like the perfect balance between form and function.

5 things the Magic 8 Pro Air gets right about thin phones

So in summary, there are five key takeaways from the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air that all competitors should take note of, and aim to emulate in future thin phones.

The most important thing is that a thin phone shouldn’t feel like a compromise. The Honor Magic 8 Pro Air doesn’t ask for sacrifices on the core areas that matter most to customers. Rather than feeling like a conscious decision to forego certain features, you are still getting a truly Pro experience, especially compared to the competition.

Then there's the battery life and camera performance.

The biggest challenge with all thin phones so far — the Huawei Mate 70 Air aside — is that you have to accept lesser battery life than you'd get in a true flagship phone. The Honor Magic 8 Pro Air is the opposite.

While its battery life is slightly lower than that of the Magic 8 Pro, it’s still more than acceptable for a flagship phone; you'll get between 5 and 6 hours of screen-on time and excellent standby time on a full charge. That's the sort of on-screen endurance you can expect from most regular smartphones, let alone one as thin as the Magic 8 Pro Air.

The third key spec is the camera, and the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air proves that thin phones can have excellent cameras. Again, the phone doesn’t exactly match the excellent Honor Magic 8 Pro in terms of camera performance, but it still packs some phenomenal cameras that I enjoy using as much as, if not more than, those on my i Phone 17 Pro. That’s a testament to Honor’s desire to ensure that its thin handset lives up to the Pro in its name, and I think it nailed that brief.

The fourth key takeaway is the size of the device. Of course, a so-called 'thin phone' has to be thinner than a typical flagship, and the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air, at 6.1mm, is 2.7mm and 1.1mm thinner than the similarly sized i Phone 17 Pro and Galaxy S26, respectively. Yes, the i Phone Air is even thinner, but I think Honor got the balance right between offering a slim experience and delivering flagship hardware.

The final takeaway is the weight and, subsequently, the in-hand feel. At 155g, the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air is 10g lighter than the i Phone Air (which, admittedly, has a larger 6.5-inch screen), and it feels incredibly balanced in the hand despite its thicker frame.

It feels extremely premium, and just goes to show that you can achieve the same 'wow factor' as the i Phone Air without compromising on features. The vibrant orange color is the undoubted star, though the other choices — including Purple, White, and Black — are excellent as well.

The answer is clear: this is how you build a thin phone

For any company building a thin phone, the product decisions are now clear, as the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air has redefined what a thin phone can and should be.

It’s not about being the thinnest phone possible, but about finding the right balance between thickness and features, form and function. In the case of the Magic 8 Pro Air, that means getting a truly flagship experience in as thin a body as possible, and the result is one of the nicest phones I’ve ever used.

The Magic 8 Pro Air is so good that I can’t put it down. It’s my favorite phone to turn to and carry, and it has replaced the i Phone Air in my arsenal just because it’s still a flagship phone. It’s the only thin phone I would happily use as my primary, and not only is it the best thin phone, but it’s also one of the best phones you can buy right now.

Sadly, it’s only available in China, but it costs just CNY 4,999 (~$725). That means the Magic 8 Pro Air is not only better than its key global competition, but cheaper, too. Your move, Apple and Samsung.

Follow Tech Radar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

And of course you can also follow Tech Radar on Tik Tok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on Whats App too.

Nirave is a veteran tech journalist and creator at House of Tech. He's reviewed over 1,000 phones and other consumer gadgets over the past 20 years. A heart attack at 33 inspired him to consider the impact of technology on our physical, mental, and emotional health.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

1 My 6 favorite old-but-new pieces from the Yeti retro drop

2 The Honor Magic 8 Pro Air proves thin phones aren't just a gimmick

4 Quordle hints and answers for Monday, March 30 (game #1526)

5NYT Connections hints and answers for Monday, March 30 (game #1023)

Tech Radar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Key Takeaways

• News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest smartphones
• News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets
• Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more
• Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards

• ‘I can't put it down’ — the Honor Magic 8 Pro Air is everything I hoped the i Phone Air and Galaxy S25 Edge would be, but aren't