The Honor Magic 5 Lite has just been presented. Light, thin mid-range, equipped with an Oled screen and at a reasonable price, we were able to take it in hand.
What is a good mid-range phone? Given the contained price, Honor like any brand must make choices, 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, the Chinese brand independent of Huawei for almost three years seems to have heard our criticisms with the Honor Magic 5 Lite.
Exit the LCD screen, hello the 6.67-inch Oled panel in 120 Hz and Full HD +. The interface has also taken a big facelift since we went directly from Magic UI 4 to Magic UI 6 (Android 12). During a short grip, these two elements immediately jump to the eyes 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 of the panel and of the interface, is very present.
A slim design for a big 5100 mAh battery
The other advantage that immediately jumps to the eyes is the thickness and weight of the Honor Magic 5 Lite. One could say that Honor achieves an all-in on the subject, since the brand even justifies the absence of IP certification by this format, which is alluring and comfortable to say the least. The curved screen ends up making the grip rather pleasant. Let’s add that the brand integrates a detection technology on the edges of the screen supposed to avoid the inconvenience of the curved shape. If the manufacturer does not integrate Gorilla Glass, the manufacturer of the screen, BOE, it still goes for its own certification and protects it all the same 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 would tend to believe them, because the phone incorporates a 5100 mAh battery. A very nice capacity that is supposed to guarantee 24 hours of streaming on YouTube.
Comprehensible concessions
Autonomy, Oled screen, nice design… on paper, it is therefore a phone that seems more attractive than last year, especially at its relatively contained price of 379 euros. On the other hand, as indicated above, it is not exempt from concessions. We think for example of its Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G chip, which may be a little light, or the absence of a charger in the box, yet capable of going up to 40 W. This is another concession: last year the Magic 4 Lite went up to 66W. The promised duration of software support seems a bit tight too, we are told of a follow-up up to Android 14 only. Finally, let’s mention the photo, with 64 megapixel sensors in the wide-angle, 5 megapixel on the ultra wide-angle and a two-megapixel macro, but this is more usual 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 (young people aged 15 to 45) does not hold it against them and instead benefits from a beautiful screen and a product that seems relatively neat.