Honor Magic4 Lite 5G: Does the balancing act pay off?

The Magic4 Lite 5G, as the name suggests, is Honor's Lite entry into the Magic4 series. In our review process, the smartphone impressed above all with its large display, which should, however, be a little brighter, and good battery runtimes. Moreover, the battery is quickly refilled via the included 66-watt fast charger, and the performance of the Snapdragon 695 is adequate for quickly opening apps and running current games smoothly, even if not at the highest settings.

Honor makes concessions with the camera of the Magic4 Lite 5G, as the device has neither a wide-angle nor a telephoto lens. The 48 MP main camera is accompanied by only two 2 MP sensors for macro shots and depth of field. Videos can only be recorded in HD resolution at 30 FPS. The most convincing feature is the 16 MP selfie camera on the front, with which selfie photos usually turn out well.

The large display is particularly suitable for media consumption, and HDR content is also supported. However, it is not particularly bright at 552 cd/m² and the HDR effect is correspondingly low. The mono speaker is loud, but low frequencies are completely absent. As its name indicates, the Magic4 Lite offers 5G reception and on both SIM card slots. In terms of telephony and voice quality, the smartphone performs quite well, but stumbles in matters of navigation. Although the device is good as a guide for car trips, the GNSS is rather inaccurate, as revealed in our comparison test with a Garmin Venu 2.

Overall, the weaknesses of the Magic4 Lite 5G are manageable if the camera is not the first priority. Although not an outstanding piece of technology, the Honor smartphone is nonetheless a solid mid-range device. However, it needs to be cheaper than the current RRP of around US$ 350 in order to be both competitive and attractive.