Honor Magic8 Pro Ultra Night Telephoto Camera Review – Low Light and Daylight Field Tests of Their New Flagship Phone
The flagship Honor Magic8 Pro is slated for imminent launch in Malaysia in the coming weeks. While official details are scarce as to its exact specifications including its chipset, exact screen size and type, battery size, RAM and storage options, what is certain are specifications of its rear triple camera system built around what they refer to as the Ultra Night Telephoto Camera that emphasises superior low light performance and telephoto zoom capabilities.
In an earlier briefing, Honor Malaysia has also shared that the Honor Magic8 Pro has been selected as the Selected Photography Equipment for the upcoming Visit Malaysia 2026 event next year which is impressive considering that the phone isn’t yet available in Malaysia at the time of writing.
Ahead of the impending Malaysia launch, we managed to get our hands on an early review sample of the Honor Magic8 Pro to test out what capabilities its imaging setup has ahead of our full review. As we’ve had limited time with the device, we can’t quite yet test the rest of its capabilities beyond its cameras but we’ll keep you posted once we’ve finalised our performance benchmarks.
Honor Magic8 Pro Ultra Night Telephoto Camera Review – The Hardware Specs
To wit, the Honor Magic8 Pro hosts a rear triple camera array built around a 200MP Ultra Night Telephoto camera with a large 1/1.4-inch sensor as well as an f/2.6 aperture. This allows the phone to capture up to 100x digital zoom with an array of AI algorithms helping to smooth out and retain detail even at extreme distances combined with significantly improved hardware.
What is particularly impressive with the 200MP Ultra Night Telephoto camera is its optical image stabilisation (OIS) which has a rated CIPA 5.5 level of stabilisation which is effectively professional camera grade. This makes the Honor Magic8 Pro one of the steadiest phones that we’ve tested so far.
Paired with the 200MP Ultra Night Telephoto camera is a 50MP Ultra Night Main Camera with a 1/1.3-inch sensor and an f/1.6 aperture that also has OIS along to tackle most of the grunt work. Rounding off the beefy telephoto and improved main camera is a 50MP f/2.0 ultra wide angle camera with a 122-degree angle of view.
In addition to stills, the Honor Magic8 Pro this time around has the ability to capture 4K@120fps video which is a step up from last year’s Magic7 Pro which maxed out at 4K@60fps video capture. Up front, the phone has a single 50MP f/2.0 selfie camera with a 90-degree angle of view and up to 4K@60fps video recording capabilities.
Beyond hardware improvements, Honor has leveraged their extensive experience in imaging to add three new imaging algorithms to the Honor Magic8 Pro’s cameras that enhance various aspects of its photography. The first – the Night Engine helps to reduce over exposure in low light scenarios, retain colour accuracy and detail.
The second addition is the Stability Engine that works in tandem with the OIS on the telephoto and main camera to offer the aforementioned CIPA 5.5-level image stabilisation to offer professional DSLR-grade camera steadiness.
In addition, Honor has upgraded their Portrait Engine to offer even better, more lifelike portraiture with more three dimensional-looking faces, more precise adjustments of light and shadow to better highlight facial features and more lifelike skin tones. Honor has also added several new focus length options in Portrait Mode with 23mm, 46mm, 85mm, 135mm and 170mm portrait options.
Honor Magic8 Pro Ultra Night Telephoto Camera review – The AI s able to adjust tint and colours in a shot to yield various effects, changing a noon shot to sundown
Prior enhancements to MagicOS like their Studio HarCourt portrait mode have been retained. Their popular AI Edit Mode is also present on the Honor Magic8 Pro and now has the ability to colour grade a photo based on an existing sample or predefined settings so that shots can achieve a certain aesthetic look. Note that as this is a pre-release unit, some imaging behaviours may change in a future update.
Honor Magic8 Pro Ultra Night Telephoto Camera Review – How Do the Cameras Fare in Daylight and Low Light?
Rather than being optimised for a specific scenario, the Honor Magic8 Pro’s cameras make for a rather versatile setup across all focal lengths and imaging scenarios with an emphasis on good portraiture, superior low light photography and stable telephoto zoom.
When tested, the combination of improved hardware, CIPA 5.5-grade stabilisation and the enhanced algorithms yielded excellent shots in daylight and in low light across the majority of subjects from the usual food shots, people and especially scenery from afar.
Typically, if you max out the digital zoom to 100x, you need to have extremely steady hands or a tripod but the CIPA 5.5-rated stabilisation meant that the Honor Magic8 Pro and its 200MP Ultra Night Telephoto Camera was able to shoot Genting Highlands all the way from Merdeka 118 tower in the daytime and the topmost spire of the Twin Towers from ground level at dusk, yielding viewable shots.
Honor Magic8 Pro Ultra Night Telephoto Camera Review – As a basis for comparison, this was how far away we were from Genting Highlands while still being able to shoot a vast swath of the Kuala Lumpur skyline
Typically, when shooting something that distant, our aim would be all over the place but the Honor Magic8 Pro and its 200MP Ultra Night Telephoto Camera with the Stability Engine made precise shooting of distant subjects a cinch.
Results at 100x zoom are certainly among the most impressive we’ve tested to date in a flagship phone and the cameras work best on architecture and landscapes where the AI can infer and enhance sharpness.
Even so, the Honor Magic8 Pro’s 200MP Ultra Night Telephoto Camera was able to eke out exceptional detail including distant pedestrians at street level around Kota Raya from our Merdeka 118 vantage point – a distance easily spanning several kilometres.
@hitechcentury Hands-on and quick camera test with the new Honor Magic8 Pro that’s coming soon to Malaysia! Check out just how powerful the cameras are as they are able to shoot Genting Highlands all the way from the Merdeka 118 tower at the Park Hyatt’s 98th floor! #honormagic8pro #fyp #hitechcentury #techtok #malaysia ♬ original sound – Hitech Century
On the 50MP main camera, we found that skin tone and portraiture were excellent. While the majority of output offered excellent colour rendition, the ultrawide camera does tend to render tones slightly on the warmer side of the spectrum though it isn’t all that apparent unless you’re pixel peeping up close.
In low light scenarios, the phone offers excellent low light performance with the ability to salvage generous amounts of detail from the shadows while retaining dynamic range and good detail.
Honor Magic8 Pro Ultra Night Telephoto Camera review – The phone is able to retain crisp detail even at 100x zoom for buildings in the distance
However, the AI occasionally fumbles in low light, often rendering the yellowish-orange of car-mounted halogen lights with a slight lime-greenish glow especially in scenarios with multiple different light sources.
Honor Magic8 Pro Ultra Night Telephoto Camera Review – In low light scenarios with multiple differing light sources with different levels of warmth, the camera tends to be a bit overzealous in correcting white balance as can be seen with the halogen lights from the car turning out slightly lime-green
This is likely due to overzealous tint correction but it’s something that can likely be fixed in an update or by simply manually tinkering with the white balance in Pro mode. That quibble aside, this is one of the best camera phone setups seen thus far in 2025 especially for casual point-and-shoot photographers looking to enjoy flagship-grade image quality.
In the meantime, stay tuned for our full review of the Honor Magic8 Pro that’s coming soon as well as the official launch of the phone that will be officially landing on 27 November 2025 in Malaysia!