After the brief report we got on the Honor Magic 8 Pro (including benchmark runs and camera samples), we now have an update on the review’s progress for you, with some more significant numbers now ready. We did the usual battery testing, plus a few rounds of charging and here are the results.
Honor Magic 8 Pro Battery Life
The battery capacity of the Magic 8 Pro varies by region. The China version gets the largest capacity at 7,200mah, while the European Magic (like the version we’re reviewing) 6,270mah are capped.
There is another version for markets outside of China and Europe, which should be 7,100mah. Regardless of locale, the battery uses silicon-carbon anode technology.
The Euro version of the Magic 8 Pro is the one we’ve extended our tests to here, though it’s the lowest of the three. We got an active usage score of 19:07H, with excellent numbers in individual tests. Indeed, the Oppo Find X9 Pro is still slightly better (7,500mAh is a lot of battery), but the Magic 8 Pro is miles away from other major rivals and a significant step up from the previous generation.
Our new Active Usage Score is an estimate of how long the battery will last if you use the device with a combination of all four test activities. You can adjust the calculation based on your usage pattern using the sliders below. You can read about our current battery life testing procedures here. For a comprehensive list of all tested devices so far, head this way.
Charging speed
The Magic 8 Pro, globally, is rated for 100W charging whether using the proprietary charger or the USB Power Delivery One, while the Chinese version’s specs increase the proprietary capacity to 120W. We didn’t have a charger that came with our review unit, but we dug out a 100W Honor Supercharge adapter we’ve kept from previous models, so we experimented with that. We also tried some later USB PD adapters for good measure.
Using the Honor 100W adapter, we got a brief peak of 73W when starting from empty, and took us to 100% in 40 minutes, with the phone showing 81% at the half-hour mark. The numbers were even worse with the 100W USB Power Delivery brick – with no, say (70W, 42 minutes, 79%). A 67W adapter was still slightly behind (50W, 46 minutes, 76%).
Mind you, you’ll be best off with a USB power delivery adapter that has PPS queries spanning 20/21V, as the phone receives fastest at 18V, while lesser adapters can limit it to 9V – with a charger like this we were seeing 69% at the half-hour mark which is almost a meaningful difference compared to more capable alternatives.
Regardless of which of these chargers we used, after reporting a 100% state—reporting about 25 minutes—one of them was the longest.
With both 100W options, you’ll need to press the bubble on the screen when you plug in the charger to go into boost mode and squeeze the maximum charging speed out of the phone. This option does not appear with less powerful adapters.
The Magic 8 Pro supports wireless charging and the company quotes 80W maximum when using a wireless charger at home. We didn’t have one for testing, but we tried a 25W QI2-compatible third-party charger and got single-digit power at the input end, so unless you’ve got an Honor charger, don’t expect to use wireless charging for anything but overnight top-ups. Reverse wireless charging is also supported.
That’s it for this episode – stay tuned for the full review.
