Honor 90 vs Honor Magic 5 Professional: Mid-range vs flagship

The Honor 90 is the newest mid-range smartphone in the marketplace, however how does it examine to Honor’s top-end Magic 5 Professional? 

Though the Honor Magic 5 Professional prices over double the Honor 90, the mid-ranger manages to beat the flagship mannequin in a number of key areas – although there are nonetheless loads of causes to fork out for the top-end smartphone. 

Preserve studying in case you’re caught within the center and uncertain which is greatest on your wants. 

The Honor 90 has higher show dimming tech

You would possibly assume that being a flagship, the Honor Magic 5 Professional has the higher show of the 2 – however that’s not fully true.

Certain, the Honor Magic 5 Professional boasts spectacular specs, together with a 6.81-inch OLED 120Hz panel with LTPO tech that enables it to drop to as little as 1Hz to save lots of battery life that delivers an distinctive viewing expertise, however it will possibly’t fairly compete with the Honor 90’s high-frequency PWM dimming.

It’s tech that first made an look on the Honor Magic 5 Professional, with 2160Hz PWM dimming out there to assist make your eyes really feel extra comfy when scrolling in darker environments – like whenever you’re in mattress – however that has been taken up a notch with the Honor 90.

You see, the 6.7-inch AMOLED 120Hz show of the Honor 90 can go as much as a whopping 3840Hz, additional bettering how simple the show will probably be in your eyes. It’s unclear whether or not that is notable in actual life simply but, nevertheless it’s actually a plus for a smartphone show that’s already fairly decently specced for its £449 price ticket. 

The Honor Magic 5 Professional is extra highly effective

The Honor 90 boasts Qualcomm’s mid-range Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 Accelerated, basically a souped-up model of the 2022 chipset to ship even higher efficiency. That’s coupled with both 8- or 12GB RAM and both 256- or 512GB of storage. 

We’ve not benchmarked the chipset but, so we are able to’t touch upon efficiency specifics, however provided that the common 7 Gen 1 carried out nicely within the likes of the Xiaomi 13 Lite, we’re anticipating good issues right here too. 

Nevertheless, it received’t be capable of compete with the flagship-level Honor Magic 5 Professional and its matching flagship chipset. Extra particularly, the Honor Magic 5 Professional sports activities Qualcomm’s top-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, delivering loads of processing energy alongside 12GB of RAM and a whopping 512GB of storage as normal. 

Our reviewer discovered the Magic 5 Professional to be quick and responsive in use, with not even high-end gaming in a position to sluggish the cellphone down, making it a stable choice for cell avid gamers and smartphone energy customers – doubtless greater than the Honor 90 would. 

The Honor 90 is lighter and thinner

The Honor Magic 5 Professional is a beautiful premium smartphone with quad-curved edges, a digital camera housing that curves into the rear panel and rounded corners, however that doesn’t imply it’s skinny or gentle. Actually, at 8.8mm thick and 219g, it will possibly get fairly hefty within the hand. 

That doesn’t detract from the general expertise a lot although, with our reviewer remarking that the Honor Magic 5 Professional feels exceptionally good in hand in comparison with boxier flagships just like the Galaxy S23 Extremely – doubtless right down to that curvature.

If you happen to actually desire a skinny and light-weight Honor-branded smartphone, the Honor 90 is the one to go for. It’s not solely thinner than the flagship at 7.8mm thick, nevertheless it’s virtually 40g lighter at 183g. It’s not simply skinny and light-weight both; it truly seems fairly premium for a mid-ranger, sporting curved edges and a shocking patterned end that’s actually eye-catching. 

The Honor Magic 5 Professional has Falcon Seize

On paper, the Honor 90 appears like a digital camera famous person, sporting a essential 200MP lens, a 12MP 112-degree ultrawide, a 2MP depth sensor on the rear, and a 50MP selfie snapper on the entrance. We’ve not but examined the digital camera in depth so we are able to’t touch upon efficiency, nevertheless it needs to be famous that there’s rather more to digital camera efficiency than megapixel depend.

With that stated, the digital camera providing of the Honor Magic 5 Professional isn’t fairly as pixel-packed as its cheaper brethren, however there’s loads of digital camera tech happening behind the scenes. The 50MP essential, for instance, sports activities a large f/1.6 aperture for higher gentle consumption and quicker seize, accompanied by matching 50MP 3.5x telephoto and 50MP 122-degree ultrawide lenses.

The huge aperture of the principle lens is what allows Honor’s unique Falcon Seize mode. The title may be a bit nebulous, nevertheless it basically permits for stunningly quick picture seize – even with fast-moving objects. Our reviewer famous that, whereas not all the time on the cash, it managed to seize crisp photographs of his German Shepherd working full-pelt, and few smartphones can try this.  

The Honor Magic 5 Professional additionally takes issues to the subsequent degree with video seize, capping out at 4K@60fps in comparison with the 4K@30fps providing from the Honor 90. 

The Honor 90 is less expensive than the Magic 5 Professional

With all that stated, the Honor 90 represents nice worth for cash at simply £449 with 256GB of storage, or £499 if you wish to go for the upper 512GB storage capability. That’s fairly spectacular for a 512GB variant. 

It’s cheaper than the Honor Magic 5 Professional, which begins at £949 with 512GB of storage, although for the spec on supply, that’s nonetheless fairly good worth – particularly when in comparison with the likes of the £1249 Samsung Galaxy S23 Extremely and £1099 Xiaomi 13 Professional. 

Each are available for purchase now, following the discharge of the Magic 5 Professional in April and the Honor 90 in early July.