Honor Magic4 Lite review

Basic triple camera setup

Unlike most of the Magic4 Lite's competitors, the device at hand doesn't have an ultrawide camera. It relies only on a 48MP, f/1.8 main camera joined by two 2MP shooters. One is used for depth sensing, while the other takes care of macro photography.

We don't see the omission of an ultrawide camera as a big deal, though. Our experience has shown that the commonly used 8MP ultrawide snapper in mid-range devices for the last couple of years is far from satisfactory. Images are soft, they lack dynamic range and detail, and colors are rarely on point. So Honor skipping it entirely shouldn't be a problem for the majority of users.

As for the front-facing camera, it's a 16MP one with f/2.5 aperture. Nothing too fancy.

Camera menus

The default camera app is business as usual. You can cycle between modes using the carousel-style selector below the viewfinder, while the More sub-menu houses some additional modes. The Pro mode can be found there as well. It gives you control over all essential settings such as focus, ISO, shutter speed, exposure and white balance.

Default camera app

As far as the default Photo and Video modes are concerned, they are quite basic. The former has some filters along with an AI toggle, while the Video mode has a switch for Dual-view. This one lets you record footage using the main back camera and the selfie one simultaneously.

Default camera app

Daylight samples

The overall image quality on the Honor Magic4 Lite is quite underwhelming even for a midranger, despite the ideal weather conditions. The detail is nice, but this is the phone's only strong suit. The samples below come off as a bit soft, and the edges of buildings are jagged if you look close enough. Dynamic range isn't ideal either, as we can often see crushed shadows along with brighter than we would like highlights. Lastly, most of the colors are washed out, except for the visibly vivid blue sky and green foliage and grass.

12MP daylight samples

We also tried the AI toggle, but that changed nothing in the overall rendition. The software often prompted a detection of a blue sky even when there's clearly grass and a building taking 80% of the frame.

12MP AI daylight samples

The 48MP mode is definitely hard to recommend. It shows even softer reproduction, narrower dynamic range, increased noise and no benefit when it comes to detail. In fact, we have a strong suspicion that the software upscales those photos, and this is not a native 48MP resolution. It's particularly noticeable around straight lines as they are all jagged.

48MP daylight samples

Macro samples

There's nothing much to note about the macro camera either. The 2MP sensor performs as it does on all other phones with the same camera. Images are low in detail due to the limited resolution, colors are washed out, and contrast is low. The lack of autofocus and stabilization makes close-up photography a bit of a challenge.

Macro samples

Low-light samples

Relying on the standard Photo mode for nighttime photography isn't advisable. Shadows are darker than they should be, while highlights and light sources are clipped. Sharpness isn't ideal, while fine detail is completely missing from the samples below. Contrast is low, and colors are far from vibrant. Upon closer inspection, noise can be noticed in uniform, well-lit areas. We also noticed that many of the samples we took were blurry due to hand movement.

Low-light samples

The Night mode significantly boosts overall picture quality by balancing out shadows and highlights, improving contrast and sharpness, and you can even notice a good amount of detail in the dark areas. Colors and contrast get a decent boost as well. The trade-off is the long waiting time to take a single Night mode picture. It takes about 5 seconds each, with you having to stand still as much as possible. And in the end, the overall quality is even a tad behind the competition.

Night mode samples

Here's how the primary camera on the Honor Magic4 Lite stacks against the rest of the competition in the controlled environment of our Photo Compare Tool.

Honor Magic4 Lite vs. Poco X4 Pro 5G and the Samsung Galaxy A53 5G in our Photo compare tool

Portraits

Even in ideal lighting conditions, portraits aren't great. Aside from the fairly convincing bokeh effect and edge detection, there's nothing to write home about. The subject's skin is rather pale, although the rest of the colors are nice. All samples are a bit on the soft side, and detail is non-existent. We also noticed that the limited dynamic range keeps the subject's face underexposed even with strong ambient light.

Portrait samples

Selfies

The selfies aren't great but are not particularly bad either. We can say they are just about average. Make sure to keep a steady hand because many of the samples we took came out blurry. Colors need a little boost as well, and noise starts to creep in with lower ambient light, whereas the rest is par for the course. That includes sharpness, detail and dynamic range.

Selfies: Normal • Portrait

Video recording

As we already mentioned in the previous section, the chipset's ISP limits the Magic4 Lite's video recording capabilities, so it caps at 1080p@30fps. There's also a dual-view mode that lets you record with the front-facing and the main back camera all at once.

Anyway, here's the Full HD video. It's far from ideal as it's too soft even for the given resolution. Dynamic range is narrow given the clipped highlights in the distance and the fairly dark objects under the shadow. Perhaps overall exposure is also to blame, as the scene looks darker than it actually is. Colors and contrast are good, though, and noise isn't really an issue here.

Once you are done with the real-life scenarios, take a look at our video compare tool to see how the Honor Magic4 Lite stacks against the other phones we've reviewed.

1080p: Honor Magic4 Lite vs. Poco X4 Pro 5G and the Realme 9 Pro in our Video compare tool