Honor Magic7 RSR Porsche Design review

Introduction

You don't need to drive a Porsche to get a Porsche Design phone. Especially the phone looks as good as the Magic7 RSR, everyone can appreciate its looks even if you don't care about the Porsche pedigree. Though the latter helps it stand out in a way that you rarely see these days.

Porsche Design and Honor have come up with another iconic collaboration with the Honor Magic7 RSR Porsche Design, which must mean that there are enough fans out there, be they Porsche drivers or not, who appreciate such exclusive phones.

Once a BlackBerry domain (even if Sagem kicked off the series), then Huawei's, and now Honor's - the Porsche Design has always brought us unique smartphones packed with the world's most powerful hardware. In recent years, the Porsche Design phones have been beefed up versions of the most premium Huawei and Honor phones. And the Honor Magic7 RSR Porsche Design follows in much the same vein - an upgraded Honor Magic7 Pro model with a completely revamped design, more RAM and storage, and a couple of minor improvements here and there.

As such - this will be a shorter review than usual - taking a look at only the features that make the Magic7 RSR different.

Let's start with the most obvious - the Porsche-inspired design. While Porsche Design couldn't tweak the front, the back has a hood-like design with a peak line and features what has become a signature Honor feature - the giant hexagonal camera module.

The exterior uses only the most premium materials - Honor's NanoCrystal Shield, polished aluminum for the frame, and thick scratch-resistant glass for the Porsche hood-like back panel.

The 6.8-inch LTPO OLED screen has 1,280p resolution, it supports 120Hz refresh rate, 10-bit color depth, HD10+ and Dolby Vision video streaming, and up to 5,000 nits of peak brightness.

A Porsche smartphone needs a powerful engine, we mean chipset, and it gets it - the Snapdragon 8 Elite hums under the hood, coupled with 24GB of RAM and 1TB storage!

Most of the camera department has been borrowed from the Honor Magic7 Pro, too. The hexagonal module contains a 50MP OIS primary with variable aperture for 1x-2x photos, there is a 200MP OIS periscope telephoto for shooting in the 3x-6x zoom range, and a 50MP ultrawide camera with autofocus for closeups. The RSR version here adds a 1,200-point LiDAR system, plus a slight tweak to the 200MP 3x periscope zoom camera, which now features a larger f/1.9 aperture.

The pill-shaped cutout contains a 50MP AF selfie camera plus a 3D ToF system for magnificent portraits and an incredibly secure Face Unlock. Don't you worry, if you don't want to use Face ID, there is also an under-display ultrasonic fingerprint scanner.

The Honor Magic7 RSR is powered by a 5,850 Si/C Li-Ion battery that supports up to 100W wired and up to 80W wireless charging. Reverse wireless charging is also an option. This is the same battery capacity as on the non-EU Honor Magic7 Pro, but notably more than the EU's 5,270 mAh cell.

Honor Magic7 RSR Porsche Design specs at a glance:

• Body: 162.7x77.1x8.8mm, 228g; Glass front (NanoCrystal Shield), glass back; IP68/IP69 dust tight and water resistant (high pressure water jets; immersible up to 1.5m for 30 min).
• Display: 6.80" LTPO OLED, 1B colors, 120Hz, Dolby Vision, HDR, 1600 nits (HBM), 5000 nits (peak), 1280x2800px resolution, 19.69:9 aspect ratio, 453ppi.
• Chipset: Qualcomm SM8750-AB Snapdragon 8 Elite (3 nm): Octa-core (2x4.32 GHz Oryon V2 Phoenix L + 6x3.53 GHz Oryon V2 Phoenix M); Adreno 830.
• Memory: 512GB 16GB RAM, 1TB 24GB RAM; UFS 4.0.
• OS/Software: Android 15, MagicOS 9.
• Rear camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/1.4-2.0, 23mm, 1/1.3", 1.2µm, dual pixel PDAF, OIS; Telephoto: 200 MP, f/1.9, 1/1.4", PDAF, OIS, 3x optical zoom; Ultra wide angle: 50 MP, f/2.0, 13mm, 122˚, 1/2.88", dual pixel PDAF.
• Front camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/2.0, 22mm, 1/2.93", AF; Depth: TOF 3D.
• Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@24/30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/120/240fps, gyro-EIS, OIS, HDR, 10-bit video; Front camera: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60fps, gyro-EIS.
• Battery: 5850mAh; 100W wired, 80W wireless, Reverse wireless, 5W reverse wired.
• Connectivity: 5G; eSIM; Wi-Fi 7; BT 5.4, aptX HD; NFC; Infrared port.
• Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, ultrasonic); stereo speakers.

It seems like the Honor Magic7 RSR Porsche Design has it all figured out and there is not a single missing feature. And there is better news - this exclusive phone costs only as much as your mainstream iPhone Pro Max. Okay "only" may be stretching it when you are discussing some of the most expensive phones on the market, but a designer phone that costs like a regular phones - you don't see that every day.

Unboxing the Honor Magic7 RSR Porsche Design

The Honor Magic7 RSR Porsche Design arrives in premium packaging, quite expectedly. The big black box has a magnetic cover, which reveals a quote from the designer and founder of Porsche: "If you analyze the function of an object, its form often becomes obvious." Neat.

The retail box contains two 100W Honor SuperCharge adapters - one for the EU market and another one for UK sockets - jetsetters will appreciate that. There are even two 6A-rated USB-C cables!

There is a protective case, either black or violet depending on the phone's color, which may be made of plastic, but has a vegan leather exterior and hexagonal textured cloth interior. While the case hides the hood-like back panel, its design still reminds of a sports car with leather and a V-shaped accent around the bottom.

And while we are not that picky, we feel that a pair of, say, Honor's Earbuds Open in a matching color would have completed this already awesome retail bundle.