Honor Magic7 RSR Porsche Design review

A unique telephoto camera

Beyond the tweaks to hardware and software design, there are a couple of intriguing differences in the Magic7 RSR's camera hardware that can potentially elevate the image quality even further than the great level that the regular Honor Magic7 Pro already provides.

Update, 27 Feb: Originally, we didn't spend too much time examining the image quality when we first published this review because we thought the camera quality was already good enough, and it's entirely beyond the point when you are getting a designer phone, but we got so many requests about this comparison by our review readers that this page was born as a sort of a follow-up.

Both phones have a similar triple camera setup. A 50MP main camera with a variable aperture, a 200MP 3x camera, and a 50MP ultrawide camera with AF. The front camera is a 50MP AF unit with a 3D ToF system. However, the devil is in the details, as they say.

• Wide (main): 50MP Omnivision OV50K (1/1.3", 1.2µm- 2.4µm), f/1.4-f/2.0, 24mm, multi-directional PDAF, OIS; 4K@60fps, LiDAR autofocus
• Telephoto: 200MP Samsung ISOCELL HP3 (S5KHP3, 1/1.4", 0.56µm - 2.24µm), f/1.88, 72mm (70mm native), multi-directional PDAF, OIS; 4K@60fps
• Ultrawide: 50MP Omnivision OV50D (1/2.88", 0.61µm - 1.22µm), f/2.0, 12mm (122˚), PDAF; 4K@60fps
• Front camera: 50MP Sony IMX 816 (LYT500?, 1/2.93" 0.6µm - 1.2µm), f/2.0, 21mm, PDAF; 4K@60fps

You see, Honor has allegedly changed the main camera sensor on the Magic7 RSR. It's supposed to be Omnivision OV50K instead of the OV50H. Honor did the same sensor switch for the Magic6 Pro/Magic6 RSR. The OV50K has the same optical format (size), but it is supposed to produce a better dynamic range - up to 15EV, according to Omnivision.

Additionally, the 200MP 3x periscope zoom camera on the Magic7 RSR now comes with a larger f/1.88 aperture, which works out to a whole stop of light of difference compared to the Magic7 Pro's f/2.6 aperture. This also means the lens' depth of field should be shallower now, too, giving you stronger background defocus (bokeh).

We were also surprised to discover that the Magic7 RSR's lens has a different native focal length (70mm) than the Magic7 Pro's (60mm). Regardless of this, both phones produce photos at 72mm focal length (the so-called 3x zoom), which means the Magic7 Pro does a bit more upscaling to get there than the Magic7 RSR. You can only get the photos at the native focal length when you shoot in the full-res mode (200MP) - this has been the default approach since the Magic6 Pro series.

And finally, Honor has also added a LiDAR sensor on the Magic7 RSR to help with video autofocusing - they say it's much better with high-framerate videos of up to 60fps but that one is quite hard to test objectively so we'll skip it in the section below.

Camera samples

Here are a few scenes shot with the main cameras of the two phones in trying to gauge if there was any difference in dynamic range, even though it's not like the standard Magic7 Pro was lacking in that respect. We deliberately shot some challenging high-contrast scenes in our hopes to let the RSR version shine. As it turned out, making out differences between the two phones in dynamic range specifically proved quite difficult.

This was already the case when we compared the Magic6 Pro to the Magic6 RSR so there is no surprise here.

Daylight photo samples, 1x: Magic7 RSR PD • Magic7 Pro

The wider aperture on the Magic7 RSR camera was not expected to do much for image quality during the day, and indeed, we struggled to see any consistent differences between the two cameras. A few shots came out with slightly different definition or micro-contrast, but we didn't observe it in other photos, so it's hard to draw conclusions.

Daylight photo samples, 3x: Magic7 RSR PD • Magic7 Pro

The difference in the lens apertures, however, becomes more obvious with close-ups - the depth of field is shallower on the Magic7 RSR, and the background blur level is higher.

Daylight photo samples, 3x: Magic7 RSR PD • Magic7 Pro

That does make the Magic7 RSR better suited to portraiture thanks to the improved separation between subject and background.

People shots, 3x: Magic7 RSR PD • Magic7 Pro

You're welcome to go ahead and do some pixel-peeping in the 6x shots below as well.

Daylight photo samples, 6x: Magic7 RSR PD • Magic7 Pro

We also went out for some low-light samples - here's a comparison between the main cameras.

Low-light photo samples, 1x: Magic7 RSR PD • Magic7 Pro

You can also check out how the 3x telephotos compare in the dark. This telephoto camera comparison was expected to be most interesting.

Low-light photo samples, 3x: Magic7 RSR PD • Magic7 Pro

And finally, a few side-by-side shots at 6x.

Low-light photo samples, 6x: Magic7 RSR PD • Magic7 Pro

Camera verdict

Overall, we didn't see any meaningful difference between the two phones' main cameras. For what that's worth, we even found the Magic7 Pro's main cam sharper after dark.

The wider aperture on the Magic7 RSR telephoto camera held the greater potential for producing meaningful improvements. We certainly enjoyed the shallower depth of field as it produced much more pronounced background defocus and subjects stand out better. However, in low light, we struggled to find any differences in image rendition. Even though the Magic7 RSR's camera consistently had the luxury of using a lower ISO value, both cameras resolved an identical level of detail and had identical noise levels.

Still, we really enjoyed the photos we were getting from the Magic7 RSR. This larger aperture telephoto camera is really something, and we wish we could see it in more mainstream devices too - maybe next year, Honor?