Honor Magic 6 RSR Porsche Design Review: A luxury high-end phone

Verdict

The Honor Magic 6 RSR Porsche Design is a very expensive phone that surprisingly manages to justify its price. If you’re seeking a blend of luxury, performance and photographic chops, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Introduction

When we reviewed the Honor Magic 6 Pro recently, we were impressed. It’s a serious competitor to the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, with camera performance that often exceeds what Samsung’s top flagship is capable of.

Now, this impressive handset has been given the Porsche Design treatment, giving it an ultra-premium look and feel, as well as some brand new features. Unfortunately, that means a sky-high price too, but if you want luxury, then that’s something you’ll need to pay for.

It’s the first phone to hit the market with a dual-layer OLED tandem display, it sports a new LiDAR autofocus sensor and the unique design speaks for itself. Add 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage to the mix, and you have an ultra-ultra-flagship on your hands.

The question is, with a £1599 price in the UK, can the Honor Magic 6 RSR possibly be worth your hard-earned cash? I was excited to find out, and after switching to it as my main device for over a week, here’s what I think.

Design 

• Porsche Design makeover has made it heavier.
• NanoCrystal glass, titanium details
• Agate Grey and Frozen Berry colour options

The Honor Magic 6 Pro was already a chunky heavyweight phone, and with the Porsche Design makeover, it gets even heavier. This is a phone that you’ll definitely notice in your pocket, but it feels great in the hand, thanks to smooth, rounded edges on all sides.

I have the Frozen Berry version in for testing, inspired by a Porsche Taycan colour option, and to be honest, it wouldn’t be my first choice. It’s a very shiny pinkish-purple colour, and it definitely stands out. The Agate Grey option (inspired by the 911) has a much more subtle finish, and it’s matte, so your fingerprint smears will be much less noticeable.

Both colourways have the same unique hexagonal camera units, with a titanium bezel and the signature Porsche flyline running down the centre. It’s a design that’s sure to get noticed, especially in a market filled with circular and square camera bumps. Personally, I think it looks great. 

Despite the high-gloss treatment on the Frozen Berry version, the phone isn’t too slippery and it’s easy to get a good grip on it. So if you want to use it without a case, you might be able to get away with it. However, not many people will feel the need, as there’s an extremely high-quality Porsche Design case included in the package.

It’s quite similar to the case that came with the Porsche Design Magic V2 RSR, with a leather-effect finish and central stitching that traces the flyline on the rear of the phone. It reminds me of a luxury car steering wheel, and I’m sure that’s very much intentional.

The phone comes in a large presentation box, and mine has both a European and UK fast charger included with it, though I imagine this will vary depending on your region.

It’s mostly made from a thick, premium-feeling card that is probably better for the environment than plastic, but it does close with magnets, which may counteract some of those good intentions.

Screen 

• 6.8-inch 120Hz dual-layer OLED
• 1280 x 2800 pixels
• 5000-nit peak brightness

One of the biggest differences between the Magic 6 RSR and the Magic 6 Pro is the display. This model introduces a dual-layer OLED for the first time on any smartphone, intending to increase display longevity without sacrificing brightness or performance.

Smartphone displays are getting brighter and brighter, and the Magic 6 Pro already claimed the highest output numbers of the lot, a staggering 5000 nits. In the long-term, though, this extremely bright display is more likely to fail than a display with a more modest brightness.

The idea of a dual-layer display is that it essentially stacks two OLED screens on top of each other. Both run at a lower brightness level, but combined, they give the appearance of a brighter display. It’s an expensive option, but in theory, it means the display will last 600 times longer than a traditional OLED, and lose less than 1% of brightness output after three years of use.

Obviously, I can’t talk about how long this display lasts, having only used it for a week or so, but I can say it’s stunning. It’s extremely bright and vibrant, and HDR content looks incredible. It’s up there with the Galaxy S24 Ultra in hot contention for my favourite smartphone display on the market.

Like the Magic 6 Pro, it’s a curved edge design, and as much as I love flat displays, the curved design works excellently here. It makes gesture control feel lovely and natural, while simultaneously making this sizable handset easier to wield.

The NanoCrystal glass coating should ensure that it’s plenty durable, too. Honor demonstrated this by hitting screens with hammers at MWC. I won’t be doing that myself, but so far I haven’t noticed even the faintest mark, despite using it without a screen protector.

Cameras 

• Uses LiDAR to speed up autofocus time
• Improved dynamic range
• One of the widest ultrawide cameras around

The Honor Magic 6 RSR Porsche Design shares the same camera hardware as the Magic 6 Pro, but there are two key differences. Rather than using laser autofocus, the RSR uses LiDAR. This speeds up the autofocus time and allows for 60fps live-tracking of subjects. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the 6 Pro on hand to test side by side, but it’s a noticeable increase in focusing speed compared to my daily driver, the Vivo X100 Pro.

The other change is that the dynamic range has been increased, presumably with software optimisation. It now captures up to 15 stops of dynamic range on the main sensor, whereas the Magic 6 Pro maxes out at 13.5 stops. It’s a subtle difference, as the Magic 6 Pro already had excellent HDR results, but it’s an improvement nonetheless.

We’ve already praised the Magic 6 Pro’s camera performance, and with these changes, things only get more impressive. Photos from the RSR have very accurate and natural colour renditions with a good level of detail that never looks over-sharpened.

In the day, it excels at freezing motion, making it an excellent choice for fast-moving subjects and sports photography. Large sensors and wide apertures across all lenses make it brilliant for shooting in the dark, too.

The system as a whole is quite unorthodox, the main camera has a variable aperture, but it only shifts between f/1.4 and f/2.0. You can see the difference when shooting extreme macro closeups, but you’re unlikely to notice it the rest of the time. It’s a cool feature, but the Xiaomi 14 Ultra’s f/1.63 to f/4.0 range makes a little more sense to me.

Then, there’s the 180MP 2.5x periscope zoom. This has a higher resolution than any other telephoto camera on the market, and a larger sensor than most, too. However, the 2.5x reach is a lot shorter than most of the competition, and the idea is that the high resolution compensates, allowing you to digitally zoom much further than usual.

It works to an extent, as the results are comparable and often preferable to the S24 Ultra at zooms up to 10x, but it can’t quite match the longer optical focal lengths of phones like the Oppo Find X7 Ultra when you push past that. That said, at 2.5x it looks better than any of the competition, as almost every other phone is digitally cropping the main sensor.

Elsewhere, you get one of the widest ultrawide cameras around and an excellent selfie camera with a wide field of view and autofocus. The main camera is the most impressive, but every lens performs excellently, and together these cameras form a nice versatile package.

For video shooting, you can capture at up to 4K 60fps on every camera, and you’ll benefit from more professional options than you’ll find on most smartphones. There’s everything here including LOG profiles, 24fps options, LUTs, artificial bokeh, beautification and more.

Performance 

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
• 24GB RAM, 1TB storage
• Dual stereo speakers, DTS:X Ultra

The Honor Magic 6 RSR Porsche Design runs on Qualcomm’s top SoC, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, so we already know it’s going to be a top performer. To take things to the next level, though, the Porsche Design version doubles the RAM and storage of the standard Magic 6 Pro to a whopping 24GB and 1TB, respectively.

These kinds of numbers are more at home on a high-spec gaming laptop than a phone, so this device should handle any amount of multitasking, gaming or content creation with ease. In practice, that seems to be exactly the case.

The phone feels rapid no matter what you’re doing. Swiping around the OS is lightning quick and tasks that normally slow phones down, like opening a large image gallery for the first time, pose no threat to this device.

Will most people notice the difference between 24GB of RAM and 12GB? Absolutely not, but it’s there for the select few that need it. 1TB of storage, on the other hand, can be appreciated by just about anyone.

Of course, it’s great for gaming, too. Genshin Impact at maximum settings seems like a walk in the park for this handset, and after 30 minutes of smashing up Hilichurls, it was barely warm.

Software 

• MagicOS 8.0 based on Android 14
• iOS-inspired features
• AI functions built in

The software is sure to be a love-it-or-hate-it kind of situation. The phone runs MagicOS 8.0 on top of Android 14, but in many ways, you could mistake it for Apple’s iOS. The inspiration is clear, and you’ll find Apple-like features and layouts littered throughout the system.

Personally, I quite like it. Especially the Dynamic Island clone dubbed Magic Capsule that pops out from the camera hole, giving you quick access to your media controls in all situations. It’ll certainly take some getting used to if you’re coming from stock Android; aspects like the separated notification shade and quick settings menu can be particularly jarring. On the flip side, if you’re moving over from iOS, it may be easier to adapt.

I’m not a big fan of the Porsche Design theme that is applied by default, as it’s a little too blingy for me, but thankfully there are endless customisation options that allow you to make the device your own. The options include lots of lock screen customisation, themes for your app icons, always-on-display images and more.

There’s even a standby mode, just like the iPhone that can display a clock or image gallery when your phone is propped up in a horizontal orientation. Unlike the iPhone, though, the Magic 6 RSR doesn’t need to be charging to use this mode – you can set it to start whenever you prop the phone up.

There are some AI-infused features present here, but Honor’s MagicLM chatbot has yet to materialise. During my testing, the only one that got much use was Magic Portal. This analyses the context of what you’re doing, and then you can drag text or an image to the side of the display to search or share with other apps.

It’s a bit of an unusual gesture to get used to, but once you do, it’s undeniably handy. I particularly liked being able to drag an image into the Google Search icon as a bit of a Circle to Search alternative. It’s great for navigation, too. You can just drag an address from WhatsApp to Google Maps and you’re on your way.

On the first setup, there’s a bit of bloat to clean up, but it’s nothing too egregious. Aside from Honor’s apps, you’ll find a handful of random bits like Trip.com and WPS Office. You can delete them in a matter of seconds, but it goes without saying that you shouldn’t have to on a device costing this much.

Battery life 

• 5600 mAh silicon-carbon battery
• 80W wired charging
• 66W wireless charging

The Honor Magic 6 RSR Porsche Design packs a 5600 mAh second-generation silicon-carbon battery, and it’s the largest battery of any smartphone that I’ve tested to date. This new battery tech allows Honor to squeeze more milliamps into a smaller pack, while simultaneously being kinder to the environment, it’s good stuff.

In use, the battery life was astonishing. I’m used to low-powered mid-range handsets offering two-day battery life, but on a high-powered flagship, it’s almost unheard of. If used sparingly, this handset can manage that with ease.

As a bit of an anecdote, I took the Honor Magic 6 RSR with me on a long day of meetings in London. It’s something I do quite regularly, and I always take a power bank to top up on the way home, as using maps for navigation and watching content and playing games on my journey always rinses the battery. The RSR didn’t need a top-up, and I found myself back at home at nearly midnight with over 60% battery remaining. It’s super impressive.

When it eventually dies, it’s back up and running in no time. 80W wired charging equates to a full charge in about 45 minutes, while a 50% charge takes less than 20 minutes. It supports ultra-fast wireless charging too, but you’ll need Honor’s wireless charger for that, as other chargers will default to around 20W max.

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