Honor Magic4 Lite 5G Camera test

Competing in the Advanced price segment, the Honor Magic4 Lite 5G is the most affordable option in Honor’s Magic4 line. The device is powered by a Snapdragon 695 chipset and comes with a 6.81-inch LCD display, 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

The rear camera features a 48MP main module, accompanied by a 2MP depth and macro cameras. There are no ultra-wide or dedicated cameras. Video can be recorded in FullHD resolution.

Let’s see how the Honor Magic4 Lite 5G camera compares to the competition in SBMARK Camera tests.

Key Camera Specifications:

• Primary: 48MP sensor, 26mm equivalent focal length, f / 1.8 aperture lens, PDAF
• Depth: 2MP sensor, f / 2.4 aperture lens
• Macro: 2MP sensor, f / 2.4 aperture lens
• Flashing LED
• 1080p / 30fps video

About SBMARK Camera Tests: For scoring and analysis in our smartphone camera reviews, SBMARK engineers capture and evaluate over 3000 test images and more than 2.5 hours of video in both controlled laboratory environments and indoor and outdoor natural scenes, using the default camera settings. This article aims to highlight the most important results of our tests. For more information on SBMARK Camera Test Protocol, please click here. More details on how we rate smartphone cameras can be found here.

Test summary

With a SBMARK Camera score of 95, the Honor Magic4 Lite 5G nowhere comes close to the top of the Advanced rankings. The camera is capable of producing decent images that are somewhat desaturated in good lighting conditions, but things fall apart slightly in low light and other challenging conditions.

In still image mode, exposure is good in bright light and indoors, but we did see underexposed images when shooting in low light or high contrast situations. A cool bluish cast of white balance may be visible in outdoor images, and a yellow cast may appear in low light conditions. Colors are desaturated in all conditions. Autofocus works fairly accurately, but a slightly shallow depth of field means subjects in the back of a scene can be made soft.

The level of detail captured is slightly low in low light and the images lack fine detail. This is partly due to slow exposure times which often result in a slight blurring of the image. Noise is well handled on faces but is noticeable on solid backgrounds in most conditions. Our testers also observed some blending artifacts, as well as ringing, noisy edges, and color quantization.

In this indoor image, the dynamic range is quite wide, with good exposure on the face. The white balance is neutral, the level of detail is quite high, and the noise on the face is well under control.

The main problem with the camera is the repeatability of the exposure. HDR processing is not always triggered, which can result in very different looking images in a series of consecutive shots. In this example, you can see that the first and third shots show quite good dynamic range, with decent detail in the background sky and good exposure of the subject. However, the compression of tones results in a lack of contrast. The center shot looks very different, with a sharp cutout in the background and an underexposed subject.

Frame 1: Wide dynamic range, good subject exposure

Frame 2: limited dynamic range, underexposed subject

Frame 3: Wide dynamic range, good subject exposure

The Honor is not equipped with an ultra-wide camera and has to do without a dedicated telephoto lens. This means that digital zoom is used for zooming into the distance. Consequently, the canvas images have little detail. Dynamic range is also limited, and portrait subjects are often underexposed. There is also noise in the image and moving subjects tend to be blurry.

Honor Magic4 Lite 5G, long range tele

Honor Magic4 Lite 5G, crop: lack of detail, noise, underexposure on the face

Samsung Galaxy A33 5G, long range telephoto lens

Samsung Galaxy A33 5G, crop: lack of detail, noise, slight underexposure on the face

Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro, long range tele

Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro, crop: lack of detail, noise, slight underexposure on the face

In video mode, the noise is well under control and the autofocus reacts quite accurately and quickly. However, the video mode is held back by some fairly important issues, including the lack of stabilization and severe underexposure in low light conditions.

In addition to the aforementioned lack of stabilization, in this example, we can see a lack of dynamic range which results in strong contrasts, as well as clipping of shadows and highlights. Color rendition on skin tones, greenery and sky is better on comparison devices, and we can also notice some exposure instabilities. On the plus side, the noise is well under control and the autofocus works well.