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I took this luxury iPhone 16 Pro Max rival traveling – here’s what surprised me

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Porsche Design Honor Magic 7 RSR infront of the Buckingham Palace.
Prakhar Khanna / Digital Trends

Special edition devices are often seen as impractical, unreasonably expensive, and available only in limited quantities. Many also sacrifice functionality for style and luxury. But the Porsche Design Honor Magic 7 RSR breaks that mold. It defies typical luxury phone assumptions, delivers meaningful feature upgrades over the Magic 7 Pro, and doesn’t cost thousands more. This iPhone 16 Pro Max rival is a luxury phone that’s actually functional.

Sure, the Porsche Design Honor Magic 7 RSR isn’t available in the US and is a few hundred Euros pricier than Honor’s 2025 flagship, the Magic 7 Pro. But is it worth the extra cash? I used the phone for two weeks, brought it along on a trip to London, and snapped over 1,000 photos and videos. It might not be for everyone, but if you’re a Porsche fan who wants a useful luxury phone, here’s what you need to know.

Porsche Design Adds a Luxurious Feel to the Magic 7 RSR

The Porsche Design Honor Magic 7 RSR stands out in a sea of glass slabs. It features a bold hexagonal camera module with a “four-eye arrangement”—three camera lenses and a graphical element labeled “Matrix Camera.” According to Honor, it mimics the headlights of a sports car with “aerodynamic aesthetics.”

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Just like the Honor Magic V2 RSR, there’s a “peak line” on the back reminiscent of sleek Porsche hood lines. I used the Agate Grey version, but it also comes in a gorgeous Provence shade. At 228 grams, it’s not the lightest phone, but it’s surprisingly well-balanced for its size. I found it easier to hold than the Galaxy S25 Ultra, thanks to its curved edges and flat sides.

The Magic 7 RSR is tall at 162.7mm and 77.1mm wide—similar to the iPhone 16 Pro Max (163mm x 77.6mm). Despite the size, it’s easier to use one-handed and offers a better front display. You get a 6.8-inch LTPO AMOLED panel with slim bezels on a quad-curved screen, making it feel slimmer than it is.

It supports a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, Dolby Vision, and peaks at 5,000 nits for HDR content. It’s a vivid panel with vibrant colors and sharp resolution. Most importantly, it’s easy on the eyes. If you’re prone to headaches from screen flicker, that’s usually due to low PWM dimming. Honor addresses that with a 4320Hz PWM dimming rate on its flagship phones, including this one.

The display is protected by proprietary NanoCrystal Shield glass, which has held up well so far, after two accidental drops. It’s also rated IP68 and IP69 for dust and water resistance, as well as against pressurized sprays.

Unboxing Feels as Premium as the Phone

Unboxing the Porsche Design Magic 7 RSR is an experience in itself. You’re first greeted by a magnetic cover featuring a quote from Porsche’s founder: “If you analyze the function of an object, its form often becomes obvious.” Inside, you’ll find two charging adapters (EU and UK), 6A-rated USB-C cables, and a premium case.

The included case features a hexagonal cloth interior and a vegan leather exterior, color-matched to your device. I personally prefer using the phone without a case because of its excellent in-hand feel, but it’s nice to get premium protection without paying extra.

A Fantastic Camera System

The Porsche Design Magic 7 RSR boasts a triple rear camera setup: a 50MP primary sensor with a 1/1.3-inch size and f/1.4–f/2.0 variable aperture, a 200MP periscope telephoto lens (3x optical, 6x in-sensor zoom), and a 50MP ultrawide. It handles moving subjects effortlessly thanks to its upgraded LiDAR autofocus system.

I took it through the streets of London, and here’s how it performed:

I would like you to notice the bokeh in these shots. I didn’t click these photos in Portrait mode. They were snapped in 3x photo mode. The optical zoom is brilliant in every way–from details to colors to the subject detection. In daylight as well as in lowlight, the telephoto camera captures excellent shots.

Coming to Portraits, the Magic 7 RSR features Harcourt Portrait effects (in the first three photos) that add a dramatic look to your photos. I love capturing portraits on this phone, thanks to the on-point skin tones, good processing, and a range of options. Though, the processing can be unreliable at times.

The first two photos are of moving vehicles, but there’s no blue to the subject. The Honor Magic 7 RSR manages to capture great dynamic range, good details even in shadows, and retains the real-life look, despite the reds being more vibrant than usual.

I’ve shot a lot of photos at night with this phone, and it delivers better results than other flagship phones, including the iPhone 16 Pro Max. From 1x to 6x, the results retain a good amount of details without getting extra noisy — even in digital zoom.

Overall, this is a stellar camera setup for photos. By comparison, videos aren’t iPhone-level and get noisy if you’re shooting on the move. I snap more photos than videos, and if you’re like me, you’re in for a treat.

What Else?

The Porsche Design Magic 7 RSR also offers flagship-level performance and battery specs. It’s powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, with a massive 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. It’s smooth, fast, and never stuttered during my daily workflow.

For reference, I typically use Slack, Teams, Asana, Google Docs and Sheets, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Google Maps (20+ minutes/day). I also use the camera heavily when traveling. Even with that load, the phone easily lasts a full day.

That’s thanks to the 3rd-gen Honor Silicon-carbon battery tech. You get a 5,850mAh cell with 100W wired and 80W wireless charging. From 10% to full in the time it takes to get ready for work? Yes, please.

It ships with MagicOS 9.0 based on Android 15 and includes an exclusive Porsche theme with black icons and gold trim—a classic luxury aesthetic. However, this only applies to first-party apps, so others like Gmail or Slack keep their usual icons.

MagicOS itself is a mixed bag. I like the extended folders on the home screen (with up to five-grid layouts, better than ColorOS’s three). I can expand Instagram, for example, and get one-tap access to the camera, DMs, new posts, and more. Magic Portal is another feature I love. You can long-press a caption from Instagram, swipe to the edge, and drop it into WhatsApp or Gmail to instantly share—it’s intuitive and super convenient.

Other software perks include Google Gemini support, AI Deepfake Detection, AI Translation, and more. Connectivity is robust too: Wi-Fi 6/7, Bluetooth 5.4, NFC, and USB 3.2 Gen 1 via Type-C.

Porsche Design Honor Magic 7 RSR price and availability

The Porsche Design Honor Magic 7 RSR is priced at 1,799 euros in Europe and 1,799 pounds in the UK. Is it pricey? Yes. But for 24GB RAM and 1TB storage, it’s a better deal than many luxury phones.

It’s about 200 euros more than similarly specced Samsung or Apple flagships—but far from the price hikes we’ve seen on other luxury editions. More importantly, you get five years of software and OS updates, which is rare in the luxury phone space.

There’s no gold coating or diamonds here. Just a bold, distinct design, excellent cameras, great performance, all-day battery life, and a premium build. It proves you don’t have to compromise on features or software support to own a luxury phone.

Prakhar Khanna
Prakhar Khanna is an independent consumer tech journalist. He contributes to Digital Trends' Mobile section with features and…
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