Honor Magic8 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: From a helicopter over the Grand Canyon

Honor just launched the Magic8 Pro in the UK, and the company is betting big on its camera system. The new flagship arrives with a 200MP Ultra Night Telephoto Camera featuring a 1/1.4-inch sensor with 3.7x optical zoom, paired with a 50MP main shooter and 50MP ultra-wide. Honor is positioning this phone squarely against the best camera phones on the market, so I decided to test that claim against one of my current favorite smartphone camera systems, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Full disclosure: Honor flew me and a group of tech journalists to the Grand Canyon on a helicopter during CES 2026 to test the Magic8 Pro cameras. While Honor paid for the trip, the observations and opinions below are entirely my own.

Let’s be real. Shooting from a helicopter presents some real challenges. The constant vibration makes stable shots difficult, and matching framing between two phones is nearly impossible when capturing fleeting moments through the window of a fast-moving helicopter. I did my best to shoot side-by-side with both devices, capturing everything from the canyon itself to the Las Vegas skyline at dusk.

Main cameras: Processing philosophies collide

I’d say the most striking difference between these camera systems comes down to how they process images. The Honor Magic8 Pro consistently pushes brightness higher than what I actually witnessed, while the S25 Ultra delivers images that feel flatter by direct comparison, but a bit more true to life.

As the sun was setting, the rocky ground that I knew was growing darker looked bright as midday in the Magic8 Pro’s images. The S25 Ultra captured those same rocks with appropriate darkness, even if the result felt less punchy.

That processing approach cuts both ways. A gorgeous landscape shot of the Las Vegas Strip with hotels in the distance and a red sunset behind the mountains is where the Magic8 Pro absolutely nailed it. The phone kept clouds sharp and the downtown area crystal clear. The S25 Ultra's version looks smeary in the mountains and lacks definition in the hotel district.

The color profiles differ dramatically as well. In a vertical shot of a helicopter flying in the distance, the S25 Ultra went auburn and reddish, while the Magic8 Pro produced blue-green tones in the darker elements with yellow in the sky. It’s hard to say which one is right because they are both so different.

Where the S25 Ultra pulled ahead was in dynamic range and detail retention. A shot of the helicopters sitting on the ground in the Grand Canyon shows better HDR performance from Samsung, with more defined clouds and sharper rock textures.

Stabilization matters when shooting from a vibrating helicopter. A vertical shot of the flight console revealed where the Honor struggled, showing slight smearing as if the exposure stayed open a bit too long, while the S25 Ultra captured the same console cleanly.

Night performance over Las Vegas produced interesting results as well, with one shot of a never-ending stream of car lights on a long road through the city looking nearly identical from both phones, and neither of them really succeeded.

Selfie cameras: Too close to call

For selfies shot from inside the helicopter, the S25 Ultra consistently exposed faces darker than the Magic8 Pro. The latter’s brighter approach to skin tones looks pleasant, but those bright white areas in the background sometimes lose dynamic range compared to Samsung's more conservative processing. I imagine this entirely comes down to taste more than anything.

Image fidelity on the selfie cameras is a very close call as well. Looking at the canyon rocks in the background, the S25 Ultra again leans a bit darker, and that makes some of those rocks seem a bit lost and blurry. The Magic8 Pro brightens things, giving those rocks a bit more punch. Honestly, the selfie performance was perhaps the biggest surprise from my testing.

Verdict: Closer than expected

Not having a huge amount of experience with Honor’s flagships in the past, I expected the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra to run away with a clear victory. Surprising to me, that did not happen. The Honor Magic8 Pro holds its own against one of the best smartphone camera systems available, and in certain scenarios, it outperforms the Samsung entirely.

The processing differences really come down to preference. If you want images that pop immediately with boosted brightness, the Honor approach will appeal to you. If you prefer flatter images that preserve more detail for editing, the S25 Ultra delivers that consistently.

The Honor Magic 8 Pro is launching at £1,099.99 in select markets. Too bad one of those markets isn’t the US.