Honor Magic V3 review: The new book-style foldable to beat?

In principle, book-style foldables are the best hybrid system. You basically get two gadgets in a single, with a full-sized cellphone that opens to disclose a small pill.

Nevertheless, each single mannequin launched thus far has had not less than one massive flaw, whether or not it’s a cumbersome design, poor cameras or sub-par battery life.

On paper, the Honor Magic V3 addresses all three, whereas providing top-tier shows, quick charging and an array of options – together with loads of AI.

Does that make it the primary no-compromise book-style foldable you could purchase? I spent over every week utilizing the Magic V3 as my primary cellphone, and have loads of ideas.

Design & Construct

• Unimaginable skinny and lightweight design
• IPX8 score

The Magic V3’s design is just unbelievable.

I didn’t assume Honor may do any higher than the Magic V2, which was already ridiculously skinny at 9.9mm when folded, however it’s gone one higher right here. The Magic V3 is simply 9.2mm, making it the thinnest book-style system on this planet.

Examine that to the 12.1mm Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and you may see simply what Honor has achieved right here. Even the corporate’s common Magic 6 Professional cellphone is barely barely slimmer at 8.9mm.

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Alongside a weight of simply 226g (lighter than many non-folding telephones), the Magic V3 is a marvel of engineering. You should utilize the duvet display screen with out even understanding the interior show is there, which is definitely the final word objective for all book-style foldables.

I used to be involved that such a skinny and lightweight design would make the system really feel flimsy, however that’s not the case. The Magic V3 incorporates a ‘Tremendous Metal’ hinge which feels impressively robust and strong.

I need to’ve opened and closed it greater than 100 instances with out ever having to fret about being too cautious. Nevertheless, it’s value noting that the hinge presents numerous resistance, so you’ll be able to’t simply open it one-handed.

The physique of the system is created from what Honor calls ‘Particular Fiber’. I can’t confirm the corporate’s claims of wonderful drop safety, although the system does really feel very solidly constructed.

Elsewhere, anti-scratch glass on each screens helps them keep secure. The pre-applied display screen protectors add an additional layer of safety, even when a few scratches have already appeared on my overview unit.

With its IPX8 score, the Magic V3 is rated to outlive submersion in as much as 2.5m of freshwater, up from the standard 1.5m normal.

Nevertheless, there’s no official safety in opposition to mud. With a hinge that’s recurrently uncovered to the weather, this isn’t a cellphone you’ll wish to take to the seaside.

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Getting full mud safety on a foldable is extraordinarily troublesome, however the IP48 Galaxy Z Fold 6 is not less than rated in opposition to stable objects bigger than 1mm.

Nevertheless, that’s the one design draw back that I can see. If the modern ‘Black’ mannequin I examined is slightly plain for you, the ‘Inexperienced’ and ‘Reddish Brown’ choices add a splash of color and look nice in individual. Matt finishes on all three restrict the looks of fingerprint smudges.

The octagonal digicam bump can also be certain to show heads, however I just like the distinctive look and it doesn’t protrude from the again of the cellphone a lot. Be ready to place up with some dust across the edges, although.

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Honor continues to construct a bodily fingerprint scanner into the ability button, which is a clever transfer on a foldable. It’s naturally positioned on the best aspect when open or closed, and is a dependable various to the much less safe face unlock.

It’s additionally value mentioning the haptics, which ship refined but life like suggestions whereas typing, switching apps, charging and extra. The vibration motor is the very best I’ve tried on any foldable, although it will probably simply be disabled in Settings should you’re not a fan.

Screens & Audio system

• 6.43-inch cowl show
• 7.92-inch inside show
• Twin stereo audio system

Like every book-style foldable, the Magic V3 has two shows. On the surface is a 6.43-inch cowl display screen, which opens to disclose a 7.92-inch inside panel.

And I’m glad to report that each screens are up there with the perfect you’ll discover on any foldable. They’ve loads in frequent, as LTPO OLED screens which might robotically regulate between 1-120Hz, balancing smoothness with energy consumption.

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Being OLEDs, you additionally get the standard wealthy, vibrant colors and deep blacks, which makes them superb for photograph and video content material.

A pixel density of 402ppi ensures element and readability are each glorious, giving resolutions 2344 x 2156 (inside) and 2376 x 1060 (cowl) respectively. The interior display screen additionally will get noticeably brighter, however you’ll be able to count on a high tier viewing expertise on each.

Nevertheless, that uncommon decision means the interior display screen could be very sq.. When watching movies and taking part in some video games, you’ll need to put up with massive black bars above and under the content material, which means you lose among the good thing about that bigger show.

In fact, there’s additionally a crease down the center of it, although Honor has minimised its impression right here. You may really feel it beneath your finger, however it doesn’t have an effect on navigation in any respect, and you may solely see it when the display screen is switched off or displaying black content material.

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

The Magic V3’s twin stereo audio system are located on the high and backside of the cellphone. That’s nice when the system is folded, however slightly impractical when unfolded, the place sound is barely popping out of the left aspect of the system.

Even so, you’ll be able to count on pretty punchy audio. There’s a pleasant hit of bass and no distortion, even at excessive volumes, although they lack the room-filling audio you get from some tablets.

Specs & Efficiency

• Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and 12GB RAM
• Nice efficiency, however drop-off on inside display screen
• 512GB of non-expandable storage

As a flagship system launched in 2024, it ought to come as no shock that the Magic V3 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. It’s Qualcomm’s newest and best chipset on the time of writing, although the 8 Gen 4 isn’t distant.

Alongside 12GB of RAM, on a regular basis efficiency is great, no matter which show you’re utilizing. I recurrently used the duvet display screen to ship messages, take pictures and for navigation, then switched to the interior show for internet shopping and watching movies.

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

The transition between apps and screens is completely seamless, with no hesitation or slowdown in anyway. And the addition of that prime refresh fee makes the entire expertise really feel very premium. I can’t fault it.

Sadly, there’s a greater distinction with regards to demanding duties. The Magic V3’s giant inside show makes it an excellent candidate for gaming, however efficiency is demonstrably worse than on the duvet display screen.

This gained’t be a problem for informal titles, however there are some noticeable dropped frames whereas taking part in demanding video games reminiscent of Genshin Impression, Asphalt Legends and Name of Obligation: Cellular that you just don’t get on the duvet show.

At no stage was it sufficient to make them unplayable, however it does take the shine off the gaming expertise. If gaming is a precedence for you, you may wish to rethink shopping for the Magic V3, or any book-style foldable for that matter. The bigger show dimension means diminished body charges are nearly inevitable.

Nevertheless, throughout these demanding workloads, you don’t want to fret about overheating. Honor has performed an excellent job with the cooling system on the Magic V3, to the extent that it solely ever obtained barely heat to the contact.

The one mannequin obtainable in Europe presents 512GB of storage, which is greater than sufficient for most individuals. There’s house for 2 SIM playing cards or eSIM, although no assist for expandable storage.

Elsewhere, with Wi-Fi 7, 5G and a rock-solid Bluetooth 5.3 connection, plus NFC for contactless funds, connectivity is one other sturdy level.

Honor Magic V3 benchmarks

Within the chart under, I’ve included the upper GFXBench scores recorded on the duvet display screen, which provide a fairer comparability to rivals.

Cameras

• 50Mp primary rear lens, may also be used for selfies
• 50Mp 3.5x telephoto
• 40Mp ultrawide
• Twin 20Mp front-facing sensors

In complete, the Honor Magic V3 has 5 digicam lenses. Some are glorious, others are good, and one is slightly underwhelming.

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Let’s begin with the 50Mp primary lens, which is up there with the very best sensors you’ll discover on any smartphone, foldable or not. Element and dynamic vary are constantly glorious, and I discovered it to deal with publicity very nicely. Whether or not I used to be taking a photograph of meals, buildings, a road or advanced panorama, a high-quality picture was nearly assured.

See a variety of pictures within the gallery under:

That extends to low-light environments, the place the primary lens excelled. I like the way in which it brings scenes to life, preserving element and subtly brightening the picture with out ever wanting unrealistic. See a few samples on the finish of the slideshow above.

When slightly farther from my topic, the 50Mp telephoto sensor comes into its personal. The lens presents as much as 3.5x optical zoom, permitting you zoom in with solely a really slight drop-off in high quality.

That is helpful in quite a lot of situations, although I’d have appreciated to see 5x or increased. As quickly as you go previous 10x, high quality declines sharply, with the max 100x digital zoom solely there for exhibiting off to others.

Both of those lenses can be utilized to take portrait-style pictures. Identical to the Honor 200 Professional, the Magic V3 presents a alternative of three modes right here, in collaboration with Studio Harcourt, the basic French images studio.

It’s set to Harcourt Vibrant by default, which intently matches the fashion you’ll get in common pictures. Which means saturated, punchy pictures with colors that actually pop, although they’re not precisely true to life.

The extra muted Harcourt Color is a bit more life like, whereas Harcourt Traditional delivers the black and white pictures many people will probably be aware of.

See under for a comparability of all three, with Vibrant adopted by Color after which Traditional:

Whatever the mode you select, portraits are an actual energy of the Magic V3. It’s constantly nice at edge detection, delivering a practical background blur that may be adjusted earlier than taking the photograph. Undoubtedly, that is the very best foldable for portrait images.

Sadly, the third rear lens is nowhere close to as spectacular. The 40Mp ultrawide sounds nice on paper and could be helpful in quite a lot of situations, however the drop-off in high quality made me very reluctant to make use of it.

Color accuracy, element and publicity are all compromised, which is an actual disappointment. It’s not unusable, however I’d solely use it as a final resort when you’ll be able to’t stand additional again.

For the very best selfies, I’d extremely advocate utilizing the primary lens, the place the duvet show permits you to preview pictures earlier than they’re taken. However this may be fiddly at instances, so it’s good to know that the 20Mp sensors atop each screens nonetheless supply respectable high quality.

See selfies under from the primary digicam, adopted by cowl show and inside show lenses:

That features video, the place each entrance and rear cameras can shoot in as much as 4K. For the very best outcomes, use the telephoto lens, which options OIS (optical picture stabilisation) for regular footage.

Battery Life & Charging

• 5150mAh battery
• 66W charging with charger in field
• 50W Qi wi-fi charging

The Magic V3 has one of many largest batteries you’ll discover on any foldable. It’s a 5150mAh cell, making it a lot bigger than the Galaxy Z Fold 6’s 4400mAh capability.

Regardless of two shows to energy, battery life is superb. My testing time with the Magic V3 has included a variety of utilization patterns, from simply a few hours of display screen time at house to over eight hours whereas travelling.

On every event, a full cost lasted me your entire day, even when it obtained shut on a few events. With extra typical average use, you’ll be able to count on to finish the day with 25% or extra cost to spare.

Nevertheless, it’s value noting that I usually used solely the duvet display screen round 75% of the time. For those who choose the larger show, or plan on gaming for a few hours or extra, the battery will deplete far more shortly.

Unusually, our ordinary PCMark battery check doesn’t replicate this spectacular battery life. A rating of 8 hours and 4 minutes is under common, although it’s value noting that this was carried out on the extra power-hungry inside show.

If you do run out of battery, the Magic V3 boasts spectacular charging credentials. Not solely does it assist 66W quick charging, however the needed charger can also be included within the field.

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Utilizing it, the system went from flat to 49% in quarter-hour, then 80% by the half-hour mark. A full cost took simply 47 minutes.

If that’s not sufficient, the Magic V3 additionally helps 50W Qi wi-fi charging, although you’ll have to purchase that charger individually.

Software program & Apps

• MagicOS 8 over Android 14
• Hit-and-miss AI options
• No particular software program replace dedication

Out of the field, the Magic V3 runs Honor’s MagicOS 8 software program. It’s primarily based on Android 14, however has a really totally different appear and feel, plus a lot of further options.

A few these have clearly been impressed by Apple. Splitting the notification tray and fast Settings works identical to it does on iOS, whereas the ‘Magic Capsule’ across the cowl display screen selfie digicam bears greater than a passing resemblance to the Dynamic Island.

Nevertheless, neither of those annoy me. The truth is, they really feel extra intuitive than the expertise on a Google Pixel cellphone.

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

What I can’t ignore is the bloatware, which suggests a lot of apps are pre-installed by default. A few of Honor’s personal instruments are high-quality, however there are dozens you’ll need to take care of. And third-party apps reminiscent of AliExpress, Reserving.com, Fb and TikTok are completely pointless, even when some folks will discover them helpful.

Then there are the AI options. Honor has added synthetic intelligence to nearly each nook of the Magic V3 expertise, although outcomes fluctuate considerably.

Among the many most helpful is ‘Magic Portal’, which lets you seamlessly drag and drop textual content and pictures between supported apps, of which there are actually fairly just a few. This will now be used to immediately search a picture utilizing Google Lens, which I discovered to be very useful.

‘Nose to nose translation’ works identical to Samsung’s Interpreter for in-person interactions. I can’t confirm the accuracy, however it precisely recognised what I used to be saying in English and shortly translated it. I couldn’t determine show the dialog on the duvet display screen, like you’ll be able to on the Z Fold 6, however it appears to be potential.

Inside the Honor Notes app is a powerful audio transcription and translation instrument. It really works in actual time and does an excellent job of recognising when totally different individuals are talking.

In principle, ‘AI Eraser’ is rather like Google’s Magic Editor, letting you take away objects from a scene and use generative AI to fill within the background. Nevertheless, each time I attempted it, it ended up changing the eliminated object with one thing totally different. For instance, it swapped out a cushion for a bag one one event, and fruit for a bottle of water on one other. I by no means requested for these!

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Name high quality is superb on the Magic V3, although I’m unsure how a lot of a distinction the ‘AI Privateness Name’ and ‘AI noise cancellation’ options are making. And ‘AI app strategies’ seems to simply counsel lately used apps to me.

Multitasking options embody side-by-side apps and floating home windows, although the OnePlus Open’s ‘Open Canvas’ method nonetheless makes extra sense on a big show. And plenty of third-party apps nonetheless aren’t optimised to profit from the interior display screen.

Honor hasn’t stated how lengthy the Magic V3 will get software program updates for, however it’s prone to match the Magic V2’s three main OS updates and 5 years of safety patches. When Samsung presents seven of each on the Galaxy Z Fold 6, that’s slightly underwhelming.

Worth & Availability

Honor has confirmed that the Magic V3 will begin from £1,699.99 within the UK, which is similar worth because the earlier technology Magic V2.

It’s obtainable outright by way of the Honor UK web site and by way of Amazon, Argos and Very.

On contract, it’s obtainable by way of O2 and Three proper now, with EE and Vodafone to come back.

As ordinary, the system gained’t be bought within the US in any capability.

The outright worth means its going head-to-head with the very best book-style foldables you should purchase. These embody the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 (from £1,799), Google Pixel 9 Professional Fold (from £1,749) and OnePlus Open (from £1,599).

Must you purchase the Honor Magic V3?

For those who’re on the lookout for the very best book-style foldable {hardware} on the market and are prepared to pay for it, sure. For mainly everybody else, no.

Worth stays the massive sticking level, whereas Honor’s tackle Android feels cluttered and complicated at instances, regardless of some helpful AI options.

Nevertheless, you shouldn’t ignore the Magic V3’s strengths, of which there are loads. The gorgeous skinny and lightweight design deserves a lot of plaudits, whereas each shows and a few cameras are a pleasure to make use of.

You can even count on stable battery life, spectacular quick charging and flagship-level efficiency, regardless of a slight drop-off on the interior display screen.

The Magic V3 stays too area of interest and costly a tool for most individuals to think about, however Honor has achieved one thing very particular on the {hardware} aspect.

Specs

• MagicOS 8.0, primarily based on Android 14
• Outer show: 6.43-inch 2376×1060, OLED, 120Hz
• Inside show: 7.92-inch, 2344×2156, OLED, 120Hz
• Energy button fingerprint sensor
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
• 12GB RAM
• 512GB storage
• 50Mp, f/1.6 primary digicam
• 40Mp f/2.2 ultra-wide digicam
• 50Mp f/3.0 telephoto
• Twin 20Mp f/2.2 front-facing cameras
• Twin stereo audio system
• Twin-SIM
• Wi-Fi 7
• Bluetooth 5.3
• 5150mAh battery
• 66W wired charging
• 50W wi-fi charging
• 156.6 x 74.0 x 9.2mm (folded)
• IPX8 score
• 226g
• Launch colors: Black, Inexperienced, Reddish Brown