Tech
Honor Magic V also claims its foldable display is ‘creaseless’
Another foldable launching only in China that’s expensive as hell. But no crease in the display, tho.
Chinese phone makers are going all-in on foldables. In just the past month, Oppo announced its crease-free Find N and Huawei debuted the Galaxy Z Flip 3-like P50 Pocket. Honor, a former Huawei-owned spinoff, is now joining the foldable stage with the Magic V.
The Magic V is available in three colors: Black, Burnt Orange, and Titanium Silver.
Creaseless foldable display — Like Oppo’s Find N, Honor says its Magic V has a “creaseless” foldable display that’s possible thanks to a “waterdrop” hinge — meaning the screen bends more when it’s folded up as opposed to in half like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 3.
Key features — To justify the exorbitant MSRP, Honor’s stuffed the Magic V with an impressive spec list. The outside cover screen is a 6.44-inch curved OLED display with 21.3:9 aspect ratio; the refresh rate is 120Hz and the resolution is 2,560 x 1,080. Honor specifically calls out how the Magic V feels more like a normal smartphone when folded up — a clear diss at Samsung’s Z Fold series.
The inside “creaseless” foldable display measures 7.9 inches unfolded; it has a 90Hz refresh rate and 2,272 x 1,984 resolution. Honor says both screens cover 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with 1.07 billion colors.
Inside, the Magic V is powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon Gen 1 chip that will be commonplace in pretty much all 2022 flagship phones including the OnePlus 10 Pro. The foldable phone comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage (there’s a 512GB model, too); there’s also 5G. The Magic V has a 4,750 mAh battery and support for 66W fast wired charging.
Software-wise, the Magic V is running Android 12 done up in Honor’s Magic UI 6.0.
Honor Magic V specs:
- Exterior display: 6.45-inch OLED (2,560 x 1,080) at 431 ppi — 120Hz
- Interior display: 7.9-inch OLED (2,272 x 1,984) at 381 ppi — 90Hz
- Chipset: Snapdragon 8 Gen 1
- RAM: 12GB
- Storage: 256GB / 512GB
- Rear cameras: 50-megapixel f/1.9 wide + 50-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide + 50-megapixel f/2.0 spectrum enhanced camera
- Front camera: 42-megapixel f/2.4
- Battery: 4,750 mAh
- Charging: 66W Honor SuperCharge fast wired charging
- Bluetooth: Bluetooth 5.2 / Wi-Fi 6
- Dimensions: 160.4 x 72.7 (folded) / 141.1 (unfolded) x 6.7 (unfolded) / 14.3 (folded) mm
Cameras — The primary camera is 50 megapixels; there’s a 50-megapixel ultra-wide; the last lens on the rear is not a telephoto but a 50-megapixel “spectrum enhanced camera”. On the cover screen and the hole punch inside of the foldable display, there’s a 42-megapixel selfie camera.
Launch in China — Like any foldable that’s not from Samsung, the Magic V is launching in China (January 18); no global release date has been announced so far. Also, like foldables of the Z Fold 3 form factor, it’s damn expensive. The Magic V costs a whopping RMB 9,999 for the 256GB version and RMB 10,999 for the 512m model; that works out to roughly $1,568 and $1,725, respectively, at the time of this writing.