Honor Magic V2 Review: It's a normal flagship that unfolds!
Honor Magic V2 Intro
The official global premiere of the Honor Magic V2 is now behind our back, and this means we had the chance to get a sample in our greedy, techy hands and put it through its paces. Honor claims that this is the world's thinnest inward-folding phone, and it most definitely leaves an impression.
If you've been geeking out about foldables, you probably know that the Honor Magic V2 has already been out in China for a while, and that it's supposedly impressive. But none of those reports prevented us from having a "Wow" reaction when we held it in-hand. So, today we're going to give you the full review of the Honor Magic V2, the ins and outs, the pros and cons, everything. Here we go!
What’s new about the device
- Thinner and lighter than the Galaxy Z Fold 5 (9.9mm, 231g)
- LTPO OLED display with local dimming
- Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
- 16 GB RAM, up to 1 TB storage
- Higher-res telephoto camera — now 20 MP
- Lithium-silicon battery (5,000mAh)
Table of Contents:
Honor Magic V2 Specs
Thin in shape, heavy on the specs sheet
The Honor Magic V2 somehow fits the absolutely best hardware you can find on a foldable Android phone right now — from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 to 1 TB of UFS 4.0 storage. The phone also sports a new battery tech inside, a lithium-silicon anode battery (actually two cells, resulting in combined capacity of 5,000mAh, which is amazing given the size and weight of the phone).
| Specs | Honor Magic V2 |
|---|---|
| Size and Weight | Unfolded: 6.17 x 5.72 x 0.19 in (156.7 x 145.4 x 4.7 mm) Folded: 6.17 x 2.92 x 0.39 in (156.7 x 74.1 x 9.9 mm) 8.15 oz (231.0 g) |
| Display | Main: 7.9 inches, 120 Hz LTPO OLED, 1600 nits Cover: 6.4 inches, 120Hz LTPO OLED, 2500 nits |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 3.2 GHz, 4 nm |
| RAM, Storage and Price | 16 GB / 256 GB 16 GB / 512 GB 16 GB / 1 TB |
| Software | MagicOS 7.2 / Android 13 |
| Cameras | 50 MP wide camera, f/1.9 aperture, OIS 50 MP ultra-wide camera, f/2.0 aperture 20 MP 2.5X zoom camera, f/2.4 aperture, OIS 16 MP front camera |
| Battery Size | 5,000 mAh |
| Charging Speeds | 66 W wired charging 5 W reverse charge (via cable) |
There's a thin layer of vapor cooling chamber inside to keep that Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 performing for longer stretches of time. For a full specs sheet, do visit the Honor Magic V2 specs page.
Honor Magic V2 Unboxing
Nice back cover, dude!
Fancy back cover but no charger in the box
The Honor Magic V2 comes in a big, luxury-looking box, but there's not much to be found inside. The phone lies on top in its unfolded state and underneath you can find the sim tray ejector, a USB-C cable and a back cover. The last one is a nice tough, it's covered with faux leather and has a metal kickstand with the name of the company on it. There's a magnetic metal strip that lies on the hinge, all-in-all a very thought through design.
Honor Magic V2 Design & Colors
Slapping good hinge
The Honor Magic V2 adopts the two-screen foldable design. Meaning, there's one screen on the outside, for "regular smartphone" use, and the big one on the inside, once you open the phone as a booklet.
This is unlike the Honor Magic Purse and the first gen Honor foldables, where the device had a single screen that bends to wrap around the phone when it's in a folded state.
So, what wowed us about the Magic V2? It is incredibly thin. Even when closed, it's barely thicker than a Galaxy S22 Ultra, if at all. And the 6.4-inch external screen means you can very much use it like a "regular" smartphone.
Honor Magic V2 thickness, next to Galaxy S22 Ultra (Image credit - PhoneArena)
We do say that a lot with foldables like the Pixel Fold and the Oppo Find N2. But the Magic V2 is yet another strong entry into that category.
Opening it up, we are greeted by a large 7.9-inch screen, which looks great and allows you to multi-task. Note how the homescreen gives you a lot more freedom with folder sizes and placements, so you can arrange the work space accordingly. As for colors, the main ones are black and purple.
Honor Magic V2 Display
Honor Magic V2 unfolded (Image credit - PhoneArena)
The Honor Magic V2 features two screens, as it is an inward folding device. The good news is that both displays are quite good! The covers screen measures 6.4 inches and we were able to make it hit 1,300 nits in our display test. Now, that's quite far from the advertised 2,500 nits but you know how it goes. In real-world conditions 1,300 nits of brightness across the whole display is quite impressive.
Both displays are LTPO and can switch dynamically between 1 and 120Hz, and the color temperatures and color accuracy is excellent. There's a uniformity in pixel density, which is kind of cool. The cover screen has a resolution of 1060 x 2376 pixels, while the inner 7.92-inch flexible screen has a 2156 x 2344 pixels resolution, both resulting in around 402 pixels per inch.
We know what you're thinking. "What about the crease?" Well, there's a crease, alright, but it's much less pronounced than almost anything we've seen so far on an inward folding phone. The only exception is the Huawei Mate XS2, which has no crease but it folds outward, leaving the display vulnerable, a completely different design.
The side mounted fingerprint scanner is very thin, a compromise needed to keep the overall thin waistline of the device, but it works fast and accurate. Still miles better than any under-display fingerprint sensor.
Honor Magic V2 Camera
Hopefully, the pics will look as nice as the specs
Thin camera module (Image credit - PhoneArena)
The specs of the Honor Magic V2's camera sound great on paper — the main 50 MP camera and the 20 MP telephoto camera both have OIS modules, which should help a lot with both pictures and video. The ultra-wide camera also has a 50 MP sensor, which may end up giving us great detail in landscape shots, but it also may end up being bad with dynamics and in low-light scenarios. Let's check out the samples.
Main Camera - Day
The shots from the main camera turned out quite good, there's a lot of detail and colors look bright and vivid. It the sunny conditions of a very hot February, the Magic V2 struggled a bit with dynamic range. The phone prefers to underexpose dark areas, rather than overexpose bright ones, which in our opinion is the better way to do it.
Low-light
Now, the weather changed like cryptocurrency in the evening, resulting in a very gloomy and rainy conditions. The Honor Magic V2 struggled in these conditions, with mixed results from every single camera. We needed to snap a few shots to get one decent result. Strangely enough, the zoom camera struggled with glares and reflections, while the ultra wide and main camera were able to get a couple of frames right.
Zoom Quality
The dedicated zoom camera is not a periscope one, so the 62mm equivalent focal length (2.5x zoom when compared to the main camera) is just a framing tool, rather than a real zoom lens. 2.5x works great both for landscapes that are too far away, and for portraits (as you will see in the selfie section), but when you go to 10x, which is kind of a hybrid between optical and digital, things are not perfect, especially in low light.
On a bright and sunny day, you can get a decent 10x shot, and the stabilization helps as well. Comes night and the 10x images start to look like a hot mess.
The ultrawide camera produces surprisingly good photos, mainly due to the 50MP sensor, and f/2.0 optics above. This lens has 13mm focal length equivalent whish is half of what the main camera delivers. There's a slight flatness to the images but other than that, the detail, color reproduction and dynamic range are all quite good.
You can use five different cameras to snap a selfie with the Honor Magic V2! There's a selfie camera on the front, in a small hole in the cover screen. Then there's another selfie camera inside the main flexible display, and you can also use each and every camera inside the main module to take a picture of yourself. The last option is simpler than what we had on the Magic Vs, as the controls for the camera show up on the cover screen. You can use Portrait Mode, and if your hands are long enough, even snap a 2.5x shots of your pretty persona.
Ultra-wide Camera
The ultrawide camera produces surprisingly good photos, mainly due to the 50MP sensor, and f/2.0 optics above. This lens has 13mm focal length equivalent whish is half of what the main camera delivers. There's a slight flatness to the images but other than that, the detail, color reproduction and dynamic range are all quite good.
Selfies and portraits
You can use five different cameras to snap a selfie with the Honor Magic V2! There's a selfie camera on the front, in a small hole in the cover screen. Then there's another selfie camera inside the main flexible display, and you can also use each and every camera inside the main module to take a picture of yourself. The last option is simpler than what we had on the Magic Vs, as the controls for the camera show up on the cover screen. You can use Portrait Mode, and if your hands are long enough, even snap a 2.5x shots of your pretty persona.
Video Quality
The Honor Magic V2 can shoot 4K videos at up to 60fps and that's what we did on the sample below. The phone supports HDR10+ and 10bit color in this mode, plus OIS and gyro-based EIS. The video turned out excellent, and the image stabilization was quite impressive as well.
Honor Magic V2 Hardware and Performance
Melt my heart, not my processor
It's a pretty big deal that the Honor Magic V2 packs UFS 4.0 — the new storage chip that's capable of read and write speeds twice as fast as UFS 3.1 before it. That alone is a pretty hefty upgrade.
It stands to reason that the flagship foldable will have a flagship chipset — the Honor Magic V2 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 purring from the inside. The vapor chamber helps with cooling but you can't trick physics and in device that thin thermal throttling is an issue (as you can see from the stress test). Owning such as thin foldable comes with some performance tradeoffs but the good news is that most of them are "on paper."
The real life performance of the Honor Magic V2 is top notch, without any hiccups, performance drops, or glitches.
The software on board is Honor's MagicOS, with enhanced features to provide multitasking options for that big screen inside.
Curiously, you are limited to only using two apps at a time — whether it is in floating window mode or in split-screen. Samsung will often allow you to default to 3 in split screen or about 5 in floating window mode. We do think that's a bit overkill, but it's nice to have the option — we wonder why Honor decided on the 2-app-cap.
All that aside, the UI is laid on top of Android 13, though the operating system is barely recognizable. It's a heavy departure from what you'd typically see on an Android phone with a lot of iOS-like icons and control sliders.
Honor Magic V2 Battery
Say what?
The Honor Magic V2 packs a 5,000 mAh battery in that thin chassis, which is quite impressive, especially when you consider there's also a vapor chamber there to cool the CPU. The secret behind this high capacity is called a lithium-silicon anode battery. We have a separate article to explain all this but long story short, by imbuing the carbon anode with silicon nanocrystals, Honor was able to bump up the capacity by around 20%.
Honor Magic V2 Charging Speeds
For charging, you can get up to 66 W, which is not the fastest out there but it's still quite respectable. One caveat though — only the 1st party Honor charger unlocks this speed. Other standard chargers can still get you quick charging of 40 W, if you find a compatible 10 V/4 A brick.
Wireless charging isn't mentioned in the specs sheet, but if it's a Qi (1) standard, the most common ones give you 7.5 or 10 W. The Honor Magic V2 does support reverse charging to top up accessories with a 5W output from its USB port.
Honor Magic V2 Speakers and Audio Quality
The Honor Magic V2 has two drivers shooting in stereo from its slim body. They are positioned rather awkwardly on the top and bottom of the other fold, the one with the cover screen. This creates a strange effect where you hear the sound from the left when listening with the phone unfolded. The sound quality itself is rather good, with clarity and definition but the overall volume is quite low.
Honor Magic V2 Competitors
The Honor Magic V2 is on the global scene now and it faces the Google Pixel Fold on the form factor front and then the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, which is the most popular foldable right now. Another great foldable is the OnePlus Open - it actually won the "Best foldable" category in our annual awards article, so this one is a strong competitor, as well.
Galaxy Z Fold 5 next to Honor Magic V2 (Image credit - PhoneArena)
The Honor Magic V2 does have what it takes, including support for a separately-sold stylus, powerful hardware, and awesome design. There are two things that work against this high-end, sleek and stylish foldable. The first one is availability. This model is not as widespread as the Galaxy Z Fold 5. The second key element is... drumroll. The price. You need to part with 2000 euros to get this phone, which is more expensive than a Z Fold 6, even prior to Samsung's great trade-in programs.
Honor Magic V2 Final Verdict
This is certainly a phone that attracts the attention of anyone that's into the new foldable tech. It is pretty, it is very thin, it's packed to the brim with high tech. Oh, did we mention it also supports a (separately-sold) stylus? The UI... may not be everyone's cup of tea, but the hardware is absolutely beautiful.
People nowadays are cautious and careful with any tech that comes from China, but we're happy to report that Honor has done what's necessary to create a really high end brand, capable of going against the big boys. Unfortunately, all this comes at a price, a hefty one, quite literally. If you're prepared to pay it, you will get an excellent foldable.
People nowadays are cautious and careful with any tech that comes from China, but we're happy to report that Honor has done what's necessary to create a really high end brand, capable of going against the big boys. Unfortunately, all this comes at a price, a hefty one, quite literally. If you're prepared to pay it, you will get an excellent foldable.
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