The Honor Magic V5 launched under a cloud after multiple sources challenged the company’s claim that its new folding phone was the thinnest in the world. And that kind of misses the point about the Magic V5.
While it’s interesting to see the discrepancy in the figures, a phone’s size is only a small part of a smartphone’s experience. And luckily for Honor, the Magic V5 delivers way more than a thin frame.
Its light design hides two large and bright displays, a gigantic battery and some capable cameras. Plus, the Magic V5 offers strong overall value for money— hard for a foldable device to manage.
It’s a shame that Honor’s going up against the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 — two of the strongest foldable phones we’ve ever seen. It also doesn’t help that these phones are readily available in parts of the world where Honor does not sell phones.
Honor Magic V5: Specs
|
Starting price |
£1,699 |
|
Displays |
7.95-inch OLED (2352 x 2172) inner; 6.43-inch OLED (2378 x 1060) outer |
|
Refresh rate |
120Hz adaptive |
|
Rear cameras |
50MP main (f/1.6), 50MP ultrawide (f/2.0), 64MP 3x telephoto (f/2.5) |
|
Front cameras |
20MP f/2.2) inner selfie, 20MP f/2.2) outer selfie |
|
Chipset |
Snapdragon 8 Elite |
|
RAM |
16GB |
|
Storage |
512GB |
|
Battery |
5,820 mAh |
|
Charging |
66W wired, 50W wireless |
|
Operating system |
Android 15 with MagicOS 9 |
|
Water/dust resistance |
IP58/IP59 |
|
Size |
156.8 mm x 74.3 mm x 8.8 mm folded / 156.8 mm x 145.9 mm x 4.1 mm unfolded |
|
Weight |
217 grams |
|
Colors |
Ivory White, Dawn Gold, Black |
Honor Magic V5: Price and availability
On sale since late August, the list price for the lone 16GB/512GB version of the Magic V5 is £1,699. But between coupons, discounts and special offers, you can likely get it for even less.
Even at full price and with no added bonuses, the Magic V5 is still cheaper than the Galaxy Z Fold 7 ($1,999 in the U.S. and £1,799 in the UK) and Pixel 10 Pro Fold ($1,799 and £1,749), even before accounting for the fact that the Samsung and Google phones start with half as much storage in their base models. You may find it harder to get the Magic V5 from a carrier with a contract though, should you need a SIM along with your new foldable.
Honor Magic V5: Design
Prior to launch, Honor made a lot of noise about how the Magic V5 is the world’s thinnest foldable, both folded and unfolded. We couldn’t back that up when we performed our own measurements, but whether the Magic V5 is a record-holder or not is ultimately irrelevant to the phone’s quality and suitability for a potential buyer.
It is a slim and light phone to be sure, managing the admirable feat of feeling natural to handle whether open or close. And the 217-gram weight, which is slightly greater than that of the 215-gram Z Fold 7, is not really noticeable unless you hold the phone closed and at an extreme angle where the large rear camera block starts to overbalance.
The three available colorways — Ivory White, Dawn Gold and Black — cover all the essential bases of discreet and eye-catching. But if you want the thinnest and lightest possible Magic V5, only the white offers the advertised specs, with the other two models measuring a little thicker and heavier due to their finishes.
To keep your valuable foldable intact, Honor uses Super Armored Inner Screen and Anti-scratch Nano-Crystal Shield materials for the Magic V5’s displays, plus carbon fiber reinforcement beneath the inner screen to avoid damage. The phone is also rated IP58 and IP59 against water and dust intrusion, offering better dust proofing than the Z Fold 7, while trailing the IP68-rated Pixel 10 Pro Fold.
And if that wasn’t enough protection, Honor has also introduced AI-Powered Foreign Object Detection to tell you if you’ve accidentally closed something between the two halves of the inner display, even if it’s the size of a grain of sand. That said, when testing with a piece of paper inserted into the phone, I never got this warning to work.
Honor Magic V5: Displays
The Honor Magic V5 screens all these safety features are looking after are a 7.95-inch inner panel, and a 6.43-inch outer one. Both feature up to a 120Hz refresh rate while also offering Magic-Pen stylus support — notable given that Samsung gave up on S Pen compatibility with the Z Fold 7.
Honor’s own testing claims that both of the Magic V5’s displays are capable of a 5,000-nit peak brightness. We were not able to test the precise figure ourselves, but to my eye, the Magic V5 screen is definitely brighter than the Galaxy Z Fold 7, though not quite as bright as the extremely vivid Pixel 10 Pro Fold, which hit 2,566 nits in our lab.
In terms of the ever-present crease that foldable displays all have down their center line, the Magic V5’s is quite well concealed, with Honor going for a deep but narrow profile. It’s similar to the look of the Galaxy Z Fold 7, while the Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s crease is much wider and more noticeable when light glints off of the screen.
Eye comfort features are again a focus of Honor’s, offering the Magic V5 with various color-altering and brightness-adjusting systems. Most important perhaps is the 4320Hz PWM dimming, which is a crucial feature for users who find they get frequent headaches when using phones.
Honor Magic V5: Cameras
Honor knows how to pack megapixels into a phone. The Magic V5 contains a 50MP main camera and 50MP ultrawide, along with a 64MP 3x telephoto camera on the back. Meanwhile, 20MP selfie cameras grace the inner and outer displays.
Let’s check out some samples, the first of which is of a public art display. Taken with the main cameras of the Magic V5 and the Galaxy Z Fold 7, this comparison shows how the Honor camera has washed out the brightest spots of its photo.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 has nailed the highlights, and provided more detail from the darker spots of the photo, where the Honor has made things look especially dark.
In this close-up of a coffee with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold against Honor’s phone, the Magic V5 again is overly bright, perhaps because of the indoor lighting. The image has lost a lot of detail as a result, while the Pixel keeps everything shap, albeit a little less exciting-looking.
At night against the Pixel, looking up at the Shard, the Honor’s image is brighter all around. But both images have strong detail, meaning picking a favorite ends up as a matter of taste.
Back with the Galaxy Z Fold 7, but still in the dark at Liverpool Street station, we have further proof that Honor’s phone shoots at its best in the dark. The Magic V5’s shot is again the brighter, but still keeping the brightest parts of the image in check, like the lamps. The Z Fold 7’s image is moodier, but its darker treatment of the scene sacrifices detail.
Leaving the main camera and moving to the ultrawide lens, we have the above street scene. Through the Honor’s camera, we have a cooler scene, with a washed-out sky. The brighter tone helps make the hedges, trees and lamppost more visible, but it’s not as balanced as the Z Fold 7 image.
Using the 3x telephoto cameras of the Magic V5 and the Galaxy Z Fold 7, we have this shot of a street lamp. The Magic V5 has drawn the color and brightness out of the shot, although to an unnatural degree. I feel the Galaxy Z Fold 7 has given a more honest shot, but not necessarily a better-looking one.
At 6x, the color difference is lessened, although that seems to be from the Galaxy Z Fold 7 boosting its color rather than the Magic V5 changing much. The higher resolution of the Honor’s telephoto camera helps out with detail, giving the edges of the lamp a sharper look.
As always, we finish with a selfie comparison. Since the Honor uses two identical front-facing cameras, this shot shows what you’ll get whether you have the phone open or closed. As we’ve seen in several of the other photos in this comparison, the brightness of the Honor shot results in a cooler color temperature compared to the Z Fold.
Honor Magic V5: Performance
Honor installed the Snapdragon 8 Elite in the Magic V5, the natural choice for a flagship Android phone in 2025. Previous tests on phones with this chip have proven it’s more than capable of taking on the Tensor G5 used by the Pixel Fold, while being slightly slower than the tuned-up “For Galaxy” version of the Snapdragon chip used by Samsung.
| Row 0 – Cell 0 |
Honor Magic V5 |
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 |
Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold |
|
Chipset |
Snapdragon 8 Elite |
Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy |
Tensor G5 |
|
Geekbench 6 score (single-core / multi-core) |
964 / 4,974 (standard) 3,018 / 8,926 (Performance mode) |
3052 / 9735 |
2334 / 6332 |
|
3DMark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited (score / fps) |
5,562/33.31 |
4739 / 28.3 |
3383 / 20.2 |
|
Adobe Premiere Rush time to transcode (mins:secs) |
0:54 |
0:52 |
2:18 |
The Magic V5’s performance is similar, if not ahead of, its two main rivals. But what was odd was that the Magic V5 underperformed in the Geekbench CPU benchmark until I enabled performance mode, something I didn’t need to do for the 3DMark graphics test. This is perhaps a method of conserving battery unless the user demands full power, but it did leave me scratching my head for a little while.
Numbers aside, the Magic V5 is just as capable of playing the best mobile games as any other flagship phone. Destiny Rising was smooth and beautiful to play, whether on the outer display or the inner one, although I still don’t like how FPS games play on square screens.
The Magic V5 comes with 16GB of RAM, the same quantity as the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, and more than all but the most expensive 1TB edition of the Galaxy Z Fold 7. And at 512GB, the Honor foldable packs a lot more storage while still costing less than both.
Honor Magic V5: Battery and charging
The Magic V5’s 5,820 mAh battery capacity makes it the top foldable in the world for battery size, although the Magic V5 sold in China gets a 6,100 mAh cell. Honor managed this by using silicon-carbon construction to fit more capacity in a limited space, beating Samsung or Google’s offerings by a significant margin.
In my unofficial battery test, where I have phones stream YouTube video over Wi-Fi with the display set at 50% brightness, the Honor drained 25% after 3 hours of inner screen playback; the Samsung and Google foldables lost 20% each. This could be the fault of the Magic V5’s 50% brightness being brighter and more power-hungry than the 50% of the other two phones. Either way, it goes to show you can’t use a milliamp-hour figure to understand battery life alone.
The 66W wired and 50W wireless charging options available to the Magic V5 make it faster to recharge than its competitors, apparently hitting 50% full after 16 minutes and 100% in 43 minutes. Unfortunately, Honor doesn’t include a charger in the box any more so we haven’t been able to verify this claim.
Honor Magic V5: Software and special features
Currently the Magic V5 runs on Android 15, in the form of MagicOS 9. While it’s yet to receive an Android 16 update, there’s still plenty of interesting features to see.
For starters, there’s the new Multi-Flex system. I’ve been critical of previous Honor foldables for lacking flexibility with their multi-app layout offerings so I’m glad to finally see the Magic V5 offer up support for to three apps in split screen, up from two on the Magic V3.
It’s not quite as flexible as OnePlus and Oppo’s Open Canvas system which we’ve seen on the OnePlus Open, as you can only order apps on the Magic V5 in a horizontal or vertical row, like a deck of cards. But you can change their size and order freely, and open a fourth app as an overlay, giving you plenty of opportunity to set up a cluster of apps you want to work between.
Also included in the Magic V5’s AI arsenal are Google’s Gemini and Circle to Search tools, an AI Call Translation option for real-time interpretation, Magic Portal to help suggest relevant apps to open when you’ve selected text or images and Magic Capsule to keep ongoing app activities visible.
Honor recognizes the danger of AI tools as well as their benefits, which is why it also includes a Deepfake Detection feature on its most recent phones. The system relies on a video feed, so it won’t protect you from audio-based scams, but I was impressed to see that the system was able to tell a still image of me was real; an AI-generated profile picture sent by TG’s AI Editor, Alex Hughes, did get flagged as a fake.
Honor Magic V5 owners can now easily share their files and photos with iPhones via an iOS or Mac app. It puts the burden on your Apple-bound friends, but it works while keeping special file types, like Live Photos, intact. It’s also much simpler than trying to negotiate email and message attachments or cloud storage links.
Honor has also upped its game with software support, promising seven years of updates in the U.K. and E.U. for the Magic V5 to match the standard set by Samsung and Google.
Honor Magic V5 review: Verdict
After reviewing the Honor Magic V5 in full, I’m glad to find that it’s a foldable worthy of your hard-earned cash even after the fuss around its size. The lower price compared to Samsung and Google phones is a big plus, but the Magic V5 screens and software offer competitive edges, too. The camera performance didn’t particularly excite me but perhaps the Magic V5’s photos above were more to your taste than those of the other phones.
Anyone in the U.S. who isn’t willing to jump through hoops to get a Magic V5 can still go for a Galaxy Z Fold 7 or Pixel 10 Pro Fold and be quite happy. But if you do live somewhere where Honor sells the Magic V5, it should be given equal consideration alongside Samsung and Google’s offerings. Even after some major upgrades by the competition — especially in Samsung’s case — the Magic V5 refuses to be ignored.