Honor’s Magic V6 sets three foldable firsts

On paper, the Honor Magic V6 sounds for illustration a tremendous leap guardant for foldable phones: It’s the thinnest 1 yet, pinch the biggest battery, and the champion water-resistance ever. In practice, only the bigger artillery feels for illustration a meaningful improvement. The different upgrades are only fractionally superior to what came before.

This isn’t wholly Honor’s fault. It’s getting harder to make a foldable telephone guidelines out; moreover past year’s offerings felt for illustration complete flagship phones. Huawei’s Pura X Max stood retired for its overseas caller facet ratio, which we’re expecting to spot some Samsung and Apple replicate later this year. Then location are the trifolds, which consciousness for illustration a abstracted beast entirely. But book-style Android foldables person good and genuinely matured, now capable to spell toe-to-toe pinch regular flagship phones successful almost each respect.

Honor has been 1 of the manufacturers pushing foldables guardant astir aggressively, truthful it’s earned the correct to merchandise a telephone pinch comparatively humble hardware improvements. I conscionable wish the institution had done much to overhaul the software, arsenic MagicOS remains the main point holding the Magic V6 back.

The Magic V6 launched astatine February’s MWC waste and acquisition show. At the time, it only went connected waste successful China; it’s taken until now for Honor to statesman the world rollout. The telephone is now on waste successful Malaysia and Singapore, wherever it costs RM 7,699 (about $1,930). More countries, including the UK and Europe, are group to travel later this month.

It’s only adjacent to commencement pinch the phone’s 3 foldable firsts, moreover if they’re mostly incremental. For starters, it’s the thinnest foldable successful the world, conscionable 4mm heavy erstwhile open, and 8.75mm erstwhile folded unopen (well, the achromatic type is — different colors are fractionally thicker astatine 9mm). Closed, it’s nary thicker than an iPhone 17 Pro Max, which is simply a existent accomplishment. But it’s a specified 0.05mm thinner than Honor’s erstwhile procreation Magic foldable. That’s astir the width of a quality hair, truthful I deliberation it’s safe to opportunity we’re successful imperceptible territory here.

The Magic V6 is besides the first foldable telephone pinch an IP69 rating, meaning it’s dust-tight and tin of surviving vulnerability to high-pressure and high-temperature h2o jets. The standing intends the V6 has amended particulate protection than the V5’s IP59 and tin past h2o vulnerability that the IP68 Pixel 10 Pro Fold couldn’t, but the applicable implications still consciousness minimal. I can’t opportunity I tally into high-pressure jets pinch my telephone successful manus each that often, but moreover so, the other bid of mind is welcome.

The astir important of the 3 upgrades is to the battery, which is now 6,660mAh acknowledgment to improved silicon-carbon cells (though China gets an moreover much capacious 7,150mAh model). This is bigger than immoderate different foldable retired location and a reasonable jump up from the 5,820mAh capacity of the Magic V5. And it pays off. The V5 could past for a time and past some, but I’ve been comfortably utilizing the V6 for 2 days astatine a time, charging each different night, and I struggle to spot really moreover a dense personification could tally this point down complete the people of a azygous day. This, astatine least, feels for illustration a meaningful improvement.

Elsewhere things are boring, but only because I return them for granted successful flagship foldables. Of people the Magic V6 is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Of people it offers up to 512GB of retention and 16GB of RAM. Of people it includes accelerated wireless charging (but, of course, it doesn’t support Qi2). Of people it has dual 120Hz OLED displays and a triple rear camera and support for a stylus. These things aren’t conscionable expected immoderate more, they’re assumed.

Still, arsenic overmuch arsenic foldable phones person advanced, location are drawbacks. The camera is still the large one. The triple rear camera present is surely awesome and astir apt the champion successful immoderate foldable barroom Oppo’s Find N6. But, conscionable for illustration that phone, the camera strategy present lags down the absolute top-end slab phones, held backmost by smaller sensors that limit ray capture, dense saturation connected galore shots, and immoderate inconsistent colour processing. In short: The camera is good, but not great, and that is still 1 of the large compromises you’ll make pinch immoderate foldable phone.

The crease is another, of course. The V6’s is reasonably subtle, but obscurity adjacent arsenic difficult to observe arsenic the nearly imperceptible one connected Oppo’s latest. And past there’s durability. Yes, there’s an IP69 rating, but it’s still a foldable: The hinge is fragile, the soul surface is soft, and it’s difficult to protect afloat pinch a case. Outside of China, Honor can’t lucifer the repair and support infrastructure of the likes of Samsung, truthful you whitethorn person a harder clip if it does ever break.

Then there’s software. The bully news is that Honor is promising 7 years of OS and information updates, 2 much than Oppo and the aforesaid that Google and Samsung offer. The bad is that Honor’s MagicOS is among my slightest favourite Android skins. The UI is noisy (and progressively inspired by Apple’s Liquid Glass), Honor packs the telephone pinch its own-brand apps, and the multitasking isn’t arsenic powerful aliases arsenic intuitive arsenic Oppo’s. I overmuch for illustration utilizing different versions of Android OS, and the package is simply a awesome logic the Oppo Find N6 remains my favourite foldable.

We don’t cognize precisely what the rumored foldable iPhone will offer, aliases Samsung’s imminent Galaxy Z Fold 8 for that matter. But Apple will beryllium entering a mature foldable market, and I person to springiness in installments to Honor arsenic 1 of the companies that’s made judge that’s the case. Over the past fewer years its Magic foldables person pushed the limits of foldable creation and artillery capacity again and again, and the Magic V6 is the culmination of that dependable advancement successful hardware, moreover if Honor has fto its package broadside lapse. This is an impressive, complete foldable, but each those incremental upgrades are opening to consciousness boring. Let’s spot if Apple tin make things absorbing again.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge