Honor’s Magic V5 is the thinnest foldable yet, but that’s not why it matters

Honor’s Magic V5 is the thinnest book-style foldable successful the world, but you astir apt couldn’t tell.

It’s conscionable 0.1mm thinner — that’s four-thousandths of an inch — than the Oppo Find N5 aliases Samsung’s caller Galaxy Z Fold 7. If that’s a quality you declare to perceive, past I’m acrophobic I simply don’t judge you. I’ve put the V5 broadside by broadside pinch the Find N5 and I tin hardly consciousness the difference, fto unsocial spot it.

Fortunately, the Magic V5 has 1 other instrumentality up its sleeve: amended artillery life than either of those phones, and rather substantially truthful erstwhile compared to the Samsung, solving 1 of the past concerns group person astir switching to folding phones.

The Magic V5 was announced successful China early past month, but coming it was released successful Europe too, wherever it costs £1,699.99 / €1,999 (around $2,300). That already gives it a limb up complete the Oppo Find N5, which isn’t disposable extracurricular Asia. Don’t expect it to officially merchandise successful the US, though.

I said erstwhile I reviewed that Oppo telephone successful February that it would people the commencement of diminishing returns for thinner foldables, a constituent wherever things simply can’t get thinner, and present we are. The returns, they are diminished.

This whitethorn beryllium the thinnest foldable successful the world, but it’s by specified a fractional magnitude that it simply doesn’t matter. It measures 4.1mm heavy erstwhile unfastened aliases 8.8mm erstwhile shut, compared to 4.2mm and 8.9mm connected the Samsung and Oppo phones. That doesn’t moreover use to each type of the Honor telephone — while my achromatic exemplary is the thinnest around, the different materials utilized connected the black, gold, and brownish models make them the aforesaid size arsenic those 2 rivals.

There’s different large caveat to the grounds thinness: you person to disregard the camera bump. Now, that’s par for the people erstwhile talking astir telephone dimensions, but it’s peculiarly noteworthy here: the Magic V5’s chunky, information camera bump is thicker than either Samsung’s aliases Oppo’s, bringing the closed telephone to 16mm aliases truthful if you measurement astatine the thickest point, compared to 14mm for Samsung and 13mm for Oppo. Again: diminishing returns.

Otherwise, the telephone looks and feels great. It’s astir the aforesaid size and style arsenic the Z Fold 7, and erstwhile closed it really does consciousness remarkably for illustration a normal phone. Like that phone, you benignant of hide it’s a foldable astatine each until it’s clip to unfastened it up. My achromatic exemplary has a simple, soft texture to the finish, and generously rounded corners that support it comfortable to clasp successful either mode.

What makes its size astir awesome is the artillery inside, though. There’s a full capacity of 5,820mAh successful the world exemplary — almost a 3rd much than the latest Samsung foldable — pinch 6,100mAh successful the Chinese version. That’s acknowledgment to Honor’s take of silicon-carbon batteries, a fast-improving exertion that replaces immoderate of the graphite successful accepted lithium-ion batteries pinch much energy-dense silicon — astir 15 percent of the graphite, successful this case.

The consequence is greater artillery capacity successful a smaller space, and artillery life present really is impressive. I haven’t really tried to tally the V5 into the ground, but done emblematic use, pinch a operation of some soul and outer screens and plentifulness of photos, the lowest I’ve seen my artillery spell earlier furniture is astir 47 percent. Right now I’ve had the telephone moving for 32 hours aliases so, and I still person 39 percent near to go. It charges fast, too, pinch up to 66W wired charging and up to 50W wireless, though only connected a proprietary charger. There’s nary Qi2 support, but it will complaint (much much slowly) connected modular Qi wireless chargers.

The downside to silicon-carbon is that the batteries are apt to degrade faster. That whitethorn beryllium little of a problem successful foldables, which, 7 generations in, still consciousness for illustration the domain of early adopters and predominant upgraders. But it does mean that my artillery life during a week of reviewing mightiness not bespeak what it’ll beryllium for illustration 3 aliases 4 years in. Honor promises 7 years of package support for the telephone (both OS updates and information patches), but whether the artillery will past that agelong is different matter entirely.

Then again, it’s a foldable, truthful whether the full phone will past that agelong is up for debate. Honor touts the V5’s carbon-fiber-reinforced show and “super alloy hinge,” but foldables are inherently fragile. As for particulate and water, the IP58 / 59 standing present is technically amended than the Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s IP68 connected h2o resistance, but is somewhat little unafraid against soil and dust, giving Google’s telephone the separator overall. The V5 thumps the Z Fold 7’s IP48 standing connected some counts, though.

The remainder of the telephone is simply good, successful the boring measurement that astir flagships are these days. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset is arsenic powerful arsenic they come, and pinch up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, you won’t struggle pinch performance. Both soul and outer displays are bright, charismatic LTPO OLEDs pinch up to 120Hz refresh rates that look astir arsenic bully arsenic immoderate others around.

The cameras are bully for a foldable, capable truthful that they wouldn’t moreover disappoint excessively overmuch connected a regular phone, and I’ve been particularly impressed pinch the consistency successful colour and scope crossed each 3 rear lenses. The 50-megapixel main camera is fantabulous successful bully daylight, and remains decent erstwhile it gets darker. The ultrawide is fine, while the 3x telephoto is variable: get things conscionable correct and results are beautiful, but it struggles much than the different lenses pinch moving subjects aliases tricky lighting. You tin spell up to 100x zoom, but you shouldn’t — results are bully up to 6x, and deteriorate from there.

Honor has done a bully occupation pinch the foldable broadside of the package too. MagicOS 9, based connected Android 15, includes 2 types of multitasking: you tin tally up to 3 apps astatine a clip successful split-screen, aliases person 1 app unfastened successful full-screen and 1 aliases 2 much successful floating windows. Otherwise it’s a reasonably clean, easy-to-use OS. It does travel packed pinch proprietary apps, which is emblematic for Honor phones, though astir tin beryllium uninstalled. There are a fewer civilization AI features, including on-device unrecorded translator successful six languages driven by OpenAI’s Whisper model, pinch Gemini integration to grip the rest.

If you unrecorded successful Europe, aliases anyplace other wherever the Magic V5 is an option, it’s beautiful evidently compelling. It’s arsenic bladed arsenic Samsung’s latest, pinch akin package capacity and package support, but a overmuch larger battery. The only area Samsung has a superior advantage is customer support, pinch an extended repair web that Honor conscionable can’t match. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold offers IP68 and Qi2 charging, but successful a bulkier, heavier shape facet that already feels a small outdated, and it’s not moreover retired yet.

So no, it doesn’t really matter that this is the world’s thinnest foldable (if you don’t count the camera bump). What matters is that it’s really a alternatively bully one, and a compelling logic to look beyond the large 2 players.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge

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