- Honor Magic V5 is official in China and now offers a better, upgraded, lighter and thinner profile than its predecessor.
- Honor is calling its new hinge as 'Super Steel Hinge' capable of withstanding lots of forces in the opposite direction making it sturdy and durable.
- Honor Magic V5 retails for CNY 8,999 and has arrived in China while its global launch is due.
Honor Magic V5 is official now, and it is one of the slimmest foldable smartphones out there, just after Oppo Find N5 and Huawei Mate XT. We got our hands on the unit, and here’s everything you need to know about the foldable device as it made its debut in China with a global launch expected to happen soon.
Honor Magic V5 Launched in China: Full Specifications
Honor Magic V5 has officially arrived in China, with an aggressive pricing. It does have a few upgrades over its predecessor, which is Magic V3 — Honor skipped V4, keeping with the customs followed in China with regard to the number ‘4’.
When it comes to the specs, Honor Magic V5 packs in an identical set of displays compared to V3. There’s a 7.95” 120Hz 2352 × 2172px LTPO OLED primary foldable panel with 5,000mAh of peak brightness. The cover display, on the other hand, is still humongous at 6.43” 120Hz LTPO OLED panel with 2376 × 1060px resolution and similar brightness levels.
Honor has integrated a Super Armored Inner Screen and Anti-scratch NanoCrystal Shield on the cover display, keeping it super protected from elements. Unlike the predecessor’s IPX9 rating, the latest foldable phone sports a better IP58 and IP59 water and dust-resistant rating, making it more durable than ever.
Under the hood, the device runs on last year’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite fabbed on a 3 nm node clocked at 4.32GHz max frequency and an Adreno 830 GPU. It has up to 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage on-board. On the software front, you’ll get Android 15-powered MagicOS 9 with countless features that you can boast about.
When it comes to the size, Magic V5 stands 8.8 mm in thickness when folded and 4.1/4.2 mm thick when unfolded. It is still a major upgrade over V3’s 9.2 mm thickness, although you might not be able to judge the difference in size right away. Overall, Honor Magic V5 is lighter and thinner than V3. You can have an Ivory White variant at 222g, while the other three colorways — Dawn Gold, Black, and Reddish Brown shed a few grams to give you a 217g weight per unit.
Batteries have seen a major uptick as well. Magic V3 resorted to a 5,150mAh battery; however, Honor has upgraded the tech, offering a 6,100mAh silicon-carbon battery in China, while the global unit will be shipped with a 5,820mAh battery. The charging tech remains unchanged, i.e., 66W wired and 50W wireless charging on the go.
When talking about the camera tech, we have a 50MP wide-angle primary, a new 50MP ultrawide secondary, and a 64MP 70 mm telephoto shooter with a larger 1/2.0” sensor. The front has two 20MP cameras, one for each display.
According to Honor, the phone is now more resistant to drops and scratches than ever, thanks to the use of a carbon fiber support layer, a non-Newtonian silicon gel matrix, and an Alumina coating. WE have got better hinges on-board as well, as the phone now uses something called Super Steel Hinge that can withstand 3 kg of force in the wrong direction.
Honor Magic V5 Pricing
On the pricing side, Honor Magic V5 fetches you a price tag of CNY 8,999 ($1,255) for the base 12 + 256 GB variant. The mid 16 + 512 GB fetches CNY 9,999 ($1,400) while the highest 16 GB+1 TB trim retails for CNY 10,999 ($1,535). You can choose between Ivory White, Dawn Gold, Reddish Brown, and Black colorways. I personally like the Ivory White variant as it looks so polished and sophisticated.
Foldable phones are getting better with every iteration. It remains to be seen how and when Honor launches the Magic V5 globally. Samsung is launching its latest Galaxy Z Fold7 and Flip7 series on July 9, so we will have a lot to compare in the near future.
