REVIEW: HONOR Magic V5

Foldable phones used to be all about novelty. An impressive technical trick at first, then a compromise once you lived with them for a few weeks. Having used the HONOR Magic V5  for the last number of week though, this device changes that conversation.

It’s one of the thinnest foldables you can buy at 8.8mm when closed (for the Ivory White model in particular, the Dawn Gold model measures in at 9mm), yet it packs a huge 5,820mAh battery, a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor and some clever software tools that make the big inner screen genuinely useful. Here’s what I thought of HONOR’s most impressive foldable yet.

Design & Build Quality

First thing you notice is the weight, or lack of it. At 222g, the Dawn Gold model feels more like a standard flagship than a bulky foldable. Open it up and the profile is a ridiculous 4.2mm thin, which looks almost wrong the first time you see it. This is a device that slips into a pocket without the brick-like feel that older foldables carried.

The HONOR Magic V5 is about as thin as four bank cards stacked up when unfolded | TheEffect.Net

The hinge feels solid, no creaks or crunches, and the folding action has that reassuring resistance you want. HONOR has thrown in their Super Steel Hinge with a tensile strength rating that sounds like something from an engineering exam, but in real-world use, it just feels sturdy.

The crease? It’s there if you tilt it into the light, but in day-to-day use it barely registers. Add IP58 and IP59 ratings, scratch-resistant glass and a carbon fibre reinforced inner panel, and I found myself not really worrying about every tiny knock, which is some additional peace of mind when using the device.

Saying that, if you are someone who must always have their phone in a case (and given this particular phone’s price tag) you’ll probably want one, HONOR have thankfully included a stylish matching case with the V5, with a little pop out ring stand for propping the device up for watching films or to simply use it as a stand. A very nice touch.

I can’t skip the screens because they’re stunning. Both the inner and outer panels hit 5,000 nits peak brightness, which means bright sunlight isn’t an issue, and HDR content looks incredible. Watching Netflix in Dolby Vision on that inner 7.95″ screen feels like carrying a mini cinema in your pocket.

I binged a couple of episodes of Squid Game in HDR and the contrast was unreal: deep blacks, vibrant highlights, and none of the washed-out look you sometimes get on foldables.

Scrolling Twitter or Instagram on the outer screen feels sharp and fluid too, thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate. But the big panel is where it really shines. Whether you’re dragging apps into split-screen or streaming HDR content, it’s a display that makes you want to keep the phone unfolded as much as possible.

Software Features

When it comes to software, HONOR’s MagicOS 9.0 runs the show, and while it looks familiar if you’ve used an HONOR phone before, the big inner display unlocks some new tricks. Multi-Flex is probably the one you’ll use most.

Three apps on screen at once sounds like a gimmick until you’re juggling a video call, a doc and your inbox all on that 7.95″ display.

I found myself planning a weekend trip this way: Google Maps open on one side, a hotel booking app on another and Gemini sitting there to pull together suggestions when I needed them. It didn’t feel cramped, which is the key thing.

HONOR has also leaned into AI in a big way. There’s Google Gemini onboard, with a handy double-tap shortcut to launch it. Useful for quick questions or pulling together ideas without digging through menus. It works, though it feels like something that’ll get better with updates.

Same for Magic Portal, which tries to predict what you want to do next when you drag text or images. When it works, it’s slick. When it doesn’t, you shrug and move on.

AI Call Translation is the most practical of the bunch. It processes everything on the device, so there’s no shipping your voice to the cloud, and the real-time translations are fast. Great for those rare times you might actually need it. The rest of the AI photo tools like AI Eraser and AI Cutout are fun, but not perfect. They’ll improve, but they’re not deal-makers right now.

Performance

Snapdragon 8 Elite is a beast, and it shows. Everything flies, from editing photos to running games on max settings. I tested it with CarX Street for an hour and it didn’t stutter once. Heat was managed well too, which is something foldables have struggled with before. It also looks great on the larger inner display, especially when mounted in a Backbone controller.

Connectivity is another highlight. HONOR claims the Magic V5 supports more 5G bands than any other foldable. I can’t test that on a global scale, but it held signal as well as any slab flagship I’ve used. No dropouts, no complaints.

Cameras

Three rear cameras: 50MP main, 50MP ultra-wide and a 64MP periscope telephoto. The telephoto is the star. You get 3x optical zoom and a ridiculous 100x digital zoom. The latter is for showing off rather than serious photography, but up to 10x is genuinely useful and looks good.

With the 100x digital zoom in particular, HONOR is continuing on the growing trends amongst the majority of smartphone manufacturers by incorporating the use of AI to help ‘clean up’ those highly pixelated, extremely zoomed in shots and, like other manufacturers, they achieve varying results.

It definitely is more acceptable on things like foliage, and building but might look slightly strange on more recognisable things like human figures. You can see a plant which I captured below at 100x with the ‘before and after’ as a representation of what I mean by AI being used to ‘clean up’ the image.

Low light shots from the main sensor are excellent. Big aperture, solid detail and decent colour accuracy.

The ultra wide, on the other hand (and like most other foldables) still needs some attention to match the quality of the main sensor.

Portrait mode is strong too, helped by HONOR’s AI tweaks, though you’ll sometimes notice over-processing in tricky lighting. Given its form factor, I’d also recommend using the phone’s rear cameras to capture your Selfies, when possible, as you can see quite the image quality difference in the two shots below.

The first is taken with the external 20MP selfie camera will the second is taken with the 50MP main sensor, with the device unfolded and facing me to let me use the external display to line up the shot.

The AI editing tools are fun to play with, but like I said earlier, they aren’t flawless. Erasing an object works great sometimes and leaves weird smudges other times. It’s early days for this stuff, so consider it a bonus rather than a core reason to buy.

Battery Life

This is where HONOR has pulled off something special. Foldables usually mean battery anxiety but with its massive 5,820mAh cell (the biggest in a foldable so far), the Magic V5 can easily last a day and a half of mixed use.

On one day I streamed video for five hours, scrolled on socials, played a couple of heavy games and still had 20 percent left at midnight. That’s unheard of in this category.

Charging is just as impressive. Plug it in and you’ll see 50 percent in about 16 minutes, a full charge in under 45 minutes. Wireless charging isn’t slow either at 50W, assuming you have the right wireless charging dock. It’s the first time I’ve used a foldable without planning my day around a power bank.

Conclusion

The HONOR Magic V5 feels like a foldable that finally works as an everyday phone without compromise. It’s slim, light, strong and lasts as long as a big battery flagship. The cameras hold their own, the performance is top tier, and the big screen makes multitasking genuinely useful instead of a novelty.

The AI features are promising but uneven. They’ll improve, and when they do, the Magic V5 will only get better. For now, they’re nice extras on top of an already excellent device.

If you’ve been waiting for a foldable that doesn’t feel like a beta test, this is it.

HONOR Magic V5 Pricing & Availability

The HONOR Magic V5 will be available at Harvey Norman from August 29th for €1,999.99 in the Dawn Gold colour option (reviewed above).

Harvey Norman will also give customers a €200 gift voucher to spend on a future purchase for early bird purchasers but you’ll have to be quick as this offer will only be available while stock lasts.