HONOR has finally brought over the Magic V2 into the Malaysian market, six months after it was first unveiled in China. While the foldable phone might not have the latest specs for 2024 given its age, it still boasts flagship-level internals while being at the forefront of the foldable form factor.
While this is my first time daily-driving a foldable phone for several weeks, I’ve played around with other folding devices in the past. With that, HONOR’s offering surprised me in several ways and while there might still be certain downsides, most of them are outweighed by the stunning innovation that the company clearly put into this to put it ahead of the competition.
Specifications
The Magic V2 gets a large internal display with a 7.92-inch LTPO OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 1,600 nits. On the other hand, the 6.43-inch cover display similarly uses a 120Hz LTPO OLED screen but it can get much brighter with a peak brightness of 2,500 nits, at least on paper.
Inside, it runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, which was still the go-to flagship SoC when the phone was initially announced. The chip is paired with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, along with support for Wi-Fi 7, 5G, Bluetooth 5.3, and NFC. Powering the phone is a 5,000mAh battery with support for 66W wired charging.
Imaging-wise, the foldable features a 50MP main camera with OIS, a 50MP ultra-wide lens, and a 20MP telephoto lens with 2.5x optical zoom. For selfies, there is a 16MP snapper housed in both the inner and outer displays.
Looks & Functionality
Given its unique form factor, its displays are undeniably the highlight of the Magic V2. Despite allowing its user to wield double the screens, it weighs just a bit more than your average standard smartphone and it’s definitely lighter than some of its competitors such as the Galaxy Z Fold5. When folded, it’s ever so slightly thicker than an iPhone and when opened up, it’s ridiculously thin with a depth of only 4.7mm.
When it comes to the inner display, it’s shocking how nearly invisible the crease is, fairing much better than some of its rivals. Sure, I can see it when I’m looking at it from certain angles but when I’m staring at the screen straight on, I barely even notice it. It’s nearly a perfect square but it’s a bit wider than it is tall.
For the outer screen, it’s a bit slimmer than I would like it to be but overall, it’s a perfectly functional display with a 20:9 aspect ratio that makes it feel like a normal slab phone, which isn’t something a lot of foldables can offer given how the cover display is usually too thin or too small.
However, I do have a bone to pick with HONOR regarding the screen brightness. While the company claims that the external display can go up to 2,500 nits, I’ve found that outdoor visibility under direct sunlight is very poor compared to my iPhone, which only has a peak brightness of 2,000 nits. This was honestly my biggest disappointment with the Magic V2; I’m not sure if HONOR is stretching it with that claim or if there’s a software issue preventing the screen from getting brighter.
Speaking of software, the brand did a lot of things right to take advantage of the form factor. I love how on some apps, it will automatically extend to dual-windows so that you can have two tabs open on the same app. For example, tapping on a tweet on the X app will open up the tweet on the right side of the display while your feed will remain untouched on the left, allowing you to keep scrolling through your feed. This also works when opening up messages on WhatsApp and TikTok.
Of course, the split screen and mini window features, while not new for foldables, are extremely useful at letting you multitask without feeling overwhelmed since the bigger display allows for more room. My gripe with the software is that there seems to be a bug where you can’t close the mini window of certain apps like WhatsApp without minimising it first, adding an unnecessary extra step. Moreover, some popular apps, such as TikTok, are not optimised for big foldables yet, so you’ll have to settle for black bars on the sides or force the apps into fullscreen mode with the top cut off for certain content.
The three cameras on the back are all neatly packed into a rectangular camera island where each lens sits flush and the edges of the module curve into the back panel, giving it a premium feel. You can tell a lot of thought went into the design, including the satin-finish rear that is fingerprint-resistant and the fact that the phone folds completely flat.
The Magic V2 has two stereo speakers that are found in its folded form but when opened up, it’s a bit unbalanced as both speakers are positioned on the left-hand side. There’s a very thin fingerprint scanner on the right-hand side, which is fine for the most part but isn’t nearly as reliable as regular-sized fingerprint scanners that you find on, say, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold5.
Performance & Battery
Despite running on a last-gen flagship chipset, it can definitely hold its own with any task you throw at it. Even with all the extra software features that HONOR packed into the Magic V2, the phone never once lagged or stuttered. As for its performance on 3DMark, its highest score is about as expected but the lowest score is lower than other phones with this chip; its low stability score suggests that it often thermal throttles under heavy loads.
The battery life baffled me given the size of the internal display, which I used more often than the outer screen for watching content. I regular got two full days of use out of the Magic V2 despite hours of scrolling through social media and taking pictures.
Putting it through the usual YouTube streaming endurance test at 25% brightness and volume, it lasted nearly 15 hours before shutting down (not exactly sure why the phone only noted 10 hours of on-screen usage). The 66W charging is as fast as it’s advertised but for some reason, the phone will push you to unfold the phone for “optimal charging”.
Camera
The triple cameras on the back aren’t exactly the best that HONOR has to offer but the setup still leans on the premium side, and it can get the job done. The main camera has very true-to-life colours, which can be a pro or a con, depending on your personal taste, and in optimal and ideal conditions, can come out with sharp and vibrant photos.
Unfortunately, the performance falls short of a proper flagship camera when the lighting gets a bit dim. Even in a relatively-bright indoor setting, less-than-ideal lighting can cause subjects to become blurry with sudden movements; I had a hard time getting a photo of two active dogs without any motion blurring.
The telephoto lens comes very close to the primary sensor in terms of image quality, making it perfectly usable when zooming in. However, I always tried to never go past 10x as the noise in the images starts to get noticeable beyond that point (it can max out at 40x digital zoom).
Sample Images
Competition
OPPO Find N3
The OPPO Find N3 is the closest rival to the Magic V2 in terms of both quality and pricing. The inner display uses a 7.82-inch 120Hz LTPO OLED panel while on the outside, it sports a 6.32-inch 120Hz OLED. Underneath the chassis lies the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
For photography, it is equipped with a 48MP primary sensor with OIS, a 48MP ultra-wide, and a 64MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom. Powering it is a slightly smaller 4,805mAh battery with 67W charging. While its specs closely compete with the HONOR foldable, it’s priced at RM7,999, making it RM1,000 more expensive.
Tecno Phantom V Fold
The Tecno Phantom V Fold can’t really compete with the Magic V2 in terms of specs, but it does beat out the HONOR phone in one aspect: the price tag. Retailing at RM4,999, the Phantom V Fold is a great option for anyone who wants a big foldable without shelling out too much.
It offers a 7.85-inch LTPO AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate when unfolded while the outer screen has a 6.42-inch 120Hz LTPO AMOLED panel. The device runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ chipset with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, with a 5,000mAh battery that charges at 45W. On the camera side, it gets a 50MP main shooter, a 50MP telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom, and a 13MP ultra-wide.
Conclusion
The HONOR Magic V2 is proof that the foldable form factor has been largely polished, with the usual issues seen in the earlier generations of foldables mostly ironed out. Sure, the crease is still technically noticeable and the cover screen is still a bit too narrow, but it’s gotten to the point where these are such minor issues that you’ll forget about them almost immediately after using this phone. And with each generation to come, these little imperfections will go away through refinements.
This is honestly the best foldable phone I’ve ever used and the most fun I’ve had with a smartphone in general in a long time. While I’m still mainly an iPhone user, if I ever had to switch back to Android and choose a foldable, the Magic V2 would be my first pick. I hope that, in the near future, they patch up the small software kinks I mentioned, but honestly, they aren’t dealbreakers.
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