Magic V Flip: Honor presents its first folding smartphone

Honor has unveiled its first folding smartphone. The Magic V Flip is more compact thanks to its hinge. Unlike the already available Magic V2, which you open up for a larger display.

Large external display

Honor has given the Magic V Flip a large touchscreen on the outside. At four inches, the OLED display takes up almost the entire upper half of the back of the smartphone. This means that the two cameras are located in the display, but are skilfully bypassed visually by the system. Apps usually discreetly hide the area around the lenses.

With 1200 × 1092 pixels, the external display achieves a pixel density of 405 ppi. The maximum refresh rate is 120 Hertz and the maximum brightness is 1600 nits. However, this is only achieved when playing HDR videos. The typical brightness in everyday use is lower. However, Honor does not provide any information on this. It will therefore be interesting to see whether the display is easy to recognise in the sunshine.

The 6.8-inch OLED display on the inside corresponds to a typical smartphone. It also has a resolution of up to 120 hertz with a full HD+ resolution. Its maximum brightness is 3000 nits. The typical brightness is not specified here either, but experience has shown that it should be high enough for sunshine in relation to the maximum brightness.

Unfolded, the Honor Magic V Fold is 7.5 millimetres thick. When folded, this value doubles to 14.89 millimetres.

Older chipset with enough power

Honour uses the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, which is already two years old. However, it was at the forefront back then and still delivers enough power for a very good smartphone.

In China, Honor is launching two storage variants: 12 gigabytes of RAM and 256 gigabytes of storage space for data, as well as 16 gigabytes and one terabyte.

For the 50-megapixel main camera, Honor uses the Sony IMX906 as the image sensor. There is no information on the image sensor for the 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, which also serves as a macro lens. The 50-megapixel front camera takes selfies with the Sony IMX816.

The Magic V Flip runs Android 14 as its operating system. Honor uses the MagicOS 8.0 user interface for this. The battery with a capacity of 4800 mAh draws up to 66 watts when charging via a USB-C cable and a corresponding power adapter.

Future outside China still unclear

Honor has not yet provided any information about when or if the Magic V Flip will be released outside of China. If I factor in the usual delay of several months for some Chinese manufacturers and remember the global presentation of the Magic V2 at IFA 2023, another announcement in September at IFA 2024 would come as no surprise.