Honor Magic V5 Review: The Ultra-Thin Foldable To Beat

It's the year of thin foldables. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is far thinner than any Galaxy Z Fold before it — to the point where, when folded up, it's only slightly thicker than many slab phones. But there's a company that's been building ultra-thin foldables for a few years now. Honor may not be widely known in the U.S., but outside of our North American bubble, it's growing quickly — and the Honor Magic V5 proves why.

The device is also very thin. In fact, it's about as thin as the Galaxy Z Fold 7, or in some cases, slightly thinner. That's not new for Honor — the Magic V4 from last year was also incredibly thin. As a third-generation ultra-thin foldable, however, Honor has a little more to prove than just that it can make a thin foldable phone. Is the Magic V5 more than just a thin phone? I've been using it to find out.

While the Magic V5 needs to do more than just look good, it still does look good. These super-thin foldable phones have been around for a few years now, and while I've used a few of them, it still surprises me every time I unbox one and hold it for the first time. Most of the body of the phone is an astonishing 4.2mm thick unfolded, and 9mm when folded. That's fractions of a single millimeter thicker than an iPhone 16 Pro Max. It's very thin.

Well, most of it is. Cameras require space, and while Honor can seemingly defy physics with every other aspect of the phone, it can't with the camera. The end result is that the camera module looks simply giant. It's big and circular, and when you look at the back of the phone, it's the first thing you'll notice.

I don't mind the placement of it, though. Because it's big — and more importantly, centered — the phone is usable on a table when folded, unlike the Galaxy Z Fold 7, which rocks to no end due to the placement of its camera module in the top right-hand corner. The camera module also doubles as a kind of ledge to place your finger, though perhaps that's more a necessity than an added bonus.

The rest of the design of the phone is nice. I have the Dawn Gold model, which looks great — though based on online images, I prefer the "Reddish Brown" look. On the bottom of the phone, you'll get a USB-C port, while on the right edge is a volume rocker and a power button, which has an embedded fingerprint sensor. The sensor was accurate and responsive in my usage.

There is one design element that bothers me, and that's the different corner radius on the left edge near the hinge and the right edge on the side of the phone. Both the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 get around this, so it's not a symptom of the phone being a foldable. There's no reason the corners shouldn't match.

Apart from that, the phone looks great. It looks and feels premium and well-built, and has an IP58/IP59 rating. That means that it should easily withstand any day-to-day water exposure. If you drop it in the pool, it'll live another day.

The screens on the Honor Magic V5 are excellent. On the front of the phone, you'll get a 6.43-inch LTPO OLED screen with a 1060 x 2376 resolution and a 5,000-nit peak brightness. Indeed, it gets very bright — easily bright enough for outdoor viewing. It's crisp and detailed with vibrant colors, and while you might want a slightly higher resolution in theory, I never noticed a lack of detail.

Unfold the phone, and you'll get another great screen. The main display is a 7.95-inch LTPO AMOLED screen. It has a 2172 x 2352 resolution, and also has a 5,000-nit peak brightness. It also looks stunning — capable of getting nice and bright and having a high level of detail.

The screens on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 are slightly bigger than those on the Magic V5 (but barely). However, the screens on the Magic V5 are much brighter. You can tell the difference.

The Honor Magic V5 isn't just nice-looking — it performs very well, too. Under the hood, you'll find a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor coupled with either 12GB or 16GB of RAM. In other words, it's among the best-performing Android phones you can get right now, though it's not necessarily better than any other device equipped with Qualcomm's best chip. In real-world use, that translates to loading games quickly, easily switching between lots of different apps, and so on. I never experienced stuttering or lag while using the phone and found that it handled everything I could throw at it.

We'll have to see how much the top-tier performance helps with longevity. The phone is thinner than many slab phones, and as a result, it's perhaps not quite as good at handling heat. That won't be an issue in basic day-to-day use, but you may find that the device heats up when gaming, for example.

Does the mammoth camera module translate to a high-quality camera? Well, the camera isn't bad — but it's also pretty inconsistent. On the back, the phone has a triple camera array, made up of a 50-megapixel main camera, a 64-megapixel periscope telephoto camera, and a 50-megapixel ultra wide camera. It's a decently versatile setup.

Christian de Looper for BGR

That said, its image quality is very good. The main camera is capable of capturing relatively vibrant, detailed shots, but they're not always detailed and consistent. In good lighting conditions, images are usually pretty good, but you'll get a dud every now and then. It's not surprising that images are relatively good, though you can tell that there is some processing going on that can make images look slightly off compared to the real world. Images also aren't the most consistent across cameras — at times, colors can look slightly different on the telephoto camera compared to the main camera and the ultrawide camera. But it's not bad, and certainly not as bad as it has been in previous-generation models. As a whole, expect to take good shots.

Christian de Looper for BGR

The camera captured very good zoomed shots, too. That's true at decently high zoom levels. At 3x or 4x zoom, you'll get solid detail, but even at much deeper zoom levels, I found that the camera could capture very detailed and vibrant shots. Like any smartphone camera with digital zoom, you can go too far — and Honor gives you the ability to do so, unlike, for example, Apple, which maxes zoom out at much lower levels. But even up to 10x or 20x, while you can obviously tell that digital zoom is involved, I was able to get better photos than the majority of other smartphone cameras.

Christian de Looper for BGR

In low lighting, the camera was quite good, too, though when you combine low light and zoom, expect the camera to struggle more. It was able to capture relatively crisp and detailed images in most low-light scenarios, but zoom in much, and you'll get a bit of a blurry mess.

In general, though, I was very impressed with the camera performance on offer by the Honor Magic V5, despite its inconsistency. That inconsistency basically means that most of the time, you'll get images that are better than much of the competition — but sometimes, you won't, and the rate of sub-par images was a little higher than I wanted.

The Honor Magic V5 is powered by a 5,820mAh battery (in the international model, at least), which is relatively large. It has a much higher capacity than the likes of the Galaxy Z Fold 7, with its 4,400mAh battery, and in my experience, its battery life was indeed better. But it's still not quite incredible.

That's because of its form factor. Big screens use lots of power. Tablets aren't usually as thin as the Magic V5, and they typically have much larger batteries. Plus, they aren't used like a smartphone, often don't have cellular connectivity, and so on. Thankfully, the Magic V5 should still get you through a full day of moderate use. Even power users shouldn't need to reach for their charger, though they may get close. But expect to need to fully charge every day or overnight.

It supports solid charging tech, too. The Magic V5 supports wired charging at up to 66W (way faster than the 25W Galaxy Z Fold 7). Plus, it supports 50W wireless charging with the right charger, though I wasn't able to test this because I don't have that charger. Lastly, it supports 5W reverse wireless charging. What you don't get is Qi2 support. That's unfortunate, and I hope more phones get it in the near future.

Honor's biggest problem has always been software, and that remains true on the Magic V5. The software experience on the phone is... fine. The phone runs MagicOS 9.0, and it's packed with features that might be cool to some users, but ultimately end up cluttering the interface and making things confusing.

As a general rule, the software works like most other Android phones, except for the iOS-style Control Center. I was pleasantly surprised with the app selection, though. There's less bloatware than on older models, though it can still feel like there's a lot if you stick to the Google versions of apps, for things like the clock, photo gallery, and so on. Still, there weren't any extra games and apps no one needs, like on some other devices.

There were some extra features that you might find handy on a device like this as well. For example, there's the Triple Split Screen feature which lets you place three apps side-by-side, scrolling horizontally between then as needed. I just wish things were a little more scaled back. OnePlus proved you can make great, minimalistic software for foldables with the aging OnePlus Open, and right now, my favorite is still what's on offer by the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold.

Honor says the Magic V5 will get four years of OS updates and five years of security updates. That's not particularly impressive — the likes of Samsung and Google have upped support to six or seven years.

The Honor Magic V5 is a stellar foldable phone. It performs well, has a solid camera, and boasts a super-thin design. The software experience leaves a little to be desired, and of course, the phone isn't cheap — but if you're looking for a foldable device and prefer Honor's approach to the likes of Samsung, you'll like what's on offer by the Magic V5.

The competition

The biggest competition to the Honor Magic V5 comes in the form of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, though that does depend on your region. I prefer Samsung's approach to software, but the two phones are about on par when it comes to things like performance. The camera performance is similar, too, though I find the camera on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 to be more consistent. Ultimately, this one comes down to personal preference.

Should I buy the Honor Magic V5?

Yes, if you're willing to spend the cash on a premium, expensive foldable phone.