Honor Magic V2 Review: It’s A Foldable, Really

However, foldable smartphones aren’t cheap, and Honor’s Magic V2 holds true to that generalization with its £1,699 (~$2,140) price tag. So, just how does it fare in our review?

Design

Looking at the image above, you’d never guess the Magic V2 was a foldable smartphone. It’s slim, sleek, and surprisingly enough for a foldable, not heavy, weighing only 231 grams compared to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 253g and a gram lighter than the single-screened Galaxy S24 Ultra.

The review unit I was sent has a classy black vegan leather finish that repels fingerprints and feels great in the hand. Carrying that aesthetic forward is the included case, which matches the finish of the Magic V2’s rear panel.

The power button is located on the right-hand edge when the phone is folded, and the volume rocker is on the left, handily at different heights so you can tell which control you are pressing. One thing I would like, though, is for the power button to protrude just a smidge more than it does, although that could be down to it pulling double duty as the fingerprint sensor.

When the display is closed, at no point do you ever get the impression that the cover display lacks anything you might experience with a regular phone. The aspect ratio is just right; the width and length of the outer display are also spot on. The logo and camera housing are in the correct positions, and you don’t even see a hint of the hinge.

Read: How To Split Screen On Android – The Ultimate Guide

But What About The Crease?

There is still a crease on the Magic V2, but it’s the least visible I’ve seen on any other foldable smartphone currently on the market. Unless you are going to purposely stare at the center of the unfolded display and then run your fingers across it, you aren’t going to notice the crease from my experience with the phone. My advice? Don’t be a crease peeper.

As for the hinge, well, it feels sturdy and strong enough that I didn’t bother to worry about it after the first few times I opened and closed the display. There was no creaking, flexing, or anything, and it’s as you might expect from a hinge rated to last at least 400,000 folds.

Hardware

Performance

Packing 2023’s flagship processor of choice, the Magic V2 certainly isn’t underpowered by any sense of the phrase. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has more than enough grunt to get through extended Call of Duty Mobile sessions with the graphics set on high. At no point during these sessions did I notice any heating up or throttling, and the general performance was

The internal and cover displays boast bright, vibrant, responsive colors. I had no complaints with either panel in the admittedly rare direct sunlight the UK offers during winter.

The side-mounted fingerprint sensor is incorporated into the power button, and while I would have liked it to be a little more sticky-outy, I found it to be very accurate and responsive. It’s certainly much better than many of the under-display sensors in smartphones today.

Battery

Normal usage. What exactly does that mean? For me, it means checking multiple email accounts, X (Twitter), Slack, Viber, BBC Sports, various news apps, WhatsApp for personal messages, and with the Magic V2, a healthy dose of watching YouTube and playing Call of Duty Mobile (with the display extended of course). The only thought I give to help the battery last longer is to enable dark mode; otherwise, everything is at the best possible resolution and refresh rate.

With all that said, how does the Magic V2 manage in terms of battery life? Superbly. You can expect over 6 hours of screen time in ‘normal usage’ with Honor’s foldable before needing to top-up at speeds of up to 66W SuperCharge when using the official Honor adapter. If you don’t have that, the charging speed will drop to 40W.

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Software

The software is where the Magic V2 stumbles a little. Not because Magic OS is clunky but because it doesn’t offer many foldable-specific features compared with the OnePlus Open and Galaxy Z Fold 5. The biggest problem, perhaps, is that Magic OS 7.2 is based on Android 13, which doesn’t offer many foldable-specific features present in Android 14. It’s now mid-February in 2024, and for a flagship smartphone costing £1,699, running Android 13 is more than a little outrageous, in my opinion.

Honor needs to do better with its products as a whole as it does regarding software support. Offering only three years of OS upgrades when the newly launched phone is already one version behind isn’t good enough in 2024. Not when you have Samsung and Google offering similar products with much longer software support commitments.

You have that big, beautiful display that is restricted to just using two apps simultaneously, vertically or horizontally split. You can choose for any or all apps to launch in full display mode, and there’s the option of having the app you are using on one display switch to the other seamlessly when you fold or unfold the device, which is a handy feature. It would be nice to multitask with up to four apps, each taking a quarter of the display for themselves.

Overall, it’s not a terrible experience; it’s just that it could be so much better than it is now. Hopefully, the Magic OS 8 update, based on Android 14, will roll out sooner rather than later with everything needed to improve the experience.

Camera

Overall, the cameras were reliable, producing good-quality images with detail and balanced colors in decent conditions. How reliable? Well, if you look at the images of the Galaxy S24 Ultra here in our review, you’ll see photos I shot using the Magic V2. It’s a similar story to our most recent YouTube guides in which we show you how to use Circle to Search, create AI wallpapers, organize the S24 app drawer, and more. That being said, not many readers will be looking at shooting how-to videos with the Magic V2 for the blog they work for, so here’s a bit more detail.

The main 50MP camera does well in good conditions, but as you can see from a couple of images in the gallery, saturation levels can be a little up and down when lighting isn’t ideal. The telephoto lens is limited to 2.5x optical zoom, which is ok, but with the obvious issue of becoming increasingly shakier the more you zoom past that level. It’s certainly no match for the Galaxy S24 Ultra, but Samsung’s latest flagship doesn’t fold, so there is that.

Detail levels generally decrease as the light decreases, and you’ll also notice that the ultrawide’s color tuning is different from that of the main and telephoto lenses. It’s an issue I thought had been dealt with on 2024 flagships, but apparently not.

Read: What Is The Cheapest Foldable Android Phone In 2024?

Conclusion

My writing probably shows that I loved my time with the Magic V2. When I say love, I mean it. The Magic V2 is what I always hoped a foldable would be. Unobtrusive, sleek, and slim. It doesn’t scream to everyone that it’s foldable, and it doesn’t look like its two phones are attached by a hinge, unlike some of its competitors. Honor’s Magic V2 is instead the foldable you need when you want a larger viewing surface; for the rest of the time, it’s just your normal candy bar smartphone. And isn’t that the promised land when it comes to foldable smartphones?

Sure, the software could be better, and hopefully, it will be when Honor rolls out the Magic OS 8. I wish the Magic V2 had some level of IP rating; even basic IP54 water resistance would be enough. The cameras are fine without being outstanding for posting to social media, but they could have been better if optimized further. And, of course, I wish it was cheaper. £1.699 (~$2,140) is a lot of money to stump up for any phone.

The hardware is sublime, though, as good (and, in my opinion) better than most of its rivals. Having returned to using a regular candybar smartphone, albeit a flagship from another brand, I miss the Magic V2 immensely. For the options it gave me and for just being a regular phone, I’ve found that Honor’s Magic V2 has become part of my habitual routine, so much so that I’ve found myself trying to unfold the current phone to give myself a larger viewing area, much to the amusement of my other half. I also miss the boost in productivity that it gave me.

If you are willing to bet that the Magic OS 8 update will fix the software omissions and you don’t plan on trekking through the Amazon forest, then the Magic V2 is the foldable you need in your life.