The Honor Magic V3 Is The Thinnest Foldable Phone In The World
The Honor Magic V3 has been my most hotly anticipated foldable for 2024 and I’m more than happy that it is here and official. What I can say is that it somehow manages to improve upon its already excellent predecessor. Let’s talk about what it brings to the table.
The Design
Ah, that design. The Honor Magic V3 is a gorgeous foldable smartphone. It changes up its style quite a bit compared to the Magic V2 by going for an octagonal camera module instead of an offset rectangular one. It certainly looks more premium, especially with its metal rim. It comes in black, white, green, and some type of orangish-brown colorway.
Of course, I know you want to hear about dimensions. The Honor Magic V3 measures just 9.2mm thin when folded (and a mere 4.35mm when unfolded). For reference, that’s the same as the Xiaomi 14 Ultra and the Vivo X100 Ultra, which are very obviously not foldables. It also weighs just 226 grams, which means it is as light as most non-foldables. The S24 Ultra is heavier!
Plus, it somehow still manages to fit in IPX8 water resistance, which is a big upgrade over last year’s model, which had no official weather resistance.
The Screens
The displays are still excellent, though very little has changed this time around. The main display is a 120Hz LTPO OLED display with a 7.92-inch diagonal, 2156 x 2344 resolution, and 1,800-nit peak brightness for the entire screen, but localized as high as 5,000 nits for HDR content. The cover display measures 6.43 inches and is a 120Hz LTPO OLED panel with 1060 x 2376 resolution. Both displays have 4,320Hz PWM dimming.
The Hardware
Inside, there’s the expected jump to the latest Qualcomm chip: the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, paired with a larger vapor chamber than last year’s. The device has three storage configurations: a base 12/256GB model, 16/512GB in the middle, and a top 16GB/1TB variant.
The battery measures at 5,150mAh, which is impressive since the device gets thinner but manages to add 150mAh over its predecessor. You get the same 66W wired charging, but Honor somehow fits the hardware for 50W wireless charging inside this ultraslim device. Color me impressed.
You get Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3 with LDAC, an IR blaster, USB Type-C 3.1, and DisplayPort 1.2. There’s little this foldable can’t do.
The Cameras
The cameras here are pretty cool. A 50MP primary lens is joined by a 40MP ultrawide and a 50MP 3.5x periscope telephoto. This means things are slightly shaken up from last year. There was only a 20MP 2.5x telephoto last year, and the ultrawide was a 50MP unit. However, megapixel counts don’t tell the entire story (though I know Honor almost certainly improved them all). Each screen has a cutout for an identical 20MP unit.
The Pricing And Availability
The Honor Magic V3 was launched in China, and for now, is only available there. However, I’d reckon that an international launch is more than certain; we just don’t know when. It starts at CNY 8,999, but direct conversion brings that to just $1,240. Of course, if it eventually launches globally, it won’t be that cheap, but it is almost certain it’ll be priced below competitors like the Z Fold 6 despite toting arguably better specs.
