Honor introduced the Magic V3 smartphone, its third-generation foldable and we had the possibility to check this spectacular cellphone. Preserve studying to search out out our impressions in regards to the design, efficiency, show, and battery lifetime of the thinnest foldable cellphone available on the market.
Good
- Impressively skinny
- Flagship specs
- Highly effective digicam
Unhealthy
- MagicOS feels dated
- Costly
- Incomplete multitasking options
Honor Magic V3: All offers
Honor Magic V3 in a nutshell
Launched in China in July, the Honor Magic V3 was introduced for European markets throughout IFA on September fifth. The foldable cellphone is the thinnest one out there available in the market, approaching the thickness of an everyday slab cellphone at 9.2 mm (0.36 in). European pricing is €1999 for the 12+512 GB choice.
Whereas the Chinese language market can select between 4 completely different finishes–brown, white, inexperienced, and black–colour choices within the West will range by market, with Germany getting brown, inexperienced, and black, whereas France will obtain the inexperienced and black choices. US prospects, as traditional, might want to resort to third-party market sellers or importing.
Impressively skinny construct and vibrant shows
The Honor Magic V3’s spotlight is certainly its thinness. Whereas final yr’s Magic V2 was already very skinny at 9.9 mm, 2024’s Magic V3 beats that at 9.2 mm, making it additionally far thinner than the Samsung or Google foldables, and even the spectacular OnePlus Open examined by Camila Rinaldi late final yr.
Professionals:
- Skinny.
- Brilliant OLED panels.
- Features a protecting case.
- IPx8 safety ranking.
Cons:
There’s little room to shave extra thickness out of telephones–however we’re certain engineers will handle it. The Magic V3 is as skinny because the Xiaomi 14 Extremely (9.2 mm), and only a hair thicker than the Galaxy S24 Extremely or the iPhone 15 Professional Max, at 8.6 and eight.3 mm, respectively.
We examined the inexperienced model of the Magic V3, and the design is a marked enchancment over the dated look of the earlier technology (a minimum of in my view). The again floor feels premium to the contact and resists fairly nicely towards fingerprints.
Additionally within the again is the brand new, redesigned digicam module, which adopted the centered place from the Magic 6 household and appears way more trendy than the one on the V2. Along with the brand new design within the Magic V3, nonetheless, the digicam bump is way more pronounced, in all probability due to the thinner physique and the extra highly effective zoom digicam.
Honor features a nice-looking protecting case with the Magic V3 however needless to say it will increase the digicam bump even additional, with a retractable ring that works as a stand. The ring seems prefer it may very well be used with lens filters (just like some Xiaomi Extremely fashions), nevertheless it doesn’t have threads to screw filters in. The entrance show case is a separate piece that must be glued in and isn’t designed to be continuously eliminated.
Across the sides, we discover the ability button with an built-in fingerprint sensor (within the again half) and the quantity rocker (entrance) on the best aspect. The highest homes two microphones, the programable IR blaster, and one of many side-firing audio system.
The underside options the USB-C port, one other microphone, the skinny twin SIM card tray, and the second speaker. There is no such thing as a microSD card help, and no headphone jack (the latter would require an engineering marvel to suit).
Regardless of the comparatively low weight of 226 grams (the black model is 230 g), the Honor Magic V3 nonetheless feels strong on the hand. The Chinese language firm charges the cellphone as IPx8 for water safety however no mud resistance. GSM Area put the cellphone to a torture check and the V3 survived impressively, exhibiting how far foldables developed in a short while.
The shows are each LTPO OLEDs that may refresh as much as 120 occasions per second but additionally decelerate to 1 Hz to avoid wasting energy. Each record stupidly excessive brightness ranges, with the exterior one topping at 5000 nits, whereas the interior one reaches 1800 nits at peak.
Utilizing the cellphone open air was no difficulty. Colours have been vibrant as traditional for OLED shows. As for the crease, it’s nonetheless noticeable each visually and by touching it. Some contents can disguise it nicely, however tilting the cellphone barely will make it seen once more.
Magic OS with sprinkles of AI
The Magic V3 packs all of the current software program developments into Magic OS, now at model 8. Regardless of all of the AI magic across the interface, nonetheless, there’s nonetheless a heavy affect from Huawei’s EMUI, which remains to be impressed by older iOS variations.
Professionals:
- Easy efficiency and animations.
Cons:
- Some interface inconsistencies.
Honor didn’t verify at publication time the replace coverage for the Magic V3 however the firm normally lags behind Samsung and Google’s promise of safety updates for seven years on their foldables. Not solely that, the earlier technology acquired the Android 14 improve a lot later than its rivals, with the OTA being distributed round April, versus November for the Galaxy Fold 5.
We had some small points through the preliminary setup for the Honor Magic V3, with “Can’t hook up with Google servers” errors even through the “set-up offline” choice chosen. Nothing that some trial and error couldn’t repair, however not the expertise one expects from a flagship cellphone.
The clear up to date cellphone displayed 34.99 GB of used storage and included eight third-party apps. The preliminary setup and screenshots have been achieved with the July safety patch, with the photographs taken with the most recent August patch.
MagicOS 8 on the Magic V3 options up to date variations of all of the AI options Camila described within the Honor Magic 6 overview. AI options are nonetheless discovered within the “Assistant” discipline on the Settings app, and new to the Magic V3 is a Nose to nose translation function that may assist when touring overseas however just isn’t as highly effective because the real-time choice present in Pixel telephones, for instance.
One other new choice underneath Assistant is the Magic Portal. Not AI-related, the function is a useful multi-tasking instrument that enables dragging and dropping photographs to different apps–for instance, for a brand new be aware, social media posts, e mail, and so on.–just like the Magic Textual content instrument present in different Honor flagship telephones.
Matt Zellmer talked about in his overview of the Magic V2 that Honor nonetheless had some work to do on the multitasking options and the identical holds true for the Magic V3.
Apps will be simply displayed in pop-up home windows, however for a real split-screen view customers want to tug the app icon from the Multi-Window dock on the edges, and never from the appliance switcher/job supervisor.
Making an attempt to do the identical from the underside app dock (known as World Taskbar) will be an train in frustration: It doesn’t work when on the house display, and invoking the World Taskbar requires a gradual swipe from the underside of the display. Swipe too quick and you’re again to the house display.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 energy onboard
Powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, the Honor Magic V3 ties with the Galaxy Z Fold 3 because the quickest Android foldable available in the market as we speak. Honor units the cellphone with a conservative default setting, however enabling the “Efficiency mode” makes it on par with every other 2024 flagship cellphone.
Professionals:
Cons:
- Pace throttling underneath heavy duties.
The flagship processor is paired with 12 GB of quick LPDDR5x RAM and 512 GB of UFS 4.0 storage in our overview unit. All exams have been run on the Efficiency mode until famous:
| Honor Magic V3 (Snapdragon 8 Gen 3) |
Galaxy Z Fold 6 (SD 8 Gen 3) |
Honor Magic V2 (SD 8 Gen 2) |
OnePlus Open (SD 8 Gen 2) |
Google Pixel Fold (Tensor G2) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AnTuTu | Default: 1,317,710 Efficiency mode: 1,787,589 |
1,335,416 | 1,314,113 | 771,551 | |
| 3D Mark Wild Life Excessive Stress Take a look at | Finest loop: 4716 Worst loop: 2430 Stability: 51.5% (Closed: 2477~4814 | 51.4%) |
Finest loop: 4788 Worst loop: 2454 Stability: 51.2% |
Finest loop: 3745 Worst loop: 1611 Stability: 43% (Closed: 1643~3735 | 44%) |
Finest loop: 3586 Worst loop: 2834 Stability: 79% |
Finest loop: 1753 Worst loop: 976 Stability: 55.7% |
| Geekbench 6 | Single: 2175 Multi: 6518 |
Single: 2264 Multi: 7003 |
Single: 1438 Multi: 4020 |
Single: 1544 Multi: 4882 |
Single: 1479 Multi: 3784 |
| 3D Mark Metal Nomad Stress Take a look at | Finest loop: 1688 Worst loop: 841 Stability: 49.8% (Closed: 816~1693 | 48.2%) |
Finest loop: 1622 Worst loop: 924 Stability: 57% (Closed: 883~1594 | 55.4%) |
Finest loop: 1103 Worst loop: 731 Stability: 66.3% |
Finest loop: 1101 Worst loop: 943 Stability: 79% (Closed: 872~1104 | 76.6%) |
Finest loop: 727 Worst loop: 518 Stability: 71.2% (Closed: 506~716 | 70.7%) |
| 3D Mark Photo voltaic Bay Stress Take a look at | Finest loop: 8397 Worst loop: 4178 Stability: 49.8% (Closed: 4172~8371 | 49.8%) |
Finest loop: 8467 Worst loop: 4171 Stability: 49.3% (Closed: 3828~7985 | 47.9%) |
Finest loop: 5370 Worst loop: 2348 Stability: 43.7% |
Finest loop: 5130 Worst loop: 3508 Stability: 68.4% |
n/a |
Within the default mode, the Magic V3 carried out on par with the earlier technology. Enabling the Efficiency mode took the Antutu rating round 35% greater. The V3 carried out barely decrease than the Galaxy Z Fold 6 with the identical chip, particularly underneath heavy duties, a doable signal of the challenges of cooling such a skinny cellphone.
The stress exams additionally gave comparable hints, with efficiency dropping to half underneath a relentless load. The cellphone didn’t get excessively scorching to the contact however in longer gaming classes, the graphics fluidity could get degraded in case you are enjoying on very excessive settings.
In informal or lighter video games, the Magic V3 carried out very nicely, with the comfort of enjoying in both the exterior or inside show. Some video games, nonetheless, might not be tailored to the square-ish facet ratio of the foldable display.
As a aspect be aware, regardless of the side-firing audio system–and once more, the skinny chassis–, sound high quality on the Magic V3 was surprisingly good.
Honor Magic V3 digicam
Whereas rival foldables sacrifice digicam versatility for thinness, Honor threw that recipe far-off. The Magic V3 includes a true triple digicam setup on its thick digicam bump: A 50-megapixel major sensor, a 40 MP ultrawide lens, and a 3.5x zoom periscope telephoto.
Professionals:
- Versatile triple-camera setup.
- Usable 10x zoom pictures.
- Good selfies on each the interior and exterior cameras.
Cons:
- Disappointing ultrawide pictures at darkish.
Daylight footage have been excellent, whatever the cameras, with good colour replica and sharpness. The three.5x zoom periscope lens carried out surprisingly nicely for a foldable cellphone, justifying its massive bump on the Magic V3. We truly came upon that 3.5x optical zoom pictures seemed nicer than the 2x digital zooms cropped from the primary digicam.
The telephoto digicam additionally returned some usable pictures at 10x digital zoom in daylight. Going farther from that leads to the same old mush of pixels and artifacts, as much as 100x zoom.
Extremely-wide footage have been usually good in daylight however tended to be softer and with barely completely different colours than the opposite lenses.
Whereas daylight pictures have been good total, night time pictures have been a bit disappointing, regardless of Honor’s (and Huawei’s) pioneering work on night-time computational images. Huge and three.5x telephoto pictures have been high-quality, with some overexposure in auto mode, however ultra-wide photographs merely couldn’t seize sufficient mild ending up with a loud and tender look.
Selfie pictures from the Magic V3 have been respectable however not distinctive. Each inside and exterior selfies carried out equally, with a barely softer (blurrier) look from the interior one, however with a pleasant stage of element generally and with out extreme processing, even with the sweetness impact on by default.
One final thing, contemplating the awkwardness of taking a selfie with the cellphone opened, we think about it is not going to be as used because the exterior one for photographs. Nonetheless, utilizing the included again case ring helps place the cellphone properly for video calls (however the digicam shall be sideways).
Honor Magic V3 battery
Not solely does the Magic V3 function a much bigger battery than its rivals, Honor outfitted it with true quick charging each wired and wi-fi.
Professionals:
- First rate battery life
- Quick wired charging
- Quick wi-fi charging
Cons:
- Charger is included in solely chosen markets
- Quick battery drain when opened
When utilizing solely the exterior show, battery life must be adequate for a full day utilization however anticipate to do a fast cost within the afternoon in case you use the Magic V3’s inside show loads.
| Honor Magic V3 (5150 mAh | Honor 135 W [PD 65 W]) |
Galaxy Z Fold 6 (4400 mAh | 25 W) |
OnePlus Open (4805 mAh | 67 W) |
Pixel Fold (4821 mAh | Ugreen 45W) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 minutes | ||||
| 10 minutes | ||||
| 20 minutes | ||||
| half-hour | ||||
| 1 hour | ||||
| Full cost | ||||
| PC Mark Battery check |
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Within the simulated PC Mark battery check, the Magic V3 carried out barely worse than the same specced Galaxy Fold 6 with a smaller battery. The Honor cellphone received 14h08 and 8h16 of battery runtime between 80 and 20% cost when closed and opened, respectively.
Within the charging division, nonetheless, the Magic V3 is unbeatable among the many foldable telephones. Whereas it’s barely slower to cost at 65 W than the 67 W enter on the OnePlus Open, it simply beats the Samsung rival’s 25 W charging.
Higher nonetheless, the V3 is suitable with Honor’s (and Huawei’s) 50 W wi-fi charging, one thing unavailable on the OnePlus rival, whereas the Galaxy Fold tops at 15 W. Oh, and the Magic V3 additionally options reverse wi-fi charging.
Honor is protecting its technique of solely bundling the charger in some markets. However for these residing in nations the place it isn’t included, the corporate usually presents it as a free bonus, so all the time test these checkout choices and bundles in case you are shopping for one.
Honor Magic V3 technical specs
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| Selfie Digicam |
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Different factors which will curiosity the nextpit group:
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Closing verdict
The Honor Magic V3 is a powerful technical achievement. Whereas Oppo/OnePlus did a powerful job with the OnePlus Open, it sacrificed a couple of conveniences within the title of thinness, specifically wi-fi charging. Honor not solely beat them by together with wi-fi charging but additionally by making a good thinner cellphone.
Not even within the digicam part we noticed vital sacrifices within the Magic V3. The three.5x periscope lens makes the digicam bump very cumbersome however presents an identical vary and flexibility as most flagship telephones available on the market as we speak, on the similar time providing an extended vary than rivals’ foldables.
The one kink within the Magic V3 armor is the software program aspect. Whereas Honor pushed the envelope on the {hardware} aspect, MagicOS nonetheless didn’t break freed from its EMUI/HarmonyOS roots. There are inconsistencies within the design aspect with outdated EMUI kinds combined with the up to date HarmonyOS design and Pixel styling in random elements of the system.
A number of the massive display options on the Magic V3 nonetheless really feel unfinished on this third-generation cellphone, whereas Google and OnePlus virtually nailed them on their first strive.
In the long run, it’s tough to justify investing within the Magic V3 regardless of all of its achievements. Possibly these nonetheless clinging to flagship Huawei telephones from the previous can discover their improve path on the brand new Honor foldable, however for everybody else, it might be price ready for critiques on the brand new Pixel Fold earlier than leaping in.
