Honor introduced the Magic V3 smartphone, its third-generation foldable and we had the prospect to check this spectacular cellphone. Preserve studying to seek out out our impressions concerning the design, efficiency, show, and battery lifetime of the thinnest foldable cellphone available on the market.
Good
- Impressively skinny
- Flagship specs
- Highly effective digital camera
Dangerous
- 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 accessible out there, approaching the thickness of an everyday slab cellphone at 9.2 mm (0.36 in).
Whereas the Chinese language market can select between 4 completely different finishes–brown, white, inexperienced, and black–shade 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 clients, as typical, might want to resort to third-party market sellers or importing.
Impressively skinny construct and shiny 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.
Execs:
- Skinny.
- Vivid OLED panels.
- Features a protecting case.
- IPx8 safety score.
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 (at the very least for my part). The again floor feels premium to the contact and resists fairly effectively in opposition to fingerprints.
Additionally within the again is the brand new, redesigned digital camera module, which adopted the centered place from the Magic 6 household and appears far more fashionable than the one on the V2. Along with the brand new design within the Magic V3, nevertheless, the digital camera bump is far more pronounced, most likely due to the thinner physique and the extra highly effective zoom digital camera.
Honor features a nice-looking protecting case with the Magic V3 however understand that it will increase the digital camera bump even additional, with a retractable ring that works as a stand. The ring appears to be like prefer it may very well be used with lens filters (much like some Xiaomi Extremely fashions), however 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 facility button with an built-in fingerprint sensor (within the again half) and the quantity rocker (entrance) on the correct facet. 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 isn’t 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 stable on the hand. The Chinese language firm charges the cellphone as IPx8 for water safety however no mud resistance. GSM Enviornment 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 instances per second but in addition decelerate to 1 Hz to save lots of energy. Each listing stupidly excessive brightness ranges, with the exterior one topping at 5000 nits, whereas the inner one reaches 1800 nits at peak.
Utilizing the cellphone open air was no concern. Colours have been vibrant as typical for OLED shows. As for the crease, it’s nonetheless noticeable each visually and by touching it. Some contents can cover it effectively, however tilting the cellphone barely will make it seen once more.
Magic OS with sprinkles of AI
The Magic V3 packs all of the latest software program developments into Magic OS, now at model 8. Regardless of all of the AI magic across the interface, nevertheless, there may be nonetheless a heavy affect from Huawei’s EMUI, which continues to be impressed by older iOS variations.
Execs:
- 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 in the course of the preliminary setup for the Honor Magic V3, with “Cannot connect to Google servers” errors even in the course of the “set-up offline” possibility 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 newest 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 evaluate. 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 is just not as highly effective because the real-time possibility present in Pixel telephones, for instance.
One other new possibility beneath Assistant is the Magic Portal. Not AI-related, the function is a helpful multi-tasking software that permits dragging and dropping photos to different apps–for instance, for a brand new observe, social media posts, e mail, and so forth.–much like the Magic Textual content software present in different Honor flagship telephones.
Matt Zellmer talked about in his evaluate 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 might be simply displayed in pop-up home windows, however for a real split-screen view customers want to pull the app icon from the Multi-Window dock on the perimeters, and never from the appliance switcher/activity supervisor.
Making an attempt to do the identical from the underside app dock (referred to as International Taskbar) might be an train in frustration: It doesn’t work when on the house display screen, and invoking the International Taskbar requires a gradual swipe from the underside of the display screen. Swipe too quick and you might be again to the house display screen.
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 out there at the moment. Honor units the cellphone with a conservative default setting, however enabling the “Performance mode” makes it on par with another 2024 flagship cellphone.
Execs:
Cons:
- Velocity throttling beneath heavy duties.
The flagship processor is paired with 12 GB of quick LPDDR5x RAM and 512 GB of UFS 4.0 storage in our evaluate unit. All assessments have been run on the Efficiency mode except 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 Check | 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 Check | 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 Check | 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% larger. The V3 carried out barely decrease than the Galaxy Z Fold 6 with the identical chip, particularly beneath heavy duties, a potential signal of the challenges of cooling such a skinny cellphone.
The stress assessments additionally gave comparable hints, with efficiency dropping to half beneath a continuing 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 taking part in on very excessive settings.
In informal or lighter video games, the Magic V3 carried out very effectively, with the comfort of taking part in in both the exterior or inner show. Some video games, nevertheless, will not be tailored to the square-ish side ratio of the foldable display screen.
As a facet observe, 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 digital camera
Whereas rival foldables sacrifice digital camera versatility for thinness, Honor threw that recipe far-off. The Magic V3 contains a true triple digital camera setup on its thick digital camera bump: A 50-megapixel foremost sensor, a 40 MP ultrawide lens, and a 3.5x zoom periscope telephoto.
Execs:
- Versatile triple-camera setup.
- Usable 10x zoom pictures.
- Good selfies on each the inner and exterior cameras.
Cons:
- Disappointing ultrawide pictures at darkish.
Daylight footage have been excellent, whatever the cameras, with good shade replica and sharpness. The three.5x zoom periscope lens carried out surprisingly effectively for a foldable cellphone, justifying its large bump on the Magic V3. We really came upon that 3.5x optical zoom pictures seemed nicer than the 2x digital zooms cropped from the primary digital camera.
The telephoto digital camera additionally returned some usable pictures at 10x digital zoom in daylight. Going farther from that ends in the standard 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, evening pictures have been a bit disappointing, regardless of Honor’s (and Huawei’s) pioneering work on night-time computational images. Large and three.5x telephoto pictures have been high quality, with some overexposure in auto mode, however ultra-wide photographs merely couldn’t seize sufficient gentle ending up with a loud and gentle look.
Selfie pictures from the Magic V3 have been respectable however not distinctive. Each inner and exterior selfies carried out equally, with a barely softer (blurrier) look from the inner one, however with a pleasant degree of element basically and with out extreme processing, even with the wonder impact on by default.
One very last thing, contemplating the awkwardness of taking a selfie with the cellphone opened, we think about it won’t 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 digital camera will likely be sideways).
Honor Magic V3 battery
Not solely does the Magic V3 function an even bigger battery than its rivals, Honor geared up it with true quick charging each wired and wi-fi.
Execs:
- 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 inner show rather a lot.
| 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 obtained 14h08 and 8h16 of battery runtime between 80 and 20% cost when closed and opened, respectively.
Within the charging division, nevertheless, 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 preserving its technique of solely bundling the charger in some markets. However for these residing in nations the place it’s not included, the corporate typically gives it as a free bonus, so at all times verify these checkout choices and bundles in case you are shopping for one.
Honor Magic V3 technical specs
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| Reminiscence |
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| Selfie Digital camera |
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| Dimensions and weight |
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Different factors which will curiosity the nextpit group:
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Last verdict
The Honor Magic V3 is a formidable technical achievement. Whereas Oppo/OnePlus did a formidable job with the OnePlus Open, it sacrificed just a few conveniences within the identify of thinness, particularly wi-fi charging. Honor not solely beat them by together with wi-fi charging but in addition by making a good thinner cellphone.
Not even within the digital camera part we noticed vital sacrifices within the Magic V3. The three.5x periscope lens makes the digital camera bump very cumbersome however gives an identical vary and flexibility as most flagship telephones available on the market at the moment, on the similar time providing an extended vary than rivals’ foldables.
The one kink within the Magic V3 armor is the software program facet. Whereas Honor pushed the envelope on the {hardware} facet, MagicOS nonetheless didn’t break freed from its EMUI/HarmonyOS roots. There are inconsistencies within the design facet with previous EMUI kinds blended with the up to date HarmonyOS design and Pixel styling in random elements of the system.
A few of the large display screen options on the Magic V3 nonetheless really feel unfinished on this third-generation cellphone, whereas Google and OnePlus nearly nailed them on their first attempt.
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 value ready for opinions on the brand new Pixel Fold earlier than leaping in.
Honor Magic V3
To machine database