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). 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–shade choices within the West will fluctuate by market, with Germany getting brown, inexperienced, and black, whereas France will obtain the inexperienced and black choices. US clients, as normal, might want to resort to third-party market sellers or importing.
Impressively skinny construct and vibrant shows
The Honor Magic V3’s spotlight is definitely 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.
- Vibrant 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 era (a minimum of for my part). The again floor feels premium to the contact and resists fairly properly 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, nonetheless, the digital camera bump is far more pronounced, in all probability 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 needless to say it will increase the digital camera bump even additional, with a retractable ring that works as a stand. The ring seems prefer it might be used with lens filters (just 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 ability button with an built-in fingerprint sensor (within the again half) and the quantity rocker (entrance) on the correct 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 assist, 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 take a look at and the V3 survived impressively, exhibiting how far foldables advanced 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 listing stupidly excessive brightness ranges, with the exterior one topping at 5000 nits, whereas the interior one reaches 1800 nits at peak.
Utilizing the cellphone outside was no concern. Colours have been vibrant as normal for OLED shows. As for the crease, it’s nonetheless noticeable each visually and by touching it. Some contents can cover it properly, 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, nonetheless, there may be 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 often lags behind Samsung and Google’s promise of safety updates for seven years on their foldables. Not solely that, the earlier era 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 throughout the preliminary setup for the Honor Magic V3, with “Cannot connect to Google servers” errors even throughout 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 carried out with the July safety patch, with the pictures 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 assessment. AI options are nonetheless discovered within the “Assistant” discipline on the Settings app, and new to the Magic V3 is a Head to head translation characteristic that may assist when touring overseas however shouldn’t be 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 characteristic is a helpful multi-tasking software that permits dragging and dropping pictures to different apps–for instance, for a brand new observe, social media posts, e mail, and so on.–just like the Magic Textual content software present in different Honor flagship telephones.
Matt Zellmer talked about in his assessment 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 applying switcher/process supervisor.
Attempting 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 might be 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 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.
Professionals:
Cons:
- Velocity 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 assessment unit. All exams 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) |
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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 era. 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 attainable signal of the challenges of cooling such a skinny cellphone.
The stress exams additionally gave related hints, with efficiency dropping to half underneath a continuing load. The cellphone didn’t get excessively sizzling to the contact however in longer gaming periods, the graphics fluidity might get degraded if you’re enjoying on very excessive settings.
In informal or lighter video games, the Magic V3 carried out very properly, with the comfort of enjoying in both the exterior or inside show. Some video games, nonetheless, will not be tailored to the square-ish facet ratio of the foldable display.
As a aspect 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 distant. The Magic V3 incorporates a true triple digital camera setup on its thick digital camera bump: A 50-megapixel principal sensor, a 40 MP ultrawide lens, and a 3.5x zoom periscope telephoto.
Professionals:
- Versatile triple-camera setup.
- Usable 10x zoom photographs.
- Good selfies on each the interior and exterior cameras.
Cons:
- Disappointing ultrawide photographs at darkish.
Daylight photos have been superb, whatever the cameras, with good shade copy and sharpness. The three.5x zoom periscope lens carried out surprisingly properly for a foldable cellphone, justifying its massive bump on the Magic V3. We really came upon that 3.5x optical zoom photographs seemed nicer than the 2x digital zooms cropped from the principle digital camera.
The telephoto digital camera additionally returned some usable photographs 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 photos have been typically good in daylight however tended to be softer and with barely completely different colours than the opposite lenses.
Whereas daylight photographs have been good total, evening photographs have been a bit disappointing, regardless of Honor’s (and Huawei’s) pioneering work on night-time computational pictures. Vast and three.5x telephoto photographs have been superb, with some overexposure in auto mode, however ultra-wide pictures merely couldn’t seize sufficient mild ending up with a loud and tender look.
Selfie photographs 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 on the whole and with out extreme processing, even with the wonder 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 pictures. Nonetheless, utilizing the included again case ring helps place the cellphone properly for video calls (however the digital camera will probably be sideways).
Honor Magic V3 battery
Not solely does the Magic V3 characteristic an even bigger battery than its rivals, Honor outfitted it with true quick charging each wired and wi-fi.
Professionals:
- Respectable 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 should you use the Magic V3’s inside show lots.
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) |
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5 minutes | ||||
10 minutes | ||||
20 minutes | ||||
half-hour | ||||
1 hour | ||||
Full cost | ||||
PC Mark Battery take a look at |
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Within the simulated PC Mark battery take a look at, the Magic V3 carried out barely worse than the same specced Galaxy Fold 6 with a smaller battery. The Honor cellphone acquired 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 appropriate 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 dwelling in nations the place it’s not included, the corporate typically provides it as a free bonus, so all the time verify these checkout choices and bundles if you’re shopping for one.
Honor Magic V3 technical specs
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Reminiscence |
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OS |
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Digital camera |
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Selfie Digital camera |
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IP Certification | |
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Different factors that 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, particularly 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 digital camera part we noticed important sacrifices within the Magic V3. The three.5x periscope lens makes the digital camera bump very cumbersome however provides an identical vary and flexibility as most flagship telephones available on the market at the moment, on the identical 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 blended with the up to date HarmonyOS design and Pixel styling in random components of the system.
A few 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.
Ultimately, 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.
Honor Magic V3
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