Honor’s Magic V6 units three foldable firsts

On paper, the Honor Magic V6 seems like an incredible leap ahead for foldable telephones: It’s the thinnest one but, with the largest battery, and the perfect water-resistance ever. In follow, solely the larger battery appears like a significant enchancment. The opposite upgrades are solely fractionally superior to what got here earlier than.

This isn’t totally Honor’s fault. It’s getting more durable to make a foldable telephone stand out; even final yr’s choices felt like full flagship telephones. Huawei’s Pura X Max stood out for its odd new facet ratio, which we’re anticipating to see each Samsung and Apple replicate later this yr. Then there are the trifolds, which really feel like a separate beast totally. However book-style Android foldables have effectively and actually matured, now capable of go toe-to-toe with common flagship telephones in nearly each respect.

Honor has been one of many producers pushing foldables ahead most aggressively, so it’s earned the correct to launch a telephone with comparatively modest {hardware} enhancements. I simply want the corporate had executed extra to overtake the software program, as MagicOS stays the principle factor holding the Magic V6 again.

The Magic V6 launched at February’s MWC commerce present. On the time, it solely went on sale in China; it’s taken till now for Honor to start the worldwide rollout. The telephone is now on sale in Malaysia and Singapore, the place it prices RM 7,699 (about $1,930). Extra nations, together with the UK and Europe, are set to observe later this month.

It’s solely truthful to begin with the telephone’s three foldable firsts, even when they’re largely incremental. For starters, it’s the thinnest foldable on the planet, simply 4mm thick when open, and eight.75mm when folded shut (effectively, the white model is — different colours are fractionally thicker at 9mm). Closed, it’s no thicker than an iPhone 17 Professional Max, which is a real accomplishment. Nevertheless it’s a mere 0.05mm thinner than Honor’s earlier technology Magic foldable. That’s concerning the width of a human hair, so I feel it’s secure to say we’re in imperceptible territory right here.

The Magic V6 can be the primary foldable telephone with an IP69 ranking, that means it’s dust-tight and able to surviving publicity to high-pressure and high-temperature water jets. The ranking means the V6 has higher mud safety than the V5’s IP59 and may survive water publicity that the IP68 Pixel 10 Professional Fold couldn’t, however the sensible implications nonetheless really feel minimal. I can’t say I run into high-pressure jets with my telephone in hand all that always, besides, the additional peace of thoughts is welcome.

Crucial of the three upgrades is to the battery, which is now 6,660mAh due to improved silicon-carbon cells (although China will get an much more capacious 7,150mAh mannequin). That is greater than some other foldable on the market and an inexpensive bounce up from the 5,820mAh capability of the Magic V5. And it pays off. The V5 might final for a day after which some, however I’ve been comfortably utilizing the V6 for 2 days at a time, charging each different evening, and I wrestle to see how even a heavy person might run this factor down over the course of a single day. This, no less than, appears like a significant enchancment.

Elsewhere issues are boring, however solely as a result of I take them without any consideration in flagship foldables. In fact the Magic V6 is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. In fact it affords as much as 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM. In fact it contains quick wi-fi charging (however, in fact, it doesn’t assist Qi2). In fact it has twin 120Hz OLED shows and a triple rear digital camera and assist for a stylus. These items aren’t simply anticipated any extra, they’re assumed.

Nonetheless, as a lot as foldable telephones have superior, there are drawbacks. The digital camera continues to be the large one. The triple rear digital camera right here is actually spectacular and doubtless the perfect in any foldable bar Oppo’s Discover N6. However, similar to that telephone, the digital camera system right here lags behind absolutely the top-end slab telephones, held again by smaller sensors that restrict gentle seize, heavy saturation on many photographs, and a few inconsistent colour processing. Briefly: The digital camera is nice, however not nice, and that’s nonetheless one of many large compromises you’ll make with any foldable telephone.

The crease is one other, in fact. The V6’s is pretty delicate, however nowhere close to as exhausting to detect because the practically imperceptible one on Oppo’s newest. After which there’s sturdiness. Sure, there’s an IP69 ranking, however it’s nonetheless a foldable: The hinge is fragile, the interior display is tender, and it’s tough to guard totally with a case. Outdoors of China, Honor can’t match the restore and assist infrastructure of the likes of Samsung, so you will have a more durable time if it does ever break.

Then there’s software program. The excellent news is that Honor is promising seven years of OS and safety updates, two greater than Oppo and the identical that Google and Samsung provide. The dangerous is that Honor’s MagicOS is amongst my least favourite Android skins. The UI is noisy (and more and more impressed by Apple’s Liquid Glass), Honor packs the telephone with its own-brand apps, and the multitasking isn’t as highly effective or as intuitive as Oppo’s. I a lot want utilizing different variations of Android OS, and the software program is a serious purpose the Oppo Discover N6 stays my favourite foldable.

We don’t know precisely what the rumored foldable iPhone will provide, or Samsung’s imminent Galaxy Z Fold 8 for that matter. However Apple will likely be getting into a mature foldable market, and I’ve to present credit score to Honor as one of many corporations that’s made certain that’s the case. Over the previous few years its Magic foldables have pushed the boundaries of foldable design and battery capability time and again, and the Magic V6 is the end result of that regular progress in {hardware}, even when Honor has let its software program facet lapse. That is a formidable, full foldable, however all these incremental upgrades are starting to really feel boring. Let’s see if Apple could make issues attention-grabbing once more.

Pictures by Dominic Preston / The Verge