HONOR Magic Vs Review – A foldable to the challenge

The HONOR Magic Vs is not something new, in fact it was revealed as early as starting of 2023 where HONOR did gave us the preview of it which you can check it out HERE. While back at that time it was only exclusively released in China with quite good feedback and sales over there as well.

And now it has arrived to Malaysia officially, we got another chance to play around on this review which we can properly cover on several features on the foldable along with benchmarks over this global version of the device with Google Play Services available.

Unboxing Contents

The HONOR Magic Vs comes in a big black box with the items below

• HONOR Magic Vs Phone
• USB A to C cable
• 66W HONOR Charger (PD)
• Back Case
• User Manual/User Guide
• SIM Ejector

Design

Now although the HONOR Magic Vs is not the first foldable device in the space, but it is one of the very few foldable phones that uses the Gearless Hinge approach where there is no mechanical gears between the opening, making it slightly durable and longer lasting when it comes to constant daily opening and closing the devices, which gave advantages towards the overall ratio and weight as well as the size of the device build.

To further talk about the materials, the HONOR Magic Vs back is made of metal and glass finishing while the middle frame that holds the two folding piece together is made of metal (of course). The camera module located at the back is made from a quite shiny but durable glass that created a slight bump to it. The overall feel of operating the device stands at a quite good grip holding to it with operations of folding and unfolding is seamless and not hard to open or closing it. HONOR claims that the hinge can last for an approximate of 400k times or to translate in years, that would be 10 years of overall average operational usage before things starts to get loose, which is a really long time and I doubt someone would use the same smartphone for 10 years. Oh yeah, to add, when its shut folded, it leaves no gap at all between the two piece, real perfect preventing dust going in.

Buttons and ports placements wise, you get a side mounted fingerprint scanner which is also a power button, a set of volume button, a USB C port below for charging and data and a pair of stereo speakers towards far left and right, putting it a good experience when listening to your favorite audio. When comes to weight, being a foldable phone, its normal to carry a 261 grams of weight in to it, which in fact you are carrying a phone with a tablet at the same time, yet if you combine both separately, the HONOR Magic Vs is still lighter.

Display & Audio

OK, lets start from the outer smaller screen, which houses a 6,45 inch OLED Dynamic 120Hz refresh rate that carries along with 21:9 aspect ratio, while speaking about ratio, its holding about 90% screen to body ratio which makes it look slim and tall while slight curves can be seen over four sides of the glass, which still maintains elegance when using it, even without unfolding it. It does incorporate PWM dimming up to 1920Hz which makes it eye friendly when using it, day or night.

Then we have another screen when its unfolded, revealing a big 7.9 inch OLED Dynamic 90Hz display that is able to portray up to 1B colors in brilliance. In fact the unfolded display is also able to adjust the refresh rates automatically and this is especially useful when it comes to viewing non intensive content such as reading apps or browsing thru your favorite browser. So far the crease still exist but it is slightly less noticeable compared to the competitors that has their own foldable lineups, so even if you are gaming on a big screen, there should be no experience difference between it, and it fact because of its slimmer form factor, it makes it easier to hold on it and you should have longer hours of usage and gameplay. The inner display can be quite bright, and peaks up to about 800nits, meaning that you can use it quite comfortably even outdoors, while in dimmer areas, Blue eye comfort is there to makes things easier while you are reading your favorite articles.

As we mention earlier, the HONOR Magic Vs does have a set of stereo speakers on the left and right position of the phone, which can create pretty good stereo effects with on par audio delivery, however lacks of bass and sometimes it might sound bland on certain audio scenario, however it is still pleasant on the ears overall with still satisfying experience so to speak, and you still can plug in to your favorite headphones via USBC or just use Bluetooth connection.

Camera

Here comes the camera and the optics, the HONOR Magic Vs rear camera is equipped with a 54MP SONY IMX800 lens, an 8MP telephoto lens with OIS and another 50MP ultrawide lens. The combination portion which is the star of the show its the main lens, which can give you adequate day and night shots with very reasonable quality, and this is not the first time HONOR is using the IMX 800, in fact it was first used on the HONOR Magic 70 and of course, our review rates it favorably well also. You can expect a slightly better quality on this one with results that can fair along over contrast and colors combined. Even over night shots are passable for us with good low lighting support, the shadows, gradient can still be exhibited quite accurately, though by the end of the day the overall quality cannot be compared with any flagship class camera phone, but still, I am thrilled that they managed to fit every component they can. The 16MP front cam is just a normal one with wide lens, however shots that I take is enhanced by AI, but I am good with that and overall it is suitable if say you wanted it to use it with video conferences or video meeting calls, or if you wish to take a higher pixel shots, just switch the cover display on and use the rear camera as your selfie camera, which works also.

A fair amount of software features are available for the Magic Vs like panorama, super macro, high-res and dual view, just to name a few that can be quite useful on scenario where you need it, it is there although do not expect any more extra features you can get from the Magic 5Pro, but to the least, the portion is there and one should not be worry much about it, since the features are crafted between the casual shooters blending with some of the pro features.

Last but not least, the HONOR Magic Vs rear camera video recording can be considered an upper mid range type, as it can supports up to 4K at 60FPS with a noticeable but very rare stutters while testing the recording, you can check it out as well.

Performance, Benchmarks & Experience

Now to the performance, the HONOR Magic Vs is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 Octa Core SOC with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage, no external storage such as SD Card slot, but one can always use cloud services such as Google Photos and Google Drive to backup your precious data.

MagicOS 7.1 with Android 13 is here serving as the UI and OS bringing in minor but noticeable features and performances to further optimise how a foldable operations should be, such as split multi window and quick app switching between the cover display and the unfolded tablet screen seamlessly, however the app drawer is missing and we hope that HONOR will include it in the next iteration of the software update. Other than that, this time HONOR RAM Turbo can be expanded up to 7GB giving it on par Virtual RAM extension gap almost the same with other available competitions. There is still room for improvement and as of the current state as a user, it is still highly enjoyable and satisfiying at all times, whether I am gaming with it, viewing my Outlook or just making some calls, its quite a joy and recharging back with the included 66W quick charger can get you back quick from empty to full in less than 2 hours and you are ready to go again throughout the evening.

We will attach our benchmarks as usual for those who are interested, and sure enough, nothing’s terribly different from the other competitors which indicates performance side, it is well optimized and taken care of.

Technical Specifications

Verdict & Conclusion

The HONOR Magic Vs is an attempt to step up in the foldable phone space, and in certain aspects HONOR did nailed it, like the reduced creased on the screen and it just folded shut with close to no gaps to it, which is something that we do praised for the effort, as well as the gearless hinge. Within its positives there is still room to improvement, like better optimisation towards app fluidity and the app drawer option seems to be missing, but we are pretty sure that HONOR will still provide at least another additional two to three years of software update, and by that time, Google will be helping along with their own Pixel Foldables to be ready for prime time, which thus benefited brands that is working hard in making Foldables better, and more common, while maintaining premium with great features. Overall we are satisfied with what HONOR has done and with a price tag of RM5999, this surely makes the whole scene becomes even more competitive.

For more information on the HONOR Magic Vs, CLICK HERE to find out more!.