Last year Honor made a big splash with its Magic V2, which was the thinnest foldable phone on the market at the time, measuring 9.9mm thick when folded and 4.7mm when unfolded. Today Honor has announced its successor, the Magic V3, which offers all sorts of upgrades in a slimmer and lighter body.
The Magic V3 measures just 9.2mm (not including the camera bump) when folded and shrinks to 4.35mm when you open its 7.92-inch main screen. Honor has slimmed down its flagship foldable by using an upgraded hinge mechanism that’s just 2.84mm thick and is rated at 500,000 folds. The frame is made from 7-series aluminum alloy.
Even more impressive is that the Magic V3 weighs just 226 grams – that’s 13 grams less than the recently launched Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 and on par with bar phones like the Magic6 Pro.
The new thing this year is the IPX8 water resistance rating which is actually a first for Honor foldables.
The Magic V3 sports a 6.43-inch LTPO cover screen with FHD+ resolution, 1-120Hz refresh rate. It has a 20:9 aspect ratio which should help with general usage and typing. It is also rated for 2,500 nits peak brightness and supports stylus input just like last year’s Magic V2.
The main display is also of the LTPO OLED variety and measures 7.92 inches in size. It has an FHD+ resolution, 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate and has a maximum brightness of up to 1,800 nits. Honor has also added a side-mounted ultra-narrow capacitive fingerprint sensor from Goodix that allows for faster fingerprint enrollment.
The Magic V3 features Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset that can be configured with up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 1TB of UFS 4.0 storage. Despite its thin and light profile, Honor has still managed to fit a larger vapor chamber (VC) cooling system than the outgoing Magic V2.
There are three cameras on the back, including a 50MP main shooter (f/1.6 aperture) with OIS, a 50MP periscope with 3.5x optical zoom (f/3.0), and a 40MP ultrawide lens (f/2.2). There is also a 20MP front-facing camera in the cover and main screen. Honor is also promising support for Harcourt Portrait mode in August.
The software side is covered by MagicOS 14 based on Android 8.0.1 which comes with a number of AI features including Circle to Search and Honor Parallel Space which along with dual SIM support allows you to split the main display and essentially have two separate phones with their own apps and profiles.
The Magic V3 packs a 5,150mAh silicon-carbon battery with 66W wired and 50W wireless charging.
Honor Magic V3 is available in red, white, green and black colours. Price starts at Rs 15,999. CNY 8,999 ($1,240) For 12/256GB Trim and go up CNY 10,999 ($1,516) For 16GB RAM and 1TB storage Sample.
Its open sale in China will begin from July 19, but we have not yet received any confirmation for the global launch.
Honor has confirmed that the Magic V3 satellite connectivity edition will be launched later this year.
