This week, Honor finally brought its flagship folding phone, the Magic V5, to Australia. The company launched its handset in style on Sydney Harbour, emphasising the four things the Chinese brand feels differentiate the Magic V5 from the competition:
- It’s the thinnest folding phone in Australia (if you ignore the camera bump, and depending on the device).
- It appears to be the most durable folding phone currently available.
- Honor has gone all-in on generative AI and believes that generative AI is the path to a utopian future (though it doesn’t specify how it would achieve that).
- Honor has a whole ecosystem of accessories.
I’ve spent roughly a day with the new phone, and while you’ll need to wait a little while longer for a more in-depth review, I’m so far really impressed with all the non-AI features of the Honor Magic 5, despite how much I wish I could buy a vowel for the brand name.
To break it down, here are my first impressions of each of these four pillars.
So thin, so light
The early folding phones had a lot of problems, and one of the biggest issues was that they were just too bulky to actually comfortably hold and use for a full day without getting a cramp. Not ideal for a phone marketed towards power users.
Earlier this year, Samsung impressed with the Galaxy Z Fold 7, which was only 8.9mm at its thinnest point. At the time, I commended it for feeling so much like a normal phone when folded, but noted that the pointy edges were bothersome when unfolded.
The Honor Magic V5 boasts that it’s a mere 8.8mm at its thinnest point. Does that 0.1mm make a difference? Absolutely not, but it looks good on a box to be the thinnest. I would argue that it matters more how thin the whole phone is, including the camera bump, not just the tapered edges. It’s like if I claimed to be the thinnest I’ve ever been after taking an extended break from weight lifting, by only measuring my bicep and not my belly.
Unfortunately, I don’t have callipers on hand, but just eyeballing the phone, it’s easy to see that the camera bump is more, well, bumpy than Samsung’s. Tom’s Guide has also disputed whether the Magic V5 really is thinner than the Galaxy Z Fold 7, and they do have callipers.
That said, it doesn’t matter how many hairs thicker or thinner than Samsung the Honor Magic V5 is. It is ridiculously thin, and next to it, the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold just looks like an unwieldy third draft. Sure, the camera bump sticks out a lot, but with the way the edges are rounded, it doesn’t get caught on my pocket as much as I would expect. It’s impressive, really.
Holding it either open or closed is really comfortable; it feels and looks like a fully formed idea, a definite contender despite most people here having never heard of the brand before. Of course, we’ll see how that goes over a week or two, but for now, I’m very impressed.
Durability
At the launch event, Honor really emphasised how durable the phone is. Folding phones have a reputation for being quite fragile, so Honor pushing durability is a big tick in its favour.
The biggest brag is that Guinness World Records has certified that the hinge can handle 104kgs of force, making it the first folding phone to do so. Whether this was a longstanding record begging to be broken, or one of the sponsored records that brands can buy to be able to use the record and logo in their marketing, was not specified by Honor, yet it’s cool either way.
There were also stations where you could toss the Magic V5 into a tank of water, and the assembled journalists and influencers did so with gay abandon, yet still the phone survived. My review phone was one of those phones so tossed, and thus has a small crack in the front screen.
What’s impressive is that although there is a crack, it doesn’t affect the operation of the screen, and the rest of the phone is unhindered. Every time I’ve dropped a folding phone, my whole life has flashed before my eyes. I don’t have the same level of concern with the Honor Magic V5 after those demonstrations and my own preliminary tests. I feel like this is the first folding phone I would be comfortable letting my toddler do a durability test on.
AI
Well, it can’t all be good. The video Honor used to spruik the AI chops of the phone was AI-generated, and it looked so very, hilariously bad. Just embarrassing to show that to other people, let alone in a business presentation.
Equally bad was the AI Portrait mode. I took a photo of my mother at lunch, and it made her skin paler, erased her wrinkles and applied an odd makeup effect (it was bad to the point that she won’t let me show you). Thankfully, you can just never interact with the generative AI features and pretend they don’t exist, given how many other features the phone has.
The ecosystem
Often, when buying into a newcomer brand, the accessories range lags behind, so you end up having to mix and match. However, Honor has been around for ages in other markets, so we get to enjoy a fully formed range.
Honor is launching in Australia with a full suite, including a choice between a folding phone and a traditional phone (the Honor 400 Pro), a pair of open-ear headphones (Honor Choice Earbuds Clip), a tablet (Honor Pad 10), and a smartwatch (Honor Watch 4). The tablet and watch have taken their design cues from Apple, the headphones from Shokz, and the Honor 400 Pro from Huawei and Samsung.
What makes it extra sweet is that Honor has a pre-order value bundle, where you get the watch and headphones for free with the $999 400 Pro, or the watch and tablet free with the $2,599 Magic V5, which is a pretty impressive deal.
Honor Magic V5 hands-on verdict
While I haven’t spent enough time with the phone to properly review it and judge it, the only red flag I’ve noticed so far is the AI nonsense, and that’s pretty prevalent across the board with Android and thus isn’t worth dismissing the phone over. The Magic V5 feels good in the hand, is packed full of features and seems durable.
Keep an eye out for my full review, coming soon.
Alice Clarke attended the launch event in Sydney with travel provided by Honor.
