Honor Magic V2 Review, enter an era of the light foldable

It’s not everyday that you get to feast your eyes on a device that raises the bar on design, weight, and sprinkles of added effort on software, so when we heard that Honor was introducing what they deemed the thinnest and lightest inward foldable smartphone to date, we had to put one to the test.

Honor introduced the Honor Magic V2 alongside the Magic 6 Pro in South Africa under a theme filled with sorcery or was it enchantment from the dashing duo solidifying Honor’s pledge to better future AI?

The Honor Magic V2

On the first glance of the boxed Honor Magic V2, we have to congratulate Honor on the tasteful packaging around the Honor Magic V2. The packaging alone confirms the meticulous attention to detail that shadowed the Magic V2 to ensure the device sent the right message to the audience – sophistication.

So the Honor Magic V2 is attractive.  Yes, it’s a looker at first sight, but we’re often a little skeptical when we see an attractive device and this may be due to our history, where the attractive device often underdelivered, while the not-so-flashy brought in well-thought-out convenience.

The Honor Magic V2 forms part of Honor’s flagship segment which brings in a new era of onboard AI camera capabilities, at least that’s what Honor says on paper.

The foldable is arguably the thinnest foldable we’ve seen. Over dinner, we put the foldable against other fold competitors and yes it was the slimmer contender, measuring 9.9 mm with a weight of 231g.

It’s light thanks to its titanium hinge made with Honor steel and is around 22g lighter than a Galaxy Z Fold 5.

Display

The device crease to any foldable when opened is always up for contestation and we spotted a slight drop of the finger when scanning past the screen with our finger.

The Honor Magic V2 was only a few days old but the slight crease dimple shouldn’t defer any user as we spot other pros to this stylish contender for a fold.

There’s a clear 7.92 inch extended foldable display which takes viewing videos to a whole new experience. Thanks to Honor’s eye comfort display we spotted a convenient radiance to the display, especially at night when brightness often struggles to find the right balance. Thanks to the Honor’s nanocrystal glass 2.0 integration, images, and videos are a lot more crisp while safely behind a scratch-resistant coating.

We appreciated the split screen multitasking when unfolded and realized how we missed using a fold. There’s an eyebrow-raising 120 Hz LTPO display, which ensures notable transitions, a brightness of 2,500 nits, an ultra-thin bionic cooling system that does moan when challenged too far when gaming.

Honor, during their launch, also announced their partnership with Gameloft to introduce a version of Asphalt 9: Legends optimized especially for foldable, this was a solid move. The association sends forward a message of commitment.

The Honor Magic V2 comes with a 20:9 aspect ratio, 2500nits of peak brightness, 384Hz dimming, and is said to be ten times more drop resistant.

We appreciate the 90% screen-to-body ratio, the 7.92-inch inner screen and the 6.43-inch external screen.

Battery

We see a 5000 mAh Honor dual silicon carbon battery with a convincing thickness of only 2.72 mm. This was impressive to note as Honor told audience members that the card the audience members had as their entrance tag to the Honor launch, was the same size as the Magic V2’s battery.

It’s a decent battery likely to get the online content creator an all-day’s worth of battery life. We do have the opinion that the Honor Magic V2 is a business person’s phone or office-bound user.

The Honor Magic 2 does make a statement for a device that is both slim and light with the added bonus of two innovatively placed batteries. We were pleasantly impressed by the titanium hinge, and steel frame to ensure it’s durable for over 40,000 folds. The credit size ultra-thin silicon carbon battery had our attention and we wondered how the device would look with a transparent back cover. Crazy idea yes, yet genius is often crazy with no order.

Users get access to rapid charging thanks to the 66W Honor SuperCharge support which could have been a little faster.

Specs

We see a snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor which Honor says collaborates with Honor’s three boost engines for smoother operation, Magic OS, and an Honor assistant which makes app suggestions a pleasure. From content recommendations, an Honor assistant allows features such as the Magic text feature to allow users to copy text from a WhatsApp message and copy it straight into Honor maps for recommendations.

Simply copy and drop the message and Honor assist will assist with recommendations or the stipulated address or restaurant. We appreciate the ingenuity here.

On the side, we picked up a fingerprint sensor which took us some time to get used to. It’s placed between two folds. After setting up your fingerprint, you should be good to go.

The fingerprint sensor favors right-handed users – as it would be really awkward to place your left-hand thumb.

Camera

We see a 50MP wide main camera with an f/1.9 aperture, a telephoto 20 MP camera, and a temperature sensor on the rear alongside a 16MP wide selfie camera on the front.

While this all looks good on paper, we did see the rear camera struggle a little with processing as we accelerated past subjects, while recording a video. That’s not a bad thing as some devices on the market do fall short on this speed test.

When compared to competitors the Honor Magic V2 came to compete. It’s competitively priced and has a set of usual apps to get you started.

Price

The flagship Honor Magic V2 comes in black with an interesting vegan leather back available at R 39 999. Inside the box, you will find the perfect rear cover for user convenience.

Overall

We liked it, but had a few reservations. The design and the effort to develop an industry-innovative light and thin device takes creative thinking. This we noticed. The fingerprint sensor does need rethinking, the internal processor could be a little faster.  It’s a device one could fall for.  It’s industry standard with easy access to Google functionality.

The Honor Magic V2 makes sense and we liked the idea, a futuristic device with some AI camera ability. Those made sense. Commendable picture quality, appealing design and innovative battery positioning. That deserves all deserves to be noted.

An interesting comeback from Honor.  We can’t wait to see what comes next.

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