Honor Magic V3 review: The new book-style foldable to beat?

In theory, book-style foldables are the ideal hybrid device. You essentially get two devices in one, with a full-sized phone that opens to reveal a small tablet.

However, every single model released so far has had at least one big flaw, whether it’s a bulky design, poor cameras or sub-par battery life.

On paper, the Honor Magic V3 addresses all three, while offering top-tier displays, fast charging and an array of features – including plenty of AI.

Does that make it the first no-compromise book-style foldable that you can buy? I spent over a week using the Magic V3 as my main phone, and have plenty of thoughts.

Design & Build

• Incredible thin and light design
• IPX8 rating

The Magic V3’s design is simply incredible.

I didn’t think Honor could do any better than the Magic V2, which was already ridiculously thin at 9.9mm when folded, but it’s gone one better here. The Magic V3 is just 9.2mm, making it the thinnest book-style device in the world.

Compare that to the 12.1mm Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and you can see just what Honor has achieved here. Even the company’s regular Magic 6 Pro phone is only slightly slimmer at 8.9mm.

Alongside a weight of just 226g (lighter than many non-folding phones), the Magic V3 is a marvel of engineering. You can use the cover screen without even knowing the inner display is there, which is surely the ultimate goal for all book-style foldables.

I was concerned that such a thin and light design would make the device feel flimsy, but that’s not the case. The Magic V3 features a ‘Super Steel’ hinge which feels impressively tough and robust.

I must’ve opened and closed it more than 100 times without ever having to worry about being too careful. However, it’s worth noting that the hinge offers quite a lot of resistance, so you can’t easily open it one-handed.

The Magic V3’s design is simply incredible

The body of the device is made from what Honor calls ‘Special Fiber’. I can’t verify the company’s claims of excellent drop protection, though the device does feel very solidly built.

Elsewhere, anti-scratch glass on both screens helps them stay safe. The pre-applied screen protectors add an extra layer of protection, even if a couple of scratches have already appeared on my review unit.

With its IPX8 rating, the Magic V3 is rated to survive submersion in up to 2.5m of freshwater, up from the usual 1.5m standard.

However, there’s no official protection against dust. With a hinge that’s regularly exposed to the elements, this is not a phone you’ll want to take to the beach.

Getting complete dust protection on a foldable is extremely difficult, but the IP48 Galaxy Z Fold 6 is at least rated against solid objects larger than 1mm.

However, that’s the only design downside that I can see. If the sleek ‘Black’ model I tested is a little plain for you, the ‘Green’ and ‘Reddish Brown’ options add a splash of colour and look great in person. Matt finishes on all three limit the appearance of fingerprint smudges.

The octagonal camera bump is also sure to turn heads, but I like the distinctive look and it doesn’t protrude from the back of the phone much. Be prepared to put up with some dirt around the edges, though.

Honor continues to build a physical fingerprint scanner into the power button, which is a wise move on a foldable. It’s naturally placed on the right side when open or closed, and is a reliable alternative to the less secure face unlock.

It’s also worth mentioning the haptics, which deliver subtle yet realistic feedback while typing, switching apps, charging and more. The vibration motor is the best I’ve tried on any foldable, though it can easily be disabled in Settings if you’re not a fan.

Screens & Speakers

• 6.43-inch cover display
• 7.92-inch internal display
• Dual stereo speakers

Like any book-style foldable, the Magic V3 has two displays. On the outside is a 6.43-inch cover screen, which opens to reveal a 7.92-inch internal panel.

And I’m glad to report that both screens are up there with the very best you’ll find on any foldable. They have a lot in common, as LTPO OLED screens which can automatically adjust between 1-120Hz, balancing smoothness with power consumption.

Being OLEDs, you also get the usual rich, vibrant colours and deep blacks, which makes them ideal for photo and video content.

A pixel density of 402ppi ensures detail and clarity are both excellent, giving resolutions 2344 x 2156 (internal) and 2376 x 1060 (cover) respectively. The internal screen also gets noticeably brighter, but you can expect a top tier viewing experience on both.

Both screens are up there with the very best you’ll find on any foldable

However, that unusual resolution means the internal screen is very square. When watching videos and playing some games, you’ll have to put up with big black bars above and below the content, meaning you lose some of the benefit of that larger display.

Of course, there’s also a crease down the middle of it, though Honor has minimised its impact here. You can feel it under your finger, but it doesn’t affect navigation at all, and you can only see it when the screen is switched off or displaying black content.

The Magic V3’s dual stereo speakers are situated at the top and bottom of the phone. That’s great when the device is folded, but a little impractical when unfolded, where sound is only coming out of the left side of the device.

Even so, you can expect fairly punchy audio. There’s a nice hit of bass and no distortion, even at high volumes, though they lack the room-filling audio you get from some tablets.

Specs & Performance

• Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and 12GB RAM
• Great performance, but drop-off on internal screen
• 512GB of non-expandable storage

As a flagship device released in 2024, it should come as no surprise that the Magic V3 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. It’s Qualcomm’s latest and greatest chipset at the time of writing, though the 8 Gen 4 isn’t far away.

Alongside 12GB of RAM, everyday performance is excellent, regardless of which display you’re using. I regularly used the cover screen to send messages, take photos and for navigation, then switched to the internal display for web browsing and watching videos.

The transition between apps and screens is totally seamless, with no hesitation or slowdown whatsoever. And the addition of that high refresh rate makes the whole experience feel very premium. I can’t fault it.

Unfortunately, there is a bigger difference when it comes to demanding tasks. The Magic V3’s large internal display makes it an ideal candidate for gaming, but performance is demonstrably worse than on the cover screen.

This won’t be an issue for casual titles, but there are some noticeable dropped frames while playing demanding games such as Genshin Impact, Asphalt Legends and Call of Duty: Mobile that you simply don’t get on the cover display.

At no stage was it enough to make them unplayable, but it does take the shine off the gaming experience. If gaming is a priority for you, you might want to rethink buying the Magic V3, or any book-style foldable for that matter. The larger display size means reduced frame rates are almost inevitable.

Everyday performance is excellent, regardless of which display you’re using

However, during those demanding workloads, you don’t need to worry about overheating. Honor has done a very good job with the cooling system on the Magic V3, to the extent that it only ever got slightly warm to the touch.

The only model available in Europe offers 512GB of storage, which is more than enough for most people. There’s space for two SIM cards or eSIM, though no support for expandable storage.

Elsewhere, with Wi-Fi 7, 5G and a rock-solid Bluetooth 5.3 connection, plus NFC for contactless payments, connectivity is another strong point.

Honor Magic V3 benchmarks

In the chart below, I’ve included the higher GFXBench scores recorded on the cover screen, which offer a fairer comparison to rivals.

Cameras

• 50Mp main rear lens, can also be used for selfies
• 50Mp 3.5x telephoto
• 40Mp ultrawide
• Dual 20Mp front-facing sensors

In total, the Honor Magic V3 has five camera lenses. Some are excellent, others are good, and one is a little underwhelming.

Let’s start with the 50Mp main lens, which is up there with the best sensors you’ll find on any smartphone, foldable or not. Detail and dynamic range are consistently excellent, and I found it to handle exposure very well. Whether I was taking a photo of food, buildings, a street or complex landscape, a high-quality image was almost guaranteed.

See a range of photos in the gallery below:

That extends to low-light environments, where the main lens excelled. I love the way it brings scenes to life, preserving detail and subtly brightening the image without ever looking unrealistic. See a couple of samples at the end of the slideshow above.

When a little further from my subject, the 50Mp telephoto sensor comes into its own. The lens offers up to 3.5x optical zoom, allowing you zoom in with only a very slight drop-off in quality.

This is useful in a variety of scenarios, though I’d have liked to see 5x or higher. As soon as you go past 10x, quality declines sharply, with the max 100x digital zoom only there for showing off to others.

Either of these lenses can be used to take portrait-style shots. Just like the Honor 200 Pro, the Magic V3 offers a choice of three modes here, in collaboration with Studio Harcourt, the classic French photography studio.

It’s set to Harcourt Vibrant by default, which closely matches the style you’ll get in regular photos. That means saturated, punchy photos with colours that really pop, though they’re not exactly true to life.

The more muted Harcourt Colour is a little more realistic, while Harcourt Classic delivers the black and white shots many of us will be familiar with.

See below for a comparison of all three, with Vibrant followed by Colour and then Classic:

Regardless of the mode you choose, portraits are a real strength of the Magic V3. It’s consistently great at edge detection, delivering a realistic background blur that can be adjusted before taking the photo. Without a doubt, this is the best foldable for portrait photography.

Sadly, the third rear lens is nowhere near as impressive. The 40Mp ultrawide sounds great on paper and would be useful in a variety of scenarios, but the drop-off in quality made me very reluctant to use it.

Colour accuracy, detail and exposure are all compromised, which is a real disappointment. It’s not unusable, but I’d only use it as a last resort when you can’t stand further back.

The 50Mp main lens is up there with the best sensors you’ll find on any smartphone, foldable or not

For the best selfies, I’d highly recommend using the main lens, where the cover display allows you to preview shots before they’re taken. But this can be fiddly at times, so it’s good to know that the 20Mp sensors atop both screens still offer decent quality.

See selfies below from the main camera, followed by cover display and internal display lenses:

That includes video, where both front and rear cameras can shoot in up to 4K. For the best results, use the telephoto lens, which features OIS (optical image stabilisation) for steady footage.

Battery Life & Charging

• 5150mAh battery
• 66W charging with charger in box
• 50W Qi wireless charging

The Magic V3 has one of the largest batteries you’ll find on any foldable. It’s a 5150mAh cell, making it much larger than the Galaxy Z Fold 6’s 4400mAh capacity.

Despite two displays to power, battery life is very good. My testing time with the Magic V3 has included a range of usage patterns, from just a couple of hours of screen time at home to over eight hours while travelling.

On each occasion, a full charge lasted me the entire day, even if it got close on a couple of occasions. With more typical moderate use, you can expect to end the day with 25% or more charge to spare.

Despite two displays to power, battery life is very good

However, it’s worth noting that I generally used only the cover screen around 75% of the time. If you prefer the bigger display, or plan on gaming for a couple of hours or more, the battery will deplete much more quickly.

Strangely, our usual PCMark battery test doesn’t reflect this impressive battery life. A score of 8 hours and 4 minutes is below average, though it’s worth noting that this was carried out on the more power-hungry internal display.

When you do run out of battery, the Magic V3 boasts impressive charging credentials. Not only does it support 66W fast charging, but the necessary charger is also included in the box.

Using it, the device went from flat to 49% in 15 minutes, then 80% by the half-hour mark. A full charge took just 47 minutes.

If that’s not enough, the Magic V3 also supports 50W Qi wireless charging, though you will have to buy that charger separately.

Software & Apps

• MagicOS 8 over Android 14
• Hit-and-miss AI features
• No specific software update commitment

Out of the box, the Magic V3 runs Honor’s MagicOS 8 software. It’s based on Android 14, but has a very different look and feel, plus lots of extra features.

A couple of these have clearly been inspired by Apple. Splitting the notification tray and quick Settings works just like it does on iOS, while the ‘Magic Capsule’ around the cover screen selfie camera bears more than a passing resemblance to the Dynamic Island.

However, neither of these annoy me. In fact, they feel more intuitive than the experience on a Google Pixel phone.

What I can’t ignore is the bloatware, which means lots of apps are pre-installed by default. Some of Honor’s own tools are fine, but there are dozens you’ll have to deal with. And third-party apps such as AliExpress, Booking.com, Facebook and TikTok are totally unnecessary, even if some people will find them useful.

Then there are the AI features. Honor has added artificial intelligence to almost every corner of the Magic V3 experience, though results vary significantly.

Among the most useful is ‘Magic Portal’, which allows you to seamlessly drag and drop text and images between supported apps, of which there are now quite a few. This can now be used to directly search an image using Google Lens, which I found to be very handy.

‘Face to face translation’ works just like Samsung’s Interpreter for in-person interactions. I can’t verify the accuracy, but it accurately recognised what I was saying in English and quickly translated it. I couldn’t figure out how to display the conversation on the cover screen, like you can on the Z Fold 6, but it seems to be possible.

Honor has added artificial intelligence to almost every corner of the Magic V3 experience, though results vary significantly

Within the Honor Notes app is an impressive audio transcription and translation tool. It works in real time and does a good job of recognising when different people are speaking.

In theory, ‘AI Eraser’ is just like Google’s Magic Editor, letting you remove objects from a scene and use generative AI to fill in the background. However, every time I tried it, it ended up replacing the removed object with something different. For example, it swapped out a cushion for a bag one one occasion, and fruit for a bottle of water on another. I never asked for those!

Call quality is very good on the Magic V3, though I’m not sure how much of a difference the ‘AI Privacy Call’ and ‘AI noise cancellation’ features are making. And ‘AI app suggestions’ appears to just suggest recently used apps to me.

Multitasking features include side-by-side apps and floating windows, though the OnePlus Open’s ‘Open Canvas’ approach still makes more sense on a large display. And many third-party apps still aren’t optimised to make the most of the internal screen.

Honor hasn’t said how long the Magic V3 will get software updates for, but it’s likely to match the Magic V2’s three major OS updates and five years of security patches. When Samsung offers seven of both on the Galaxy Z Fold 6, that’s a little underwhelming.

Price & Availability

Honor has confirmed that the Magic V3 will start from £1,699.99 in the UK, which is the same price as the previous generation Magic V2.

It’s available outright via the Honor UK website and via Amazon, Argos and Very.

On contract, it’s available via O2 and Three right now, with EE and Vodafone to come.

As usual, the device won’t be sold in the US in any capacity.

The outright price means its going head-to-head with the best book-style foldables you can buy. These include the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 (from £1,799), Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold (from £1,749) and OnePlus Open (from £1,599).

Should you buy the Honor Magic V3?

If you’re looking for the absolute best book-style foldable hardware out there and are willing to pay for it, yes. For basically everyone else, no.

Price remains the big sticking point, while Honor’s take on Android feels cluttered and confusing at times, despite some useful AI features.

However, you shouldn’t ignore the Magic V3’s strengths, of which there are plenty. The stunning thin and light design deserves lots of plaudits, while both displays and some cameras are a joy to use.

You can also expect solid battery life, impressive fast charging and flagship-level performance, despite a slight drop-off on the internal screen.

The Magic V3 remains too niche and expensive a device for most people to consider, but Honor has achieved something very special on the hardware side.

Specs

• MagicOS 8.0, based on Android 14
• Outer display: 6.43-inch 2376×1060, OLED, 120Hz
• Inner display: 7.92-inch, 2344×2156, OLED, 120Hz
• Power button fingerprint sensor
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
• 12GB RAM
• 512GB storage
• 50Mp, f/1.6 main camera
• 40Mp f/2.2 ultra-wide camera
• 50Mp f/3.0 telephoto
• Dual 20Mp f/2.2 front-facing cameras
• Dual stereo speakers
• Dual-SIM
• Wi-Fi 7
• Bluetooth 5.3
• 5150mAh battery
• 66W wired charging
• 50W wireless charging
• 156.6 x 74.0 x 9.2mm (folded)
• IPX8 rating
• 226g
• Launch colours: Black, Green, Reddish Brown