Honor Magic V5 Review: A Top-Tier Foldable That’s Almost Perfect

Honor Magic V5 lands as one of the market’s best foldables, with just software left to polish

Honor’s latest foldable arrived in Finland in early September and immediately stakes a claim against the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7. The Magic V5 carries a 1,999 euro list price, undercutting the Fold7, and some retailers are already discounting it by 300 euros to 1,699 euros. Google’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold is another direct rival, starting at 1,989 euros.

The Magic V5 packs flagship hardware across the board. It runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite and the Finnish retail model ships with 16 gigabytes of RAM and up to 512 gigabytes of storage.

Display hardware is a standout. The inner, fold-out LTPO AMOLED measures 7.95 inches at 2,172 by 2,352 pixels (403 PPI) and supports up to a 120 Hz refresh rate with peak brightness of 5,000 nits. The outer 6.43-inch LTPO OLED panel is 1,060 by 2,376 pixels, also up to 120 Hz and with the same 5,000-nit peak. Both panels are high-end and deliver excellent color and contrast.

The camera island is similarly impressive. Honor retains the 50 MP main camera from the Magic V3 and pairs it with a 64 MP 3x telephoto camera and a 50 MP ultrawide. That trio handles daylight extremely well and produces very good low-light results from the main sensor, especially when using Night mode. The telephoto camera provides lossless 3x optical zoom and AI-assisted digital zoom up to 100x, with surprisingly decent results at extreme ranges. The ultrawide is strong in daylight but softens in dim light.

Both displays include 20 MP front cameras for selfies, and the main camera can also be used for higher-quality self-portraits when the phone is opened. Video recording is supported up to 4K at 60 fps on all cameras, and you can swap lenses mid-recording.

Battery capacity is 5,820 mAh, an increase of 670 mAh over the previous model. Charging is supported at 66 watts wired and 50 watts wirelessly, plus 5 watts of reverse wireless charging. In practice the phone easily lasts a full day under normal use; two-day endurance requires much lighter use. Geekbench’s battery test placed the phone near the top of its class, producing a 900-minute result that still beat the Galaxy Z Fold6.

Design, hinge and everyday use

Opened, the golden test unit measures 156.8 by 145.9 by 4.2 millimeters and weighs 222 grams. Closed, it is 156.8 by 74.3 by 9.0 millimeters, and it slips into a pocket like a conventional phone. A white variant is marginally lighter and 0.2 millimeters thinner.

Honor’s build quality feels premium. The aluminum frame, crisp button feedback and a smooth hinge combine into a polished package that only gives a small click when folded. The inner display still shows a visible fold line and you can feel it under your finger, not as subtly handled as on the Galaxy Z Fold7, but not disruptive to daily use.

The foldable form factor shines with reading and productivity tasks. The larger, squarer inner screen is excellent for long-form text, e-books and multiwindow workflows, supporting up to three apps side-by-side. For media, the expanded canvas makes browsing streaming menus and using the lower half as a makeshift stand practical, though most standard videos won’t fill the square-like inner panel without letterboxing.

Gaming benefits are mixed: few titles natively support foldable layouts and many don’t scale perfectly, though emulators and certain apps can make excellent use of the bigger display. After initial novelty, I found myself opening the inner screen less frequently for quick messaging and social browsing, opting for the outer display.

Durability caveats remain. The inner panel uses a plastic protective layer that scratches easier than glass and the preinstalled screen protector on the outer display can pick up marks. The included soft case offers minimal drop protection, so don’t expect it to save the phone from a heavy fall.

Software and AI features

Software on the Magic V5 is Honor’s MagicOS 9.0.1 based on Android 15, with a promised seven years of OS and security updates. Google’s Gemini assistant handles AI features and supports Finnish speech for on-screen queries and Circle to Search tasks. Gemini can also work with the screen content to answer questions about what’s displayed.

AI features include offline AI Call Translation between English, Chinese, German, French, Spanish and Arabic, with online translation adding more languages, including Finnish. Not every AI feature supports Finnish yet; for example, the notes app’s summary function does not. Honor also offers generative image editing and Google Veo-style tools for creating short clips from stills.

Performance and thermal behavior

The Snapdragon 8 Elite inside the Magic V5 delivers class-leading performance for now. The CPU configuration is 2 x 4.32 GHz Oryon V2 Phoenix L cores plus 6 x 3.53 GHz Oryon V2 Phoenix M cores, with an Adreno 830 GPU.

Day-to-day performance is smooth and games run fluidly. In synthetic tests the results were mixed. The phone placed poorly on Geekbench for reasons that were not immediately clear, though broader web searches show inconsistent Geekbench scores across some units. In PCMark the Magic V5 topped the comparables, and graphics benchmarks showed it outpacing the foldable Galaxy Z Fold6.

A notable issue is heat. Under sustained heavy load the phone warms quickly, which leads to both a perceptible temperature rise in hand and throttling that reduces long-running performance. For typical daily use this is unlikely to be a major problem, but it is the single most significant hardware complaint.

Packaging and price positioning

Honor ships the phone with only a USB-C cable and a protective case; the charger is sold separately. At full list price the Magic V5 sits near the 2,000 euro mark where choices are limited to a few premium devices, including the Galaxy Z Fold7 and Pixel 10 Pro Fold. With some retailers offering a 300 euro discount to 1,699 euros, the Magic V5 starts to look like a very expensive flagship rather than an ultra-premium foldable.

Summary

The Honor Magic V5 is an excellent foldable flagship. For its price you get top-tier performance, two superb displays, very capable cameras, a large battery and a seven-year update promise. The primary downside is thermal behavior under prolonged heavy use, and the lack of a charger in the box.

If you want a book-style foldable and can make use of the extra screen real estate, the Magic V5 is a strong choice. The bigger question for buyers is whether their daily routine justifies the added cost and the trade-offs in physical durability. At a 300 euro discount the phone becomes considerably easier to justify.

Pros: Excellent displays; high performance; premium build and design; large battery; strong cameras; long update support.

Cons: Thermal throttling under prolonged load; charger not included.