Smartphone and electronics maker HONOR returned to Australia late last year, offering a range of devices including wearables, tablets and of course smart phones, headlined by the Honor Magic V5 foldable phone which they’ve sent over for review.
Foldables have taken off in Australia, and around the world, with the Pixel Fold and Galaxy Z Fold series leading the charge here in Australia, with the Honor Magic V5 joining their ranks as a premium device, priced at $2,699.
The phone bears the title of the ‘World’s Thinnest Foldable’ with a slim 8.8mm profile when closed, narrowly beating the Galaxy Fold7 at 8.9mm folded
The slim package includes LTPO OLED panels on the 7.95-inch inner, and 6.43-inch outer display, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset paired with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of on-board storage running the show and powered by a 5,820mAh battery.
Honor has packed in an AI powered triple camera system on the rear of the phone including ultrawide and telephoto options, with selfie cameras embedded in the inner and outer displays.
I’ve spent a couple of weeks with the Honor Magic V5 and here’s how it went.
The super-thin body of the Honor Magic V5 has to be held to be believed. At 8.8mm thin for the Ivory White model, when opened the phone is just 4.1mm thin – though the camera bump on the rear is fairly significant.
The Ivory White is the thinnest option available, the other colour options measure in at 9mm.
It appears the Dawn Gold and Black model are available, but the gorgeous Reddish Brown is unfortunately not launching in Australia.
Honor has included a case in the box, which covers the rear and hinge of the phone offering very stylish protection from the faux leather PU material. It fits on very snugly adding barely any thickness and is a bit of a chore to take off, but once it’s on, you rarely need to take it off and the built-in ring stand around the camera island is top notch for when you need a stand.
As well as being thin, the phone is surprisingly lightweight for a dual-screen device, weighing just 217 grams – again, slightly lighter than the other colours.
All-in-all,it’s actually thinner and also slightly lighter than some of the standard slab phones out there.
The phone has been setup for being a foldable, with speakers built-in diagonally at top and bottom of the display so when you open the phone you have stereo sound – and your volume and power rocker are on lower deck on the right side of the phone so no matter if the phone is open or closed they stay in the same place.
Honor has also included my number one smartphone feature – an IR blaster – at the top of the phone and this is my usual plea for this to come back as a standard smartphone feature.
On the more traditional front, there’s a USB Type-C port on the base which supports USB 3.2 offering fast data transfer as well as display out.The port also has fast charging and video out if you want a desktop like environment. There’s also the second speaker and your SIM tray.
The phone hinge opens easily, and the phone carries an IP58/IP59 dust and water resistance – so it’s dust protected, but not dust tight. The phone has been with me for a few weeks now, and there’s not even a hint of anything in the hinge – but I haven’t gone out of my way to try to get it dirty.
There’s also a nifty Standby mode which displays a number of clocks with options including calendar/weather widgets. It’s a neat feature that utilises the folding display and
The display specs speak for themselves, with a 7.95” inner display, and 6.43” outer display, both using OLED panels offering simply stunning colour reproduction, and the deep blacks with no light bleed.
The panels also offer great viewing in daylight, with a peak brightness up at 5,000nits in HDR mode, or 1300nits for the inner display, and an impressive 1800nits for the outer display.
Both panels are LTPO supporting up to 120Hz refresh, and as low as 1Hz when required. The theory is that the 120Hz will sap your battery – though I found only negligible difference in my usage.
The displays are protected, like the rest of the phone, with HONOR Super Armored protection on the Inner Screen, and HONOR Anti-scratch NanoCrystal Shield on the outer.
As far as displays go, the Honor V5 Magic has some of the best quality displays i’ve used on a foldable phone.
The inner display on the phone does have a crease line after a few weeks of use, however it’s not really noticeable when in use as the larger display is quite immersive – and you only really see it if it catches the light just right – or go to lengths to highlight it.
There is stylus support for the HONOR Magic-Pen on both its internal and external displays, though unfortunately Honor don’t appear to sell this accessory here – but for stylus aficionados this is a nice option to have if you want to go down the route of importing one.
Honor has used the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform in the Magic V5 with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of on-board storage. The phone doesn’t have microSD card support to expand storage but it does include a dual physical SIM slot, with support for dual eSIM on-board well.
The phone just performs. There’s no issues with launching apps, multi-tasking, boot up times, it just runs, and runs well.
Even high-end games like Red Dead Redemption and Call of Duty were able to run with ease. Plugging in an Xbox controller you can have a really fun time with Red Dead and it runs super smoothly.
In terms of performance, I ran it through the usual GeekBench and 3DMark tests and here’s how they went.
There are five cameras in total included with the Honor Magic V5, with 20MP selfie cameras embedded in the inner and outer displays, with a triple rear camera system filling out the round camera island on the rear of the phone.
The rear camera island includes a 50MP Ultra Light Sensitive Falcon Main Camera sensor, 50MP Ultra-Wide Camera capturing a 122° field of view. Rounding it out there’s the 64MP ‘Ultra Sensing Periscope Telephoto Camera with 3X Optical Zoom.
The phone takes some stunning photos. All three sensors work well, capturing high-quality shots in pretty much any lighting conditions.
The sensors across the board work well, offering a wide variety of shots from ultra-wide through to zoom, with the 3x optical zoom able to go out to 100x using digital if required, though it gets a little grainy at that point.
I was impressed with some of the great macro shots I was able to get out of the camera – though the bee keeping still for this one helped.
The phone comes with the largest battery inside a foldable, with a 5820mAh Silicon-Carbon Battery packed in.
The Silicon-Carbon battery is an interesting inclusion. The battery includes 15% more silicon, allowing for a denser, and smaller battery – which we see translated in this super-slim design.
The large battery also translates to all-day battery life that easily extends into day two, even with pretty hefty use of the large inner display.
The phone supports 66W fast charging, and 50W wireless charging – if using the HONOR SuperCharge wired and wireless adapters – sold separately, though it’s not clear where as Honor doesn’t currently sell accessories through their Australian website.
In lieu of an official charger I used a 100W ALogic PD charger from dead flat to full taking a little over an hour and a half, though you can get a good bit of use from the
The phone can wirelessly charge with a Qi compatible charger, though there’s no magnets to align or stick to Qi2/Magsafe accessories which is a shame.
The Honor Magic V5 launches with Android 15 and MagicOS 9 on-board with the September 1st security update.
There’s an Over-The-Air update for MagicOS 9 waiting when you turn it on, bringing the October 2025 security update – and as of January 15th, the MagicOS 10 update has now arrived.
Honor has committed to 7 years of OS and Security Updates for the Magic V5 – equalling the commitment from Google and Samsung on their devices, making this a very promising phone.
MagicOS is Honor’s software running on top of Android. MagicOS underpins their entire line of smartphones.
Aesthetically the OS looks good, with the theming tending towards that of OPPO, or OnePlus – and harkens back to Honor’s former parent company Huawei’s HarmonyOS.
MagicOS includes the big screen experience from Android on your device. You get the homescreen dock offering a row of apps to quickly access your apps. Google has also updated a majority of their apps for a larger screen experience.
The experience of using the fold-out display is simple. Just open it up and your workspace becomes larger, if you’re in an app that supports it, the app auto-adapts and you get the large screen experience.
As with most phones these days, the Honor Magic V5 includes AI in the camera system with AI enhanced zoom and editing, the display and more.
Dubbed ‘Honor AI’, it’s infused everywhere offering most of the features you’ve come to expect including AI summaries, Transcription and translation. There’s also Deep Fake detection, and AI to ensure your eco-system of Honor devices has connectivity.
There’s also Google’s Gemini on-board, giving you all those AI features including the Assistant, and of course photo editing with Google Photos. Circle to Search – perhaps one of my favourite AI features – is there as well, though Honor’s Magic Portal, which uses a similar circling gesture but with your knuckle, to access Honor services and more, is a pretty good contender.
I’ve been able to go hands-on with most of the foldable phones this year, and the Honor Magic V5 is a contender for one of the best on the market.
The design is lightweight, with a sturdy hinge that’s up to the challenge and it’s packed to the gills with features like the IR blaster, and in short, the hardware simply performs.
There’s plenty of grunt from the processor and memory, and 512GB of storage should satisfy most people – and the Silicon-Carbon battery makes owning a foldable a real prospect with better than all day battery life.
Those inner and outer LTPO OLED displays are simply excellent, bright and with fast refresh and the camera takes fantastic shots in all lighting conditions.
Honor have been a little slow rolling out the Android 16 update, but it is here and there’s seven years of OS and Security updates included to keep your device up to date.
The lack of compatible accessories like an official charger you can purchase separately is also something to note – however compatible chargers and accessories are around if you look.
Overall, this is an absolute banger of a start to Honor’s Australian sales, and definitely a looker for anyone wanting a great foldable.
Daniel has been talking about, learning about and using tech since he was able to toggle switches and push buttons. If it flashes, turns on or off or connects he wants to use it, talk about it and learn more about it. Like this article? Buy me a coffee!
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