Honor’s Magic V3 foldable phone has an exclusive inside look

It took Honor about two years to turn their vision of the world’s thinnest foldable phone—a book—into a working device. Within the fast-paced world of the technology industry, that might seem like an eternity.

The incredibly thin Magic V3, the company’s fourth-generation foldable phone, took a while to develop, but Honor claims there’s a good reason for it. The company stated that it invests in the research and development of “certain parts” or new materials even before the official start of development, before formally integrating them into a foldable phone project. In contrast, a standard Honor smartphone takes 12 to 18 months to develop. Result: A foldable phone in the shape of a book that, when closed, resembles a standard phone remarkably.

For Honor, winning the foldables race is a key objective. Research company International Data Corporation projects that the global foldable market will reach 25 million devices by the end of 2024, up 37.6% from the 182.1 million units shipped in 2023. According to IDC, the total number of foldable phone shipments worldwide are anticipated to reach 45 point 7 million units by 2028, indicating a compound annual growth rate of 20 point 3 percent from 2023 to 2028.

Honor faces fierce competition from Samsung and Xiaomi, the two biggest phone manufacturers, who consistently produce foldables that are significantly better than their predecessors. Almost all of the major smartphone manufacturers have released flip phones, book phones, or both this year.

With its July launch, Samsung reduced the width of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 by more than a millimeter. Additionally, earlier this month, Google unveiled the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, a device that is smaller than its book-style predecessor. The third-largest phone manufacturer by volume of shipments, Xiaomi, is closing the gap on Honor with its almost equally thin and light Mix 4 Fold. There are rumors that Apple, which is notoriously slow to adopt new technology, will release an iPhone in the clamshell design in 2026.

Honor, a former division of Huawei, the world’s largest tech company, is well aware that achieving that goal depends on making its foldables as svelte as possible.

Honor stated that the development of its foldable phone was guided by the design principle of “stronger and slimmer.”. And judging from its folded shut thickness of just 9 point 2 millimeters, the Magic V3 appears to live up to that promise. It is more compact than the Xiaomi Mix Fold 4, the recently revealed Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and the Galaxy Z Fold 6.

Hope Cao, Honor’s Magic V3 product expert, told CNET in an exclusive interview prior to the device’s international launch in September that “with foldables being so slim these days, every millimeter shaved off is a monumental endeavor.”. Cao oversees the entire Magic V3 product development process as a product expert.

The Magic V3, and Honor’s design process.

Honor’s progress on foldable phones made significant strides with the release of the Magic V2 last year. The V2 raised the standard for portability in book-style foldable phones, causing a stir on a global scale. Honor pioneered the idea that a phone with two screens could share physical dimensions with a standard bar phone, which naturally has just one screen.

That trajectory is expanded upon in The Magic V3. It has an inner screen measuring 7 points92 inches and a cover screen measuring 6 points 43 inches that flips over like a book. With a periscope-style telephoto lens that can achieve 3x optical zoom, it has a total of five cameras. With a 5,150-mAh silicon carbon battery—a more modern kind of smartphone battery—under its hood, the Magic V3 can be charged wirelessly with a 45-watt capacity or with the 66-watt wired charger included in the box.

Among other things, an extremely thin chassis houses these flagship features. The Magic V3’s dimensions when folded are merely 9 points 2 millimeters (0 points 36 inches) and 226 grams; this design bears resemblance to standard bar phones, like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. The Magic V3 is actually several grams lighter than the 24 Ultra.

“Cao told CNET that developing a foldable phone that is as powerful and user-friendly when unfolded as a mini-pad, but as thin and portable when folded as a flagship bar phone, will encourage broader adoption of foldable phones in everyday life.”.

Xiaomi isn’t far behind, though. When unfolded, it is slightly thicker at 4.59 millimeters than the 4.35 millimeters thick Magic V3. According to IDC data that CNET obtained, Honor was the third-largest manufacturer of foldable phones in the world as of the first quarter of 2024, tied with Lenovo, the company that owns Motorola, and trailing behind Huawei. However, Xiaomi clearly has a bigger overall presence as the third-largest player in the overall smartphone market.

Similar to its competitors, Honor stated that achieving a slimmer build involved several important design considerations. Among these are a redesigned hinge that makes use of lightweight steel, the use of new materials like aerospace special fiber for the black model’s back cover, and a stronger aluminum frame. The Magic V3’s ability to house a sizable battery within a more compact design was eventually made possible, according to Honor, by investments made in battery R&D.

“The Honor Magic V3 adds an extra set of swing arms to the Honor super steel hinge, in contrast to industry-standard solutions with only one set of swing arms,” Cao stated. Compared to the Honor Magic V2, Cao asserts that this design increases the hinge’s resilience by 1,250 percent.

Other than the hinge, the Magic V3 boasts 19 new materials for the body, display, battery, and vapor chamber of the smartphone. According to the company, these materials provide stronger screens, longer battery life, greater durability, and more effective heat dissipation.

“Honor is pursuing new materials as a major direction,” Cao said to CNET. “Honor is heavily funding the hinge, or more precisely, the steel components that make up the hinge. ****.

Honor circumvents the drawbacks of foldable phones.

It’s not just Honor, though. Although manufacturers of foldable phones have made great progress since the first model was released in 2019, consumers’ main concern is still durability. Customers expect a phone that lasts for the price, considering some foldables can cost up to $2,000. Durability is still a major concern, as Reddit users report experiencing problems with their Magic V2 screens.

Honor provided us with an inside look at how it tests the durability of its phones in an effort to be more transparent. In a video made just for CNET, multiple Magic V3 phones were repeatedly folded using a machine at Honor’s Reliability Lab in Shenzhen, China; it resembled a folding phone boot camp. The business informed CNET that the lab is outfitted with testing apparatus for corrosion, wear, scratch, and immersion as well as spraying. In terms of folding tests and drop tests, at least, Samsung tests its foldable phones in a comparable manner.

Compared to the Magic V2, which could only withstand 400,000 folds, the Honor Magic V3 is tested to withstand 500,000 folds, which is a significant improvement. There’s a catch, though: the Magic V3, like a lot of competing foldables, doesn’t have a full IP rating for dust and water resistance. The Magic V3 and Google’s new Pixel 9 Pro Fold both have IPX8 ratings, meaning they can survive immersion in 1.5 meters of water for up to 20 minutes.

Although it was a controlled demonstration that might not accurately represent everyday use, Honor tested the V3 in a washing machine as part of its China launch, and it functioned flawlessly. It could be risky for your foldable phone to take the Magic V3 to a beach or a desert, though, as it isn’t rated for protection against dust ingress.

With the exception of the 2023 Motorola Razr Plus, which has an IP54 rating for dust protection, no other folding phone is rated to completely block out dust particles. Sand and other smaller particles can still affect the IP48-rated Galaxy Z Fold 6, even though it is shielded from solid objects bigger than 1mm. However, nonfoldable phones typically have dust resistance, indicating yet another area where foldables, like the Magic V3, obviously still have some catching up to do.

Cao said that Honor would make an announcement in “due course” when asked about its plans for dust resistance.

In addition to being less durable, the Magic V3 has an additional physical drawback: a protruding camera bump that will probably make it harder for it to lie flat on hard surfaces.

To be fair, there are other devices with this design flaw besides the Magic V3. The Pixel Fold, One Plus Open, Galaxy Z Fold 6, and Xiaomi Mix Fold 4 are just a few of the foldable phones that feature it. Moreover, standard bar phones with ambitious camera modules may have large camera bumps. But if a book-style foldable phone has this huge bump sticking out of its back, how truly portable is it?

According to analysts, this is a necessary trade-off that is probably not going to change very soon.

Avi Greengart, an analyst at Techsponential, told CNET, “Manufacturers are slimming down the displays, batteries, and circuit boards, and they could slim down the camera modules too, but image quality would suffer.”. “They’re staking a wager that customers will favor sharper images and the convenience of holding the phone in one hand when folded over an unsightly camera bulge. “.”.

The Magic V3’s rear camera module includes a periscope-style telephoto lens with a 100x digital zoom capability, which is visible through its large camera bump. It also has four additional cameras: two front-facing, a 40-megapixel ultrawide, and a 50-megapixel primary camera. With a 1/1.56-inch sensor, the primary camera is competitive when compared to rival foldable phones, but still small when compared to standard bar phones.

The Magic V3’s camera module is difficult to evaluate objectively without testing it, but because foldable phones have smaller physical dimensions than nonfolding phones, their cameras typically perform worse and produce lower-quality images. Instead of the kind of top-tier cameras found on flagships like the Galaxy S24 Ultra, Pixel 8 Pro, or iPhone 15 Pro Max, consumers primarily pay for the phone’s flexible display.

Honor added that, like its competitors, it aimed to enhance the Magic V3’s overall camera performance. The latest book-style phones from Samsung, Xiaomi, and Google all have better foldable phone cameras.

“In an exclusive interview with CNET, Cao stated that we do have some room for improvement in terms of photography when compared to our flagship bar phone [Magic 6 Pro], particularly with regard to the overall photography performance and the thickness of the module.

The Magic V3’s AI and battery.

Because processors and batteries must fit into thinner frames, manufacturers of foldable phones are still faced with a challenge in maintaining their thin design. However, since AI is becoming a more integral part of smartphones, those very features—battery life and processing power—matter more now than ever.

Honor exclusively revealed via email to CNET, “In the age of AI, devices require greater computational power and battery performance, all within a slimmer and lighter package.”. Recognize that these changing needs cannot be satisfied by using conventional battery solutions. “.

Honor, a company that acknowledged Tesla’s Model 3 as its inspiration back in 2016, is proud of the silicon carbon batteries that power its more recent phones. According to Honor, the Magic V3’s battery was developed over the course of three years.

Honor was able to squeeze a 5,150 mAh silicon carbon battery into the Magic V3, as opposed to 5,000 mAh in the marginally thicker Magic V2, even though the device was made smaller. Honor claimed to have accomplished this, at least in part, by maintaining an average thickness of 2 points6 millimeters while boosting the energy density of its battery by 5 points74 percent.

Based in part on a higher silicon content of 10.3 percent, the Magic V3’s 5,510-mAh battery is said by the company to have a higher capacity than the most recent graphite-based batteries. According to Honor, the Magic V3 also includes an E1 chip, which enhances power management and battery performance.

I reviewed the Magic V2, which uses an older-generation silicon carbon battery, even though it’s impossible to draw firm conclusions about the Magic V3’s battery life without testing it. I found that the Magic V2 outperformed the Pixel Fold but underperformed the Galaxy Z Fold 5 in CNET’s streaming video battery drain test.

Because silicon-carbon batteries may be superior to lithium-ion batteries in terms of performance, the use of silicon-carbon batteries in mobile phones is a growing trend. These advantages include less of an adverse effect on the environment and a decreased chance of overheating. Ongoing research is being done to determine the long-term reliability of silicon carbon batteries.

Honor responds that it is “confident in the long-term viability of silicon carbon batteries” and that this confidence is bolstered by the fact that the company has high internal testing standards that must be satisfied before it makes the decision to invest in mass production.

Honor’s future is foldable.

The newest model in Honor’s book-style foldable lineup, the Magic V3, is an improvement over its predecessor. The Chinese company claims that the Magic V3 will showcase its new AI capabilities, which are integrated into the camera and user experience, at its September global launch at Berlin’s IFA tech conference.

According to Will Wong of IDC, Honor has a 14 percent market share worldwide in the second quarter of this year, placing it fifth in terms of foldable phone market share. As far as technology is concerned, he notes that Honor still has a long way to go.

Wong told CNET, “Honor’s primary strength and driver is its focus on improving both the hardware and software of its foldable products.”. More brand awareness and social media buzz are required for the brand to advance so that customers can better understand the worth of the products. “.