Honor holds a massive two-day event in China, which culminated today with the announcement of its new foldable flagship - Honor Magic Vs. It is thinner and lighter than its predecessor, and the company revealed the weight reduction comes from an entirely new sophisticated hinge design, allowing the phone to close without a gap. The Magic Vs comes with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, which might not be the latest from Qualcomm, but is still a pretty capable flagship chipset. The phone has 12/256 GB and 12/512 GB memory options, as well as a new, more affordable variant with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage.
A big screen requires multiple tools to
operate with, and Honor announced an Ultimate version of this phone with 16 GB
RAM will work with a newly introduced stylus called Magic Pen, which will
connect to the foldable via Bluetooth. The 7.9” foldable OLED screen on the
inside has a 2272x1984 pixels resolution, 90Hz refresh rate and brightness of
up to 800 nits. On paper at least it appears that the screen is the same as on
the original Magic V.The external 6.45” OLED has a tall aspect and 2560x1080
pixel resolution, but 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ support. Both panels are
10-bit, meaning they have over 1 billion colors.
Honor revealed the foldable panel will be
practically creaseless, as the new hinge is "carefully crafted with a
single-piece processing technology". Instead of having 92 elements, now
there are only 4 while maintaining durability and sturdiness. The hinge was
tested at Honor Labs to withstand over 400,000 folds, which is more than ten
years of usage, with 100 folds per day.
Honor Magic Vs brings a revamped
triple-camera setup, with a 54MP Sony IMX800 main sensor behind an F/1.9 lens -
a combo we've seen on the Honor 70 Pro series. Alongside it is a 50MP
ultrawide-angle cam which also acts as a macro lens, as well as an 8MP
telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom. There is a 16MP selfie camera on the
cover display with an f/2.45 aperture in front. Honor did not say anything
about the camera on the inside that should serve for conference calls. This
foldable brings a 5,000 mAh battery with 66W fast charging that should top up
the battery from 0 to 100% in 46 minutes. The phone runs the just announced
MagicOS 7.0, but it is on top of Android 12.
Honor Magic Vs will arrive in three colors
- Orange, Cyan, and Black, and there are also two more options that will be
exclusive for the highest memory combo - Black and Gold. The 8/256 GB version
is priced at CNY 7,499 (US$ 1,050/€ 1,015), the 12/256 GB is CNY 7,999
(US$ 1,120/€ 1,080), and the top 12/512 GB variant is CNY 8,999 (US$ 1,260/€ 1,220). The
Magic Vs Ultimate is at CNY 10,888 (US$ 1,520/€ 1,470).
The company is already taking pre-orders
in China, while the first sale is scheduled for November 30. The Honor CEO did not
say anything about global availability in front of the domestic crowd, but
company representatives confirmed to us the Honor Magic Vs will go
international in Q1 2023.
