Now that the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 6 are official, we've got a good idea of what the foldables scene looks like in 2024. But one addition we're expecting in the next few months is the Honor Magic V3 – the thinnest and lightest book-style foldable around – which we got to preview in an early hands-on session with the phone.
Sure, the V3 is already available in China, but soon enough it'll be our turn on these shores to experience the latest foldable. We've already been blown away by its svelte body, powerful camera mix, and higher-capacity battery than the competition – so Google and Samsung may be forced to step aside if you're shopping for one of the best folding phones.
More than just a slender foldable, however, the Honor Magic V3 is also poised for gaming with its top-tier Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 internals and ultra-thin vapour chamber cooling system. With the China-only Xiaomi Mix Fold 4 not getting a Western launch, Honor's Magic V3 doesn't look set to have much competition on the thin-and-light front... so let's get into all the ways it could best Google and Samsung's flagships at their own game.
1. Lighter and thinner
Google's done a great job of shrinking its Pixel 9 Pro Fold from 281g – the weight of the original Pixel Fold – to 257g, but it's still heavier than both the 239g Galaxy Z Fold 6 and 226g Honor Magic V3. This makes the Magic V3 the joint-lightest big-screened foldable around (sharing the title with the Xiaomi Mix Fold 4).
The Magic V3 is also the thinnest foldable – at just 9.3mm when closed, and an incredible 4.4mm when unfolded – being barely thicker than the USB-C port used to charge it up.
This featherweight design and slender frame transform the whole foldable experience, zapping the heft typically associated with dual-screened smartphones, and here making it feel more like a 'normal' phone.
2. Bigger screens
Despite being thinner and lighter than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, the Honor Magic V3's screens are bigger and more comfortable to use. This is especially true of the cover screen, which measures 6.43-inches compared to the 6.3-inch Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and benefits from a much slimmer bezel for a more all-screen feel. Going beyond inches, the Honor Magic V3 is also a bit wider, making it more comfortable to type on than Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 6.
While Honor also wins out with cover display brightness, its main display brightness actually falls slightly behind the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Z Fold 6, though all three phones enjoy a 120Hz smooth refresh rate, high dynamic range (HDR) across all their screens, and tempered glass for added durability.
It's also worth noting that when unfolded, Honor's inner display is a bit smaller than Google's unfolded inner screen, so the new Pixel 9 Pro Fold takes the title of the biggest main display of any Western foldable, at 8-inches (just 0.8-inches larger than the Magic V3's diagonal measure).
3. Higher-resolution cameras
Honor, Google and Samsung load up their foldables with triple cameras, but only Honor crams super-high-resolution sensors in the ultra-wide, primary and telephoto cameras. Both Samsung and Google resort to lower resolutions for the secondary snappers.
Why is resolution a big deal? Over the last couple of years, in-sensor zooming has become much more popular thanks to improvements in computational photography. The Magic V3 has a 50-megapixel primary and telephoto camera, and a 40MP ultra-wide. This means it can take native 12MP photos when zooming between all three and beyond.
By contrast, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold's 10.9MP telephoto camera and 10.5MP ultra-wide, and the Galaxy Z Fold 6's 10MP telephoto can't even take native 12MP photos, so will likely capture less detailed shots in bright environments, particularly when zooming in.
It's also worth noting that Honor packs bigger sensors into the Magic V3's camera as well, and big sensors typically result in superior photo quality.
The V3 (along with the Pixel 9 Pro Fold) also has a periscope zoom – a zooming system that produces superior shots than non-periscope cameras – so Honor's camera spec looks set to trounce Samsung's across the board.
4. Bigger battery
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 both have smaller batteries than you normally see on a typical smartphone. Many of the best Android phones have 5000mAh batteries, but the Pixel 9 Pro Fold's is just 4650mAh, and the Z Fold 6's is an even smaller 4400mAh.
For anyone mainly using the smaller cover screen, that should get you through a full day, but if you plan on opening your foldable up for hours at a time, it will drain faster.
By comparison to Google and Samsung's phones, the Honor Magic V3 fits in a much bigger 5150mAh battery. This isn't the highest capacity battery of any foldable, with the chunkier, Asia-only Vivo X Fold 3 Pro (pictured above) cramming in a massive 5700mAh cell.
Nevertheless, considering the Magic V3's much slimmer profile, its battery spec is seriously impressive. How well it'll last per charge in real-world use we're yet to test, but first signs are promising.
5. Faster charging
In addition to battery size, charging speeds are typically slow on foldables. After all, fast-charging generates heat, and thin foldables struggle to dissipate it, so most foldable makers slow the rate of charging right down. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, for example, powers up at 25W (or 15W wireless). Meanwhile the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold charges at a nippier 45W wired (with wireless speeds yet to be confirmed by Google).
The Honor Magic V3's 66W wired charging may not best the fastest non-folding phones out there, but it gets the gold medal for foldables, and with 50W wireless charging too (when matched with an official Honor charger), it's both fast and versatile. That's worth a whole lot.
Initial impressions
There's every chance the Honor Magic V3 will take the title of best foldable around when it launches. While both the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 look set to win out with their artificial intelligence (AI) smarts, from a hardware perspective, it's Honor's incredibly thin, light foldable that seems like a more impressive-looking phone.
There are other Magic V3 highlights we haven't covered too: it supports pen input on both the cover and inner display, the phone looks set to ship with a case in the box if the Chinese version is anything to go by, and it will very likely undercut the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 6 in terms of asking price when it launches.
So check back for more on the Honor Magic V3, and if you're on the hunt for one of the best foldables, you can scope out its other key competition in our guide to the best foldable phones of 2024.
