Honor Magic V2 review: foldable flagship phone is big and brilliant

The story of foldable phones has often been one of compromises. They’re too thick, have an unsightly seam down the middle of the larger screen, pack disappointing cameras or underpowered processors, and are too expensive. Honor has had a damned good go at fixing those flaws (apart from the last one) and has produced a folding phone that’s easily pocketable, has a glorious foldable OLED screen, and performs well, but will still burn a sizeable hole in your pocket. Is it good enough for a place on our list of the best camera phones, though? Let's find out.

Honor Magic V2 review: Key specifications

Honor Magic V2 review: Design and screen

The first thing you’re going to do when you turn on the Honor Magic V2 is to open it up and admire the 7.92-inch inner screen. This is worth doing, as it allows you to appreciate not only the bright colours of the OLED, but also check out how much of an effect the hinge has on the display.

It’s definitely there, there's no denying it, and if you tilt the phone back and forth so it catches the light you can spot it. But when there's content playing, or you have a book or web page open with the device fully unfolded, you won’t notice it. It blends better into darker backgrounds - the default colour scheme and background is black with a geometric flower design that places a vertical element right up the track of the hinge for a reason, we suspect - but even when reading a book on a white background it’s barely visible. The hinge works in such a way that it prefers to be fully open, you can’t hold it in a V-shape like you would a book, and this helps it to disappear behind what you’re looking at.

Being almost as big as the screen on an iPad mini, though with a squatter aspect ratio, the unfolded screen is perfect for video or gaming, though few apps beyond the Chrome browser and Kindle ebook reader will fill the entire space. Premiere Rush, Adobe’s mobile video editing app, keeps itself between black bars, a frustration when you might expect to be able to use the entire screen. This may change as apps are updated.

Snap it shut, and whatever content you’re devouring will move to the 6.43-inch front screen, which has the same pixel density as the folding one but is capable of greater brightness. This is a standard smartphone layout and feels tall and thin like a Sony phone - a complete contrast to the almost square central screen.

Around the back is a prominent rectangular camera bulge with three lenses and an LED flash, while front-facing cameras are represented by holes punched through the screens - central on the front, and offset to the right on the folded screen to avoid the hinge.

Both sides of the phone, if released separately, would be an extremely thin smartphone indeed, and even when folded together they’re still thinner than many other Android phones when put in a case. You’ll know it’s a folding phone from the way it feels, and the way the lock button/fingerprint reader and volume rocker are on different edges, so they’re not directly above one another when the phone is folded (but still close enough to use with the same thumb). This means it’s on the ‘wrong’ side - under the left hand - when it’s opened, however.

Honor Magic V2 review: Features

Apart from the gigantic 7.92-inch screen in its middle, there's little else to set the phone apart. There's no headphone socket, just the standard USB-C port and small speakers. Our review model came in an attractive purple-blue finish, though cases are available (there’s one in the box) that attach to the side of the phone with the camera on it, allowing it to still hinge open and often adding a kickstand so you can support it in a more natural position if you’re using it to watch video.

Some protection might be a good idea, as the inner screen is coated with soft, flexible plastic which can be prone to scratches. Most of the time it will be folded up, so it won’t be exposed to danger, and placing a screen protector on each side of the screen will cause a bump when your finger moves from one to the other, and might be visible too. It’s the one drawback that folding phones have yet to address.

Honor Magic V2 review: Performance

With a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 at its heart, and plenty of RAM, you’d expect decent performance from the Honor Magic V2, and it’s certainly snappy in use, switching between screens and apps with ease. The Geekbench 6 scores of 2,024 for single-core performance and 4,983 for multi-core processing put it just above the Samsung Galaxy S23, which shares the same chipset, but puts it behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered ASUS ROG Phone 8, pretty much right where you’d expect it to be.

The Gen 3 phones that come out during 2024, including the Galaxy S24 family, will no doubt pull away, but the fact remains that the Magic V2 offers plenty of horsepower, even though its large screen positions it as a content consumption device. Streaming video looks very good on the unfolded screen, and the speakers are surprisingly good at conveying clear speech that’s not buried in the background music. Pause a video on the centre screen and fold the phone, and it will restart playback on the front screen, a minor annoyance that means you need to make sure you press the home button before folding.

Opening a game brings up Honor’s Game Manager software, which allows you to switch to a higher-performance game mode - it will also do this automatically and it chose the ‘Balanced’ power plan for SimCity Build It, a game that benefits greatly from the larger screen. Creative Bloq favourite Mighty Doom was an extremely smooth experience, the only issue being that the centred on-screen control stick, which makes so much sense on a standard phone screen, could have been offset to the left or right as it becomes a bit of a stretch for a thumb. Hopefully, as folding phones become more commonplace, the ability to move on-screen controls will become more common.

Honor Magic V2 review: Camera

We expect multiple cameras on the back of our phones these days, and the Honor Magic V2 is no exception. A 50MP, f/1.9, optically stabilised wide-angle camera is joined by a 50MP f/2 ultrawide and 20MP, f/2.4, optically stabilised short telephoto. The dual front cameras are both 50MP f/2.2, and video tops out at 4K/60 from all cameras. There's the ability to shoot in HDR10+ or with LUTs to achieve a specific look, and 21:9 aspect ratios can be selected. There are separate Video and Movie modes that allow you to shoot short clips while retaining your settings in the other mode, but slow-mo video appears to be missing, with framerates topping out at 60fps even when you drop the resolution to 720p.

A benefit of the folding nature of the phone is that you can unfold it so the rear camera and front screen are side-by-side, allowing you to use the main camera for selfies instead of relying on the front-facing lenses, which are usually lower quality. This makes ultrawide group selfies much easier to accomplish, which may endear the phone to a certain demographic. Using the camera app with the phone unfolded moves the controls to the side of the screen right where you’re likely to be holding it, and uses a large part of the screen for the viewfinder display. If you fold the display halfway, so it resembles a Nintendo DS, the controls move to the bottom half of the screen, joined by previews of shots you’ve just taken, while the top half of the screen is taken up by the viewfinder. New and interesting ways to take photos emerge, and this becomes a great argument for using a folding phone.

The Falcon camera system from the Magic 5 Pro is here, with AI-enhanced settings for capturing smiles and movement, as well as tracking objects through the frame. Being a phone made of two folding halves there's not much room for cameras, and past folding models have had to compromise. The cameras in the Honor Magic V2 produce good images, though flagship models that boast greater camera specs will beat it.

Honor Magic V2 review: Price

The Honor Magic V2 costs a lot, and while it’s tempting to say you get a lot for your money, the reality is that a folding phone is not going to be the right choice for everyone, and spending this much money on a smartphone is not a mainstream proposition. At over $1,400 at the time of writing, it’s in the same price bracket as things like the iPhone Pro Max or Galaxy S Ultra phones, which makes it something you’re not going to pick up on a whim, and you’ll expect to last.

Should I buy the Honor Magic V2?

Using the Honor Magic V2 can make you really enthusiastic about the technology, flipping between apps and screens quickly, enjoying the brightness and colour reproduction of the OLED screens. Then you remember how much it costs, and that the pace of change in the smartphone sector means there will be something even more alluring along in a few months. It’s a great phone, but we suspect its appeal will be somewhat niche due to the cost. That said, folding phones can take the place of both phone and tablet, so if you’re someone who regularly reads or plays games on a small Android tablet, this could replace two devices with one.