Honor Magic V5 – Review

Honor has just announced its new folding flagship for 2025. I was fortunate enough to have been able to use this device for the last month or so, and now it’s time for me to share my thoughts on the brand new Honor Magic V5 folding phone.
So, without further ado, let’s jump in!

The first place I want to start is by referring you to the unboxing video I released just over a month ago. In that video, I took you on a tour of the hardware and unboxed the device. While some information in the video was not fully revealed, it still provides valuable details about the device.
Before we dive into the tour and explore the finer details of the design, I recommend taking a quick look at the unboxing article I wrote.

Design

Now, let’s delve deeper into the design of the Honor Magic V5.
One of the first things I want to mention is how incredibly thin this phone is. The colour I have is Dawn Gold, which is not the thinnest version of the phone. If you’re looking for the thinnest version, you’ll need to consider the Arctic White variant. This version measures 8.8 mm when folded and 4.1 mm when unfolded, leaving barely enough room for the USB-C port. Weight wise it come in at staggeringly low 217g in the Ivory White version with the Dawn Gold and lack version a tiny bit heavier at 227g not that you can really notice.
The gold variant I have is slightly thicker, measuring 9 millimetres unfolded but less than 4.2 millimetres when unfolded. This means that the phone feels like a regular candy bar when used in its folded state.
For example, I have a photo below of the Honor Magic V5 next to the iPhone 15 Pro Max. You can see how these phones compare in terms of thickness. It’s amazing to see how Honor has managed to cram in two batteries and two screens into such a thin form factor.

Every time I pick up the device, I’m slightly awestruck by how thin it feels. However, I understand that some people may think that thinness comes with fragility. Rest assured, I’ve had issues with creaking, bending, flexing, or indeed, grinding from the all-important hinge mechanism. I’ll discuss these issues in more detail later.

When using this phone as my daily driver, I’ve taken it to various environments, including a recent holiday to Madeira. Thanks to its IP rating of IP 58 and IP 59, I have very few concerns about using it in damp environments.
Although I haven’t actually done so yet, I’m comfortable taking this phone to the beach. This is the first time I’ve said that about any folding phone I’ve used in the past. I’ve used various types of folding phones over the years, including both Pixel Fold devices and Samsung Z Fold devices. I’ve also been lucky enough to use every Honor Magic V Fold device they’ve produced, with the Magic V5 being by far their best implementation of a folding phone yet.

The outer display is the same size as most candy bar phones available today, making folding the phone a breeze. I can do everything I need to do without any issues. When I need more real estate, unfolding the phone is easy and smooth, with a seamless transition from folded to unfolded.
As an added bonus, the Magic V5 is now the only new flagship folding phone available in the UK that supports stylus input using the Honour Magic Stylus 2. This is a significant difference from the implementation Samsung had on the Z Fold line, as you could only use the stylus on the internal, more fragile display. As a result, I barely used the stylus on the Z Fold when I owned it. With the Honor Magic V5, I can use the stylus on the outer display without any concern, as it’s a solid glass panel with the slightly softer plastic, glass composite panel on the inner display.

Insert images of Magic Stylus 

Moving away from the display, let’s talk about buttons. One thing I noticed with the Honor Magic V series, up until now, was the asymmetric placement of the volume and power buttons. The reasoning for this made sense at the time: you had the power button on one side of the phone when unfolded, and the volume button on the other, creating a stepped bottom effect when folded closed. This did allow for clear distinction between the bottoms once you adjusted to it, though.
However, the owner has adopted a more standard button placement for the Honor Magic V5. Now, we have the power and volume rocker located on the right-hand side of the phone, one above the other, which makes it easier to transition from a more traditional candy bar format. As your muscle memory knows where to put your fingers, you can perform appropriate actions as is the norm with foldable phones. The power button also doubles as a fingerprint reader, which I’ve found to be fast and effective at scanning my fingerprints, with only very rare failures. This is probably more down to me as I switch phones quite a lot, but I’m sure if I stuck with using the Magic V5 for a long time, I would minimise the misreads of the fingerprint sensor.

When holding the phone in my right hand, I find that my thumb naturally finds the power key with ease. The buttons also have a nice reassuring click to them, so you know from haptic feedback that you’ve pressed them correctly. The same cannot be said for some of the Honor Magic V5’s rivals.

Around the back of the phone, your colour choice will make a difference to how things feel. If you choose the Dawn Gold version, like I have, you have a textured golden finish that still allows for some grip. If you go with the White version, you have a back panel made of carbon filament, which I haven’t had the pleasure of feeling, but I’m assuming would be grippier still. As far as I know, the Black finish will be the most similar to the gold design, but I haven’t had the chance to hold one in my hand yet.

The phone has a substantial camera module on the back. Initially, I wasn’t a fan because it means the phone doesn’t rest flat when placed on a surface. However, over time, I’ve come to appreciate the benefits of having such a large module. I really like the design of the camera modules around it. Honor has taken the time to give fine detailing to this round, making it look and feel like an expensive watch face. I also like that it’s centrally placed along the Z axis, so when you place the phone on a flat surface and close it, there’s no appreciable wobble.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said when the phone is open and folded. This is a byproduct of having high-quality camera sensors in such a thin device. The simple laws of physics dictate that these cameras need to be raised slightly from the back panel to allow for the space needed to achieve the focal lengths we now demand from our smartphone cameras.
As a bonus, the owner includes a protective back cover in the box. This colour-matched cover is made of PU leather-like material and provides a nice degree of protection for the camera island. It also has the added benefit of including some hinge protection that magnetically holds itself in place when the phone is closed.

 

I’ve found myself using the phone with and without the cover, depending on what I was doing that day. When I was on holiday, I did use the cover, and I did drop the phone on one occasion. Fortunately, the cover was present, so the phone was largely unscathed. I did suffer a slight scratch on the bottom rail, next to the USB-C port.
However, it was merely cosmetic thankfully.

 

The Metal side rails are made of stainless steel and subtly curved to provide a comfortable feel and prevent them from sticking into your palm when using the phone, whether folded or unfolded.

The front glass is a hardened glass from Honor, an in-house developed glass. The screen on the inside is also using in-house developed, almost level technology that allows the inner screen to be tougher than previous generations. After a month of usage, I haven’t had any marks on the inner display from daily use or debris when the phone is folded. A nice touch is that Honor’s inbuilt software can detect something on the screen when you’re trying to fold the phone and will warn you. I’m not sure how this is done, but it’s a nice reassurance to keep your inner display safe.

As mentioned, the phone does have a very thin USB-C port that barely fits into the thickness of the side rail. However, this USB-C port will support fast charging, including Supercharger Standard, which can charge at up to 80 watts when using the appropriate Honor Supercharge.
Sadly, this charger is not included in the retail packaging. However, I would be very surprised if Honor didn’t offer a charger as a bundled accessory when the phone is pre-ordered, as they have done with most of their flagship devices over recent years.
The last area I want to mention about design is the speaker placement. The Honor Magic V5 speakers are offset when the phone is unfolded, which is important because it provides a better audio experience when you hold the phone in its unfolded position, as the chances of you covering one or both of the speaker grilles are minimised. This is different from the implementation of some other manufacturers. Follow. It’s now becoming more common for speaker grills to be placed on one side of the fold mechanism, as seen with the Oppo Find N5, which I reviewed previously.

Overall, I’m very impressed with the design of the Honor Magic V5. I’ve been very happy using it as my daily driver. However, when I returned to using my Pixel 9 Pro Fold, I found that I miss the thinness of the Honor Magic V5.If you’re looking for a thin and sleek folding phone, then the Honor Magic V5 definitely needs to be on your list.

With that said, let’s now look at the internal hardware and see what makes this phone truly special.

Before we get into the hardware lets take a look at the specs table

 

Specifications
Dimensions and Weight*
Height	156.8 mm
Width	Folded: 74.3 mm Unfolded: 145.9 mm
Depth	Ivory White Version: Folded: 8.8 mm Unfolded: 4.1 mm Other Version: Folded: 9 mm Unfolded: 4.2 mm
Weight	Ivory White Version: Approx 217 g (including the battery) Other Version: Approx. 222 g (including the battery)
Display*
Inner screen	7.95 inch
External screen	6.43 inch
Colour	1.07 billion colours
Type	Inner screen: foldable OLED External screen: OLED
Eye Comfort Technology	AI Defocus Display, 4320Hz PWM Flicker Free Dimming, Dynamic Dimming, Circadian Night Display, Nature Tone Display
Resolution	Internal screen: 2352×2172 Pixels External screen: 2376×1060 Pixels
Gestures	Supported
Brightness	HDR Peak Brightness: 5000nits Global Peak Brightness: Inner screen 1300nits, External screen 1800nits
Screen Glass Material	Inner screen: HONOR Super Armoured Inner Screen External screen: HONOR Anti-scratch NanoCrystal Shield
Processor
CPU Model	Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform
CPU Type	Octa-core
CPU Dominant Frequency	2×Prime 4.32GHz+6×Performance 3.53GHz
GPU	Adreno 830
System
Operating System	MagicOS 9.0.1 (Base on Android 15)
Memory	16GB+512GB
Rear Camera
Rear Camera	50MP Ultra Wide Camera (f/2.0), 50MP Wide Camera (f/1.6, OIS), 64MP telephoto Lens Camera (f/2.5, OIS)
Video Shooting	Support for 4K (3840×2160 pixels)
Zoom Mode	Supports 3x optical zoom, 100x Digital zoom
Image Resolution	9216×6912 pixels
Video Resolution	3840×2160 pixels
Rear Flashlight	Rear single LED flash
Capture Mode	AI Motion Sensing Capture, AI photography, Super Wide Angle, Aperture, Multi-Video, Night shot, Portrait mode, Photo, Pro mode, Video, Panorama, Watermark, Scan Document, HIGH-RES, Super Macro, Capture smiles,Time-lapse, Timer, Movie, Slow-MO, Story, Light Painting, HDR
Stabilisation Mode	EIS+OIS
Front Camera
Front Camera	20MP Wide Camera (f/2.2) (Interior screen)
	20MP Wide Camera (f/2.2) (Exterior screen)
Image Resolution	5120×3840 pixels
Video Resolution	3840×2160 pixels
Video Shooting	Supported 4K (3840×2160 pixels)
Capture Mode	Portrait, Watermark, Capture smiles, Mirror reflection, Timer, Night, Gesture control
Face Recognition	Supported 2D face unlock
Battery
Capacity	5820 mAh (typical value), 5690 mAh (rated value)
Type	Lithium polymer battery
Wired Charging	66W HONOR SuperCharge The phone supports up to 20V/3.3A SuperCharge, compatible with 11V/3.2A or 5V/2A.
Wireless Charging	50W Wireless HONOR SuperCharge
Water and Dust Resistance	IP58&IP59
Cellular Network
Network Standard	5G(NR)/4G (LTE TDD/LTE FDD)/3G (WCDMA)/2G (GSM)
SIM Card	SIM1+SIM2 / SIM1+eSIM / eSIM1+eSIM2
Connectivity and Location
WLAN Protocols	802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be, 2×2 MIMO
WLAN Frequency	2.4GHz/5GHz/6GHz
WLAN Support	WLAN Hotspot, WLAN Direct
Bluetooth Version	Bluetooth 6.0
Bluetooth Support	Low Energy Bluetooth (BLE), LE Audio
Audio Codecs	SBC, AAC, LDAC, aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, LC3
Audio Features	ASHA Hearing Aid Protocol
Infrared Remote Control	Yes
PC Data Sync	Yes (requires installation of HonorSuite on the computer)
OTG	Maximum output current 1.5A/5V during reverse power supply
USB Port Type	USB Type-C
Earjack	USB Type-C
Video Call Support	Supports operator and third-party software
Positioning Systems	GPS(L1+L5), AGPS, GLONASS, BeiDou(B1I+B1C+B2a+B2b), Galileo(E1+E5a+E5b), QZSS (L1 + L5)
Additional Positioning Support	Cellular Network Positioning, Wi-Fi Network Positioning
Sensors
Sensors	Gravity Sensor, Infrared Sensor, Hall sensor, Fingerprint Sensor, Gyroscope, Compass, Barometric Pressure Sensor, Acceleration Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Proximity Sensor
NFC	Support Reader/Writer Mode, Card Emulation Mode (SIM*, HCE)
Media and Audio
Video	3gp/mp4
Audio	mp3/mp4/3gp/ogg/amr/aac/flac/wav/midi
Sound Effect	HONOR Sound
Stereo	Supported
What’s in the box	Phone(Built-in battery) x 1
	USB Type-C Cable x 1
	Quick Start Guide x 1
	Eject Tool x 1
	Inner screen protective film (Attached on the phone before delivery) x 1
	External screen protective film (Attached on the phone before delivery) x 1
	Warranty Card x 1
	PU Case x 1

*The actual dimensions and weight may vary depending on the configuration, manufacturing process, and measurement method.

*The display screen adopts a rounded corner design. When measured according to a standard rectangle, the diagonal length of the screen is 6.43 inches for the outer screen and 7.95 inches for the inner screen (the actual viewing area is slightly smaller).

 

Hardware

The hardware on the Honor Magic V5 is truly flagship-level.

Internally, it boasts a full-fat Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, supported by the chipset. Additionally, it features 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512 gigabytes of UFS storage, ensuring smooth performance for tasks focussed on the chipset and memory. You can also expand the memory by using VRAM, although I’ve never found myself needing this feature during my time using the phone. 

The phone is powered by Honor’s third-generation silicone carbon batteries, which I deliberately refer to as batteries. The phone actually features two separate battery cells: one mounted on the front and the other larger battery mounted on the rear. Combined, these batteries offer a storage battery capacity of 5820ah, which has proven to last a long time, allowing me to get full days of battery life out of the phone. I have only depleted the battery on very rare occasions. Around 30% from a full charge during the day, this has only happened once or twice, and only when I’ve been using the phone’s camera, GPS, and streaming a lot of videos for gaming.

In terms of keeping the phone cool and performing,  it features, advanced cooling technology, akin to what you would be more familiar with from the PC world. It has large vapour chambers that allow the movement of small amounts of fluid in these chambers to help disperse heat, which is essential to allow the phone to remain as cool as possible while still performing at the highest possible levels. This means that the phone is very high performing and has not presented any struggle when doing intensive tasks. I have used the phone for capturing 4K 60 per second video and also for high frame rate gaming, playing my typical games of Asphalt Unite and Call of Duty mobile. When playing these games, I have not noticed any overheating. Yes, the phone will warm up, but it is well within comfortable parameters.

Another aspect that relates to the phone’s performance and multitasking ability is its slim and sleek design. While I’ll delve deeper into multitasking in the software section of this review, rest assured, you can definitely carry out multiple tasks simultaneously. I often find myself having at least two apps open side by side using the split-screen software implementation, and it’s been seamless.

Honor has cleverly combined a slim and sleek phone with a high-performing device that can function as both a candy bar-style phone and a large-format folding tablet when needed.

I mentioned earlier that the battery is a dual carbon silicone design, which allows it to be slim while also enabling rapid charging. I recall mentioning the charging speed of up to 66W when using a SuperCharge charger from Honor. Interestingly, I’ve also found that the phone charges rapidly using a standard Power Delivery charger. This is particularly beneficial since there’s no charger included in the box. If you’ve invested in a high-speed GAN-style charger like me, you’ll still get very high charging speeds from the Honor Magic V5.

However, this isn’t the only way to charge this slim phone. You can also utilise up to 50W wireless charging, again when using the appropriate Honor Supercharge wireless charging stand. Of course, this is an optional extra, and the stand is so powerful that it has built-in active cooling to help the phone cool down as it’s being charged wirelessly, which can cause heat build-up from the charging system. The phone also supports reverse wireless charging at a speed of 5W. This is particularly handy if you’re caught short and need to charge some wireless buds, like the Pixel Buds Pro, which I’ve paired seamlessly with the Honour Magic V5. 

In terms of connectivity, all your bases are covered. The phone has Bluetooth 6 built-in, supporting all the commonly used codecs. It also has Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6e/7 support

Additionally, it supports all the international cellular bands up to 5G. I’ve heard from our American friends that it will support some American networks, despite not having an official North American release.

The phone will also work on multiple GPS services, ensuring you can always get a correct and long-lasting GPS fix, regardless of your location. This is crucial for various location services scenarios, such as maps and tracking, or using the phone’s or ancillary options like Bluetooth trackers.

I’ll delve deeper into the camera module in my review, but it’s a triple-lens system with a 50MP Ultra Wide Camera (f/2.0), 50MP Wide Camera (f/1.6, OIS), 64MP telephoto Lens Camera (f/2.5, OIS) that supports up to 3x optical zoom via a prism telephoto lens. This large camera array is necessary to accommodate these three lenses. In addition to the lenses, there’s a single LED flash that’s bright enough to use as a flashlight and works well as an LED flash when needed. However, due to the aperture of the cameras, I haven’t really needed to use the flash for low-light photography. More details on this will follow later.

We truly have flagship-grade components on the Honor Magic V5. While there will always be some compromises with hardware on a foldable phone, in my opinion, these compromises have been kept to a minimum to deliver a new flagship-level experience.

Now that the hardware is done, let’s delve deeper into the software.

Software

The Honour Magic V5 software is an evolution of what we’ve come to expect from Honour devices in the past. Built on the foundation of Android 15, it does shave some of the extras added by Honour. These extras are mainly in two areas: how multitasking is managed and the obligatory serving of AI. Most of this AI is either duplicating what can be done on via the Google Gemini platform or some customer AI tools made in-house by Honour.

Looking at the multitasking on the Honour Magic V5 is a great place to start. The main core of multitasking on the Magic V5 is called Honour Multi-Flex. This is essentially the feature that the launcher uses to allow multiple apps to be open side by side. Yes, you read that correctly – it’s now possible to have three apps open at the same time when the phone is unfolded. This is a big step up from the Honour Magic V3 and is Honor’s attempt to challenge the likes of OnePlus, Oppo, and Samsung to create the best multitasking environment possible.

I find this feature incredibly useful and has allowed me to complete tasks that I would normally reserve for my laptop. Whether it’s managing emails and my calendar simultaneously or researching my next smartwatch, having the ability to have two or three near-full-screen apps open simultaneously, albeit on the larger screen, has been very helpful.

However, if I really want to expand and get more work done, I then have the option of using the built-in Honour Desktop mode, which allows me to work in a desktop-styled environment. This is something that I find fun to do, but it’s not nearly as finely polished as it should be, so I don’t use it extensively behind the occasional use for sharing photos on my big TV.Having the flexibility is what makes a folding phone so important to me, and Honor’s software enhances this multitasking experience. However, there is some room for improvement. I’ve found that when I’m trying to utilise gestures within full-screen apps with more than two open at the same time, it’s easy to get confused about which gestures I need to use to navigate around the app itself. I’ve been able to get used to it, but sometimes it’s just not very intuitive.

Another area where multitasking could be improved is if, for example, I’m in a YouTube video and I get a WhatsApp message. I tap on it to read it, and it opens in a floating window that shows the full app. This means the scaling is sometimes a bit tricky to interact with. I’ve mostly got used to it, but I would actually prefer it to open the app as a split-screen app. I’m not sure if this is just an adjustment in the settings. It’s better at handling it than my Pixel is, though, as that just opens the app that triggered the notification.

The second part of the software equation added to the Honour Magic V5 is all about AI. Honor has invested a lot of time and effort into building and fine-tuning their AI platform, with significant collaboration with Google. It seems that many of their AI toolset actually builds on the Google Gemini base. In terms of AI, you have all your usual functions, such as AI translate, AI call assist, AI Deepfake detection, and AI subtitles, to name a few. These functions work as their names suggest and enhance your experience in using the phone for the tasks they are designed for. What I particularly like is that most of the Honor-based AI is on the phone and doesn’t rely on cloud computation. This means it’s faster to respond and works regardless of your location. The exceptions are a few of the AI tools from the gallery, but that’s the case with most AI-assisted photo or video apps these days. I also appreciate that there’s no indication of any extra cost involved in using the AI services, unlike Google and Samsung.

To be honest, I don’t find myself using many of Honor’s own AI toolset. I tend to stick with using Google Gemini. I’ve used the AI transcribe from voice recordings and found it slightly better at picking up what I’m saying and transcribing it correctly. Some of the other AI functions I’ve found useful are actually embedded in the gallery app. These are an evolution over what Google offers with their photo editing suite.

One tool I found particularly useful is the ability for the phone to detect when a person has their eyes closed in a photo. The Magic V Fold 5 incorporates Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance the photo-taking experience. It can adjust the eye areas to expand the actual eye detail, making it appear as if the person’s eyes are open and improving the photo. This feature is particularly useful because many of my subjects have their eyes closed.

Another notable addition to the core Android software is the Magic Sidebar, accessible by swiping in from the side of the screen. This toolbar provides quick access to functions and allows users to save images and text extracts to a favourite space. This space can then be used to pull information into different fields or documents.

It also has a very handy summary, which uses Ai to summarise the content from the page, as shown below.

Moving on from the AI aspect, the Magic V Fold 5 also offers the ability to connect with either iOS devices or Mac computers. While I haven’t had the chance to use this feature myself, I imagine it will work similarly to the implementation I discovered when reviewing the Oppo Find N5 and OnePlus Nord 5 recently.

This feature expands upon the Magic Ring service, which allows users to enjoy the benefits of being within the Honor ecosystem if they own other Honor devices like tablets or laptops. Through Magic Ring, users can seamlessly share content and their phone’s screen with these other devices. Based on my observations of Magic Ring, the iOS and Mac sharing function appears to perform a similar task, albeit within a different ecosystem. As someone who uses a Mac daily, I’m pleased to see this functionality being adopted by more manufacturers.

one new feature i was however appble to try was Honoer Share with iOS devices. This a relatively simple process and just requiores you to download the Honor Connect App on your iOS device and then open the app on the iOS device and scan a QR code from the Honor Magic V5 Honor Share menu located  within the phones settings. Once this has been done a direct wifi connection is setup and you can share content between your Honor Magic V5 and your iOS device with ease. here is an example of the result of me sharing a video from my Honor Magic v5 with my iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Overall, I’ve been impressed with the Honor software and Magic OS 9.0.

There’s one area that really annoys me, though it’s not a dealbreaker and I’ve learned to live with it. It’s the insistence on splitting the notification and control panel areas when dragging your finger down from the top of the screen. I understand why they’re doing this, as it’s something that iPhone and iPad users are now accustomed to. But the Honour Magic V5 is an Android device, not an iOS one. And for Android users, the notification and control panel drag-down option has always been unified.

I don’t like that not only do they have this set as the default on Honor devices now, but there’s no way to revert to the old style as can be found on other devices that have made this change.

I’ve been a long-term Android user, and one of the core values I had with Android was the customisability of certain aspects of the phone. The fact that Honour and some other manufacturers are now limiting this customisation doesn’t sit well with me. I can only hope that they add the function of joining the notification and control panels back together as intended by Android.

So, summarising the software, it’s very good. The multitasking is also very good, not quite A-grade but much better than found on Google’s own Pixel devices. The AI implementation is expansive, and I feel that the Honor Magic OS 9 software has been developing nicely from what I remember of early iterations. There’s also not a massive amount of bloat, and the bloat that is there can be removed fairly easily.

I’ve enclosed a screenshot below showing the bloatware and app duplicates that do exist for your reference. These additional apps are not so much bloat in the typical form of adware but they are duplications of existing apps and my personal preference is to use the google apps for these services as such for the most part they have remained un used with the exception of perhaps the gallery app as it has the editing function I mentioned above that is missing from Google Photos.

Now that we’ve covered the software aspect of the phone, I need to take some time to go through the rather large and prominent feature on the rear of the phone: the camera.

Camera

The camera on the Honor Magic Fold v5 is a big deal both in terms of the size of the camera itself , as it is no shrinking violet, and what it can do. I have been very fortunate that Honor provided me with the phone early so that I was able to take it with me on my family holiday to the beautiful island of Madeira earlier this month. This allowed me to give the camera a very thorough test in a variety of scenarios. I have included some camera samples below for you to check out, but before I go into that, I want to discuss the camera’s hardware a bit further.

64MP Ultra Sensing Periscope Telephoto Camera:

• 64MP resolution
• 1/2-inch sensor
• f/2.5 aperture
• 3X Optical Zoom
• 100X Digital Zoom
• Optimised light intake for various lighting conditions

50MP Ultra-Light Sensitive Falcon Main Camera:

• 50MP resolution
• 1/1.56-inch sensor
• f/1.6 ultra-large aperture
• Autofocus (AF) functionality
• Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS)
• Excellent low-light performance

50MP Ultra-Wide Camera:

• 50MP resolution
• 122° ultra-wide field of view
• f/2.0 aperture
• Ideal for group photos and landscapes
• Captures expansive scenes with stunning detail

With the above specs you would expect that the camera on the Honor Magic V5 should take some stunning phots and you would be correct. Admittedly the vast majority of my testing  was done in very good lighting and in a very vibrant and colourful environment but I have been very please with the results. Here is a selection of the phots using a variety of the lenses and zoom settings.

I have also been able to to some close up shots using the auto macro mode as can be seen below.

A feature that I did really enjoy playing with was the light painting mode available under the more menu as this allowed me to get the shots below using the Silky water configuration.

Essentially what this does it keeps the lens open for longer creating the deliberate blurring of the water but it does it in way that in my opinion looks really cool. It is almost as if it is bringing movement to the picture.

As for the zoom capabilities here are some  samples of this in action below.

I am quite impressed at how the blades on the wind turbine are still very clear even at 20x zoom unfortunately I wasn’t able to capture any 50x zoom or 100x zoom images at the time as it was difficult to keep things stable while handheld. Honestly though I am still happy with the results of these images.

As for the front facing camera it very good at capturing selfies as you would expect from a 2oMP sensor which has an f/2.2 aperture. both the inner and outer screens use the same sensors so you will get the same results from both cameras. Here are a few samples of these cameras taken in my home office.

Not too shabby given the subject. Of course I could have improved the image from the external camera further by using AI to remove the reflection in my glasses but I thought I would share the true image with you for the purposes of the review!

Last up is video and here is an area I have been really impressed I have recorded both HD and 4K video on the phone and have found the quality to be very good especially the sound. Here is a sample

Sample Video from Honor Magic V5

Unfortunately this has been downsampled to a lower resolution for sharing here but it gives you an idea of the quality.

In short the camera on the Honor Magic V5 is a significant step up from the previous generation device and is up there with the best cameras on foldable phones available in the European market

Conclusion

The Honor Magic V5 represents a new era of thinness for smartphones, particularly in the foldable category. This device is currently among the thinnest available on the market.

I have been satisfied with my experience using the device, as it is a strong contender in the European foldable market. The phone’s price also offers good value when compared to its primary competition, such as the Galaxy Z Fold 7 series and the upcoming Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold.

I was impressed with the quality of the camera and the steps Honor has taken to refine Magic OS 9.0. Building on the foundation of the Honor Magic V3, the phone feels fast and fluid, with no noticeable sluggishness in the user interface. While the software has room for improvement, it is on a positive trajectory.

I can recommend the Honor Magic V5 to prospective foldable phone buyers, and the pre-order offers are worth considering. However, if you currently own an Honor Magic V3, an upgrade may not be necessary unless you receive a strong trade-in value. I will be disappointed to see the Honor Magic V5 go. It has been a pleasure to use and provides a sense of optimism for the future of Honor’s foldable lineup.

The Honor Magic V5 can be pre-ordered from the Honor website with prices starting from £1,699.99, before any special discounts or gifts. It will also be available from high-street retailers including EE, O2, Three, Vodafone, Tesco Mobile, Argos, Currys, Amazon, and Very starting on August 29th.