Honor Magic V5 Mixes “Thinnest Foldable Ever” With Flagship Specs

The title of thinnest foldable in the world changes hands on a yearly basis, or even shorter, these days. I started really paying attention to foldables when the Honor Magic V3 was the thinnest, but it didn't take too long for Oppo's Find N5 to grab the crown.

Now, the Honor Magic V5 snatches its crown back, with the new thinnest foldable in the world. Plus, not only is it thin, but it looks amazing and doesn't compromise on any aspect of the spec sheet. This could arguably be the best foldable you can get your hands on.

The Honor Magic V5 Defies Physics With a Super-Slim Build and Plenty of Performance

Honor takes its foldable project very seriously. It showed how thin it could make things starting from the Honor Magic V2, and a few years later, it hasn't lost any of that steam. The design and the spec sheet deliver. In fact, I'm so impressed that this foldable is the first one that I'm very seriously considering getting my hands on.

The Design

The Honor Magic V5 looks gorgeous. It might be one of my favorite smartphone designs in a long time, and in the sub-segment of foldables, it takes the top spot. The device will be available in four colorways:

• Ivory White
• Black
• Dawn Gold
• Reddish Brown

Of those, I think Dawn Gold is the most attractive. Quite interestingly, only with the Ivory White colorway can Honor claim to have the thinnest foldable in the world. It measures 8.8mm thick when folded and 4.1mm when unfolded. With the other colorways, that turns to 9mm when folded and 4.2mm unfolded. Those numbers don't beat the Oppo Find N5. The device weighs 217 grams in Ivory White, but 222 grams in the other colors.

You get IP58 and IP59 certification with this foldable, which is the best yet that we've ever seen in this device form factor. That dust protection isn't good enough to drop your phone at the beach, but it does help things a little more.

The Screens

The screens are very solid on this new foldable. They don't change that significantly compared to last year, but if you ask me, they didn't really need to. The inner display is a little bigger this time around, though.

The Hardware

Despite how thin it is, Honor makes sure that you get the very best smartphone specs available on the market. The chip of choice is the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which isn't surprising. Along with that, you get the option for as much as 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage. China will have access to an exclusive 1TB option.

You'll also get the latest standards in a bunch of things, like Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, and USB Type-C 3.1. Of course, there's NFC, and you also get an IR blaster.

The Battery and Charging

For most of the world, this device gets a massive 5,820mAh, which is crazy to fit in a foldable that gets even thinner than its predecessor, which has a 5,150mAh battery. It's even wilder for the Chinese model, since that pushes it up to 6,100mAh.

And yes, you get fast charging, which is no surprise. It is 66W when wired and 50W wirelessly, though you'll likely need a first-party wireless charger to take advantage of that.

The Cameras

Cameras can be limited by how thin a device is. Honor gets past that by making one little compromise, and that's the large camera bump on the back of the phone. However, I don't think it is too obtrusive, especially if you truly want flagship camera performance.

You get a 50MP primary camera with OIS, a 64MP periscope telephoto camera that also has OIS, and a 50MP ultrawide to finish the trifecta. Each screen has a 20MP selfie camera embedded in it.

The Pricing and Availability

Honor is very serious about its latest foldable, so it has confirmed that there will be an international model. However, the Magic V5 won't be available outside of China for now, and we might need to wait a few months to see it hit the international scene. Pricing starts at CNY 8,999 (~$1,250) in that region.