Honor Magic V2 and V2 RSR Porsche Design review
Large bendy display, large flat one on the cover too
The Magic V2 has a couple of very nice displays that won't leave you wanting in any major way. Both of them are LTPO OLEDs, and they have a 120Hz maximum refresh rate, promise plenty of nits, and have 10-bit color and Dolby Vision support. Both displays support 3840Hz PWM dimming for a flicker-free experience and are also compatible with stylus input.
Starting with the one inside, it has a 7.92-inch diagonal and a 2,156x2,344px resolution in a squarish 9.8:1 (1.09:1) aspect ratio with pixel density working out to 402ppi. That's 10% more area than the Galaxy Z Fold5's internal display display and 28% more pixels.
Admittedly, the Honor isn't as bright as the Galaxy or, for that matter, any of the other major foldables, though we don't think there is anything bad about its 933nits worth of max brightness.
Max display brightness test
White test pattern, 75% fill (nits)
- Manual mode
- Auto mode
Honor Magic6 Pro
Xiaomi Mix Fold 3
Galaxy Z Fold5
Oppo Find N3
OnePlus Open
Honor Magic V2
Huawei Mate X3
The cover display is possibly more interesting since it's a lot bigger than the Galaxy's (by some 18%), not to mention being in a much more sensible aspect ratio (20.2:9 vs 23.1:9). It's got a 1060x2376px resolution and also a 402ppi density. That cover panel is larger than the other globally available large foldable, the OnePlus Open, if only marginally so.
This panel is noticeably brighter too - we measured just under 1,300nits on the Magic V2's cover display. That's a class-leading result that leaves the Galaxy and the OP Open some 12-13% behind.
Max display brightness test
White test pattern, 75% fill (nits)
- Manual mode
- Auto mode
Honor Magic6 Pro
Honor Magic V2 (Cover display)
Honor Magic Vs (Cover display)
vivo X Fold2 (Cover display)
Xiaomi Mix Fold 3 (Cover display)
Oppo Find N3 (Cover display)
Huawei Mate X3 (Cover display)
Refresh rate
Both displays on the Magic V2 support refresh rates up to 120Hz and both are LTPO so they should be able to adjust that refresh rate dynamically and in relatively fine steps. In practice, we only saw 120Hz and 60Hz values, plus the occasional 90Hz.
Of course, there's the usual selection of modes that let you cap things at 60Hz or leave most of the frame rate selection to the phone. The high refresh rate was available for gaming on most of the 2D arcade titles that we normally try, though some 3D games were capped at 60Hz/60fps.
Streaming and HDR
The Magic V2 supports all the major HDR standards, including HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, and it has Widevine L1 for high-res DRM-protected content streaming. The Netflix app did confirm Dolby Vision, both in the playback spec and visually, and YouTube also gave us HDR streams.
Being still on Android 13, the Magic V2 doesn't really support the Ultra HDR image format ushered in with Android 14, though it does have the capability to display its own photos with a highlight brightness boost in its own gallery app. It doesn't work with photos from other phones though, and it doesn't work in Google Photos either.
Honor Magic V2 battery life
Our new Active Use Score is an estimate of how long the battery will last if you use the device with a mix of all four test activities. You can adjust the calculation based on your usage pattern using the sliders below. You can read about our current battery life testing procedure here. For a comprehensive list of all tested devices so far, head this way.
The Magic V2 features a relatively new type of battery, silicon-carbon, with a 5,000mAh capacity. That's an impressive amount, given that it fits inside the thinnest book-type foldable in the world at the time of release (9.9mm) and one of the lightest ones too at 231g.
Let's first look at the numbers for the large folding display as that is where most of the action is. The Magic V2 beats its foldable opponents on capacity, however, efficiency leaves a lot to be desired. Gaming is the one area where the phone does truly well for its class, but even then, it only matches the Galaxy Z Fold5.
In the other categories, the V2 loses and by a fairly large margin too. As a result, the Magic V2 achieves an uninspiring Active Use Score that is roughly an hour and a half short of its main opposition.
Moving over to the cover display, the talk time is the same, of course, as we do the test with the screen off. The web and video scores go up by 36% and 37%, respectively; the gaming time adds 19%.
In this scenario, the Magic V2 places between the Galaxy Z Fold5 and the OnePlus Open, which is a win considering it has by far the largest external screen of the three. Still, the Active Use Score of 13:29 falls a bit short of traditional bar phones.
Charging speed
The Magic V2 ships with a 66W Honor SuperCharge adapter, the same one we got with the Magic Vs, and the same one we tested the Magic6 Pro with (since that one ships without a charger). The V2 returned slightly slower results than the Vs, so maybe it's the new battery chemistry that's better for density but not quite as great for charging speed. That said, the Magic V2 does remain meaningfully faster than the Galaxy in this regard.
Charging speed
- in 15 min
- in 30 min
- Time to full charge (from 0%)
OnePlus Open
Honor Magic6 Pro
Honor Magic Vs
Xiaomi Mix Fold 3
Honor Magic V2
Tecno Phantom V Fold
Galaxy Z Fold5
The Magic V2 doesn't have wireless charging, though, which the Galaxy Z Fold5 does feature. Then again, the OnePlus Open is also lacking in this respect.
Speaker test
The Magic V2 features a two-speaker system with the units placed on each end of the handset's top half (when folded) - essentially the same arrangement as on the Magic Vs. As before, the top speaker outputs upward through a grille in the frame as well as through an earpiece slit, so it serves double duty.
We'd be surprised if it hadn't been the same on the Vs. But the V2's top speaker gets the right channel when you're holding the device in a vertical orientation, whether in phone or tablet mode - most other implementations assign the left channel to the top speaker. In landscape, the software will send the correct channel to each speaker to match the orientation of the phone in space. In any case, either speaker will also output some of the opposite channel's sound at a much lower volume.
Bottom speaker • Top speaker
The Magic V2 earned a 'Good' rating for loudness, a notch below the previous model. That also means it's not as loud as the company's regular flagship, the Magic6 Pro, or the de facto foldable standard, the Galaxy Z Fold5. The V2 is louder than the OnePlus Open, so there's that. Sound quality is good on the V2, certainly better than on the Open, though not quite as well balanced as on the Galaxy.
Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.
Reader comments
- Anonymous
- 21 Nov 2024
- 6jZ
There's an error in this review. The PU Leather version is the thinner and lighter version, not the glass one. Source: https://www.honor.com/es/phones/honor-magic-v2/spec/ Question: does honor also have a desktop mode to use it like a compu...
- diehardsony
- 13 May 2024
- PAY
Just bought a magic V2 , can anyone suggest which stylus does it support
- AnonD-1153685
- 07 May 2024
- 39y
Show receipt and stop LOLing like 15 year brat u can put link imgur Anyway I know u feel that wasn't worth so much money as it is not anything special unfolding phone.. and when unfolded the batter goes down lightning speed