Honor Magic V2 and V2 RSR Porsche Design review

50MP main and ultrawide cameras, 20MP telephoto

The Magic V2 has a triple camera on its back, in a mostly conventional arrangement of a wide primary unit, an ultrawide, and a short telephoto. Honor isn't being too open about the hardware inside the phone though, and we're left guessing about specifics such as sensor and pixel sizes, let alone the names of the components.

What we do know is that the primary camera is based on a 50MP sensor, paired with a stabilized 25mm lens with an f/1.9 aperture.

The ultrawide camera features another 50MP sensor, in this case mated to a 13mm lens with an f/2.0 aperture. This camera also has autofocus.

The telephoto is where most foldables don't quite deliver, and the ultra-thin V2 doesn't sound like a prime suspect for miracles in this area, particularly with its modest camera bump. Indeed, it has a 20MP sensor for the task, with a Quad Bayer color filter, by all accounts. That sits behind a 62mm lens, which does have OIS.

An 8x8 array of laser beams is used to aid focusing across all three rear cameras.

• Wide (main): 50MP, f/1.9, 25mm, PDAF, 8x8 dToF Laser AF, OIS; 4K@60fps
• Ultrawide: 50MP, f/2.0, 13mm, PDAF; 4K@60fps
• Telephoto: 20MP, f/2.4, 62mm, PDAF, OIS; FullHD@60fps
• Cover/internal camera: 16MP, f/2.2, 21mm, fixed focus; 4K@30fps

More than just a party trick, the ability to use the rear cameras while getting a viewfinder on the cover screen makes large foldables some of the best options for capturing selfies - the Magic V2 included. And sure enough, you can also enable the live view when taking photos of other people.

Rear camera selfies • Live view for your subjects

Daylight photo quality

Main camera

The Magic V2's main camera captures excellent daylight photos. They are packed with detail and there's a nice, natural rendition to it. Colors are vibrant but not to an extent we'd call overdone - the level of saturation is quite pleasing, we'd say. Dynamic range is great as well.

Daylight samples, main camera (1x)

Here's a handful of people shots to show you how the phone deals with skin tones, and the corresponding scenes captured in Portrait mode.

Daylight samples, main camera (1x), Photo mode

Daylight samples, main camera (1x), Portrait mode

The 2x zoom level in Portrait mode produces pretty decent results too.

Daylight samples, main camera (2x), Portrait mode

The full-res mode doesn't make a world of difference in terms of resolved detail, so it's not all too useful.

Daylight samples, main camera (1x), 50MP

Telephoto camera (2.5x)

The telephoto camera's results don't excite us very much. While they are sharp and nicely detailed on a per-pixel level, there's simply not a lot of pixels - 5MP is quite a low resolution in our book. Colors and dynamic range are on point though, no complaints there.

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (2.5x)

The full-resolution mode does produce 20MP shots which tend to look better in terms of detail than the 5MP ones, depending on the subject matter. Essentially everything has potential to be captured with added definition, though greenery can look a little sketchy. Overall, we'd probably prefer to shoot in 20MP on the telephoto, but that requires switching modes when you want to switch zoom levels, which is a clunky solution.

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (2.5x), 20MP

The Magic maintains good color reproduction with human subjects too, whether in Photo mode or in Portrait mode.

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (2.5x), Photo mode

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (2.5x), Portrait mode

Ultrawide camera (18mm)

The ultrawide brings us back into praise territory. It captures superb photos with excellent detail and sharpness almost all the way out to the extreme corners. The close focusing also means you can capture nearby objects for exaggerated perspectives. Once again, you're being treated to lovely colors and wide dynamic range.

Daylight samples, ultrawide camera

The 50MP mode doesn't include distortion correction, so you'll be seeing some waviness of lines towards the periphery. Contrast also drops and there's not much to be gained in detail.

Daylight samples, ultrawide camera, 50MP

Selfies

Selfies on the Magic V2, as with any large foldable, are best captured with the rear cameras, with the cover screen viewfinder enabled. If you can't be bothered to make the extra effort, the 16MP selfie camera in the cover screen will do an okay job. The internal selfie camera is the same, but taking photos on it with the V2 in tablet mode is quite the finger exercise, so we're seeing that as more of a video call camera.

Selfie samples, cover camera

Still, for the best possible results, the rear camera is the real selfie camera, offering nicer colors, wider dynamic range and improved performance in dimmer conditions.

Selfie samples, main camera

You can also opt for the ultrawide, though beware that if you just stretch your arm out and place your face in the center of the frame, there will be a lot of arm in the photo. To avoid slenderman results, put in some effort into more interesting compositions.

Selfie samples, main camera

Low-light photo quality

Main camera

In low light the Magic V2 is a very capable performer, giving you great results without much fuss - no need to go into Night mode and no need to wait for it to do its magic. We got vibrant colors with dependable auto white balance. Dynamic range is excellent, giving us relatively bright shadows (which we tend to like) and good highlight preservation with only some haloing around bright colorful lights. We're generally liking the detail too, even if the phone's noise reduction practices may be smoothening out some textures.

Low-light samples, main camera (1x)

Telephoto camera

The telephoto continues along a similar path with the global properties. We have little reason to complain about exposure and dynamic range with perhaps the highlight recovery being a bit too aggressive on occasion resulting in some false color around light sources (the warm floodlights in the first sample). Colors are generally accurate and have a nice level of pop too.

Then comes the matter of detail. Even if the 5MP default resolution doesn't sound like much, the images maintain great sharpness even in the dark, and they do let you see more in the distance than what can be resolved on the main camera. Still, we'd have been happier with something along the lines of 8MP, at least.

Low-light samples, telephoto camera (2.5x)

The 20MP full resolution mode doesn't seem to be helping much.

Low-light samples, telephoto camera (2.5x), 20MP

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide's photos in the dark are good, but not spectacular. They are on the soft side, when examined up close, but they do have great exposure and dynamic range. The color reproduction is hard to fault too.

Low-light samples, ultrawide camera

Video recording

The Magic V2 records video up to 4K60 on its main camera and the ultrawide. The telephoto itself is capped at 1080p60, but if you have the resolution set to 4K and tap on the 2.5x button, you'll get a zoomed in view from the main camera (the results of which you'll likely not appreciate).

The default codec is h.264, but you can opt for h.265 by flipping a toggle in settings. Stabilization is available in all modes and is always on. HDR10+ recording is also on the menu.

Video quality out of the Magic V2 is in the okay category. White balance is on point and colors have a pleasing level of saturation. Contrast is high, with a touch too harsh rolloff at the extremes, but nothing too bothersome.

Things get sketchier when discussing detail, though. The main camera is good overall, but sharpening is pretty aggressive. The ultrawide is a bit too soft for our liking. Finally, while the main-camera-sourced 4K30 2.5x zoom footage is plain bad, the otherwise solid 1080p from the telephoto camera is just 1080p.

What we can't complain about is stabilization, which is thoroughly excellent from the main and the ultrawide cameras and pretty good on the telephoto as well.

In the dark, things are pretty noisy on both the main camera and the ultrawide. The main camera's footage still maintains a decent level of detail, though the noise is a bit annoying, while the ultrawide's footage is quite soft. The telephoto's 1080p results aren't nearly as noisy, they're just soft and relatively dark.

Video sample playlist

You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.