Honor Magic Vs arrives with improved hinge, lighter body

Honor holds a massive two-day event in China, which culminated today with the announcement of its new foldable flagship - Honor Magic Vs. It is thinner and lighter than its predecessor, and the company revealed the weight reduction comes from an entirely new sophisticated hinge design, allowing the phone to close without a gap.

The Magic Vs comes with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, which might not be the latest from Qualcomm, but is still a pretty capable flagship chipset. The phone has 12/256 GB and 12/512 GB memory options, as well as a new, more affordable variant with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage.

A big screen requires multiple tools to operate with, and Honor announced an Ultimate version of this phone with 16 GB RAM will work with a newly introduced stylus called Magic Pen, which will connect to the foldable via Bluetooth.

The 7.9” foldable OLED screen on the inside has a 2272x1984 pixels resolution, 90Hz refresh rate and brightness of up to 800 nits. On paper at least it appears that the screen is the same as on the original Magic V.

The external 6.45” OLED has a tall aspect and 2560x1080 pixel resolution, but 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ support. Both panels are 10-bit, meaning they have over 1 billion colors.

Honor revealed the foldable panel will be practically creaseless, as the new hinge is "carefully crafted with a single-piece processing technology". Instead of having 92 elements, now there are only 4 while maintaining durability and sturdiness. The hinge was tested at Honor Labs to withstand over 400,000 folds, which is more than ten years of usage, with 100 folds per day.

Honor Magic Vs brings a revamped triple-camera setup, with a 54MP Sony IMX800 main sensor behind an F/1.9 lens - a combo we've seen on the Honor 70 Pro series. Alongside it is a 50MP ultrawide-angle cam which also acts as a macro lens, as well as an 8MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom.

There is a 16MP selfie camera on the cover display with an f/2.45 aperture in front. Honor did not say anything about the camera on the inside that should serve for conference calls.

This foldable brings a 5,000 mAh battery with 66W fast charging that should top up the battery from 0 to 100% in 46 minutes. The phone runs the just announced MagicOS 7.0, but it is on top of Android 12.

Honor Magic Vs

Honor Magic Vs will arrive in three colors - Orange, Cyan, and Black, and there are also two more options that will be exclusive for the highest memory combo - Black and Gold. The 8/256 GB version is priced at CNY7,499 ($1,050/€1,015), the 12/256 GB is CNY7,999 ($1,120/€1,080), and the top 12/512 GB variant is CNY8,999 ($1,260/€1,220). The Magic Vs Ultimate is at CNY10,888 ($1,520/€1,470).

Honor Magic Vs Ultimate

The company is already taking pre-orders in China, while the first sale is scheduled for November 30. The Honor CEO did not say anything about global availability in front of the domestic crowd, but company representatives confirmed to us the Honor Magic Vs will go international in Q1 2023.

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