Design and build quality
The Honor Magic Vs is a foldable phone with a classic design.While it’s closed, it behaves like a largesmartphone, with you interacting with an outer coverscreen, but then you can unfold the phoneand reveal a larger tablet like inner screen.The Magic Vs is actually a second gen device, but thefirst one, the Magic V, was only sold in China.Honor has included quite a few upgrades, includinga new Hinge, new chipset, a larger battery,and the cameras have gotten revamped too.Let’s start off with the Hinge design, which islighter than before and supposed to be quite sturdy.The phone folds flat with no gap,unlike the Galaxy Z fold four.The Crease, where the device folds over,isn’t invisible, but still feels relatively minimal.And the Magic Vs’s hinge can keepthe phone open at different angles, whichcould enable some extra functionality.Potentially, but more on that in a bit.The Magic Vs is made of glass, andwe’ve had a chance to check out boththe Frosted Cyan and the glossy black colorways.There’s actually also a vegan leather variant,but that’s meant for China only.Overall, the phone is both taller and wider than theZfold Four, but also thinner and weighs about the same.
Display quality test
One area in which the Zfold is ahead ofthe pack, though, is an IP rated waterproofing.There’s no such thing here.Let’s go over the displays,starting with the outer one.The Magic Vs has a 645 inch OLED here, witha 1080p resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate.It’s notable that the Magic Vs’s cover screen isnot just larger, but its aspect ratio is widerthan the Zfold Four S, making it a bitmore comfortable to use when unfolded.The Magic Vs has a seven nine inch OLED with a1984 by 22 72 resolution and a 90 Hz refresh rate.It is notable that this refresh rate is lower than the120 you’d get on the inner display of the Zfold, butit still smooths things out when you’re swiping around.Neither of the Magic Vs’s screens will dial therefresh rate down when Idling to save energy, thoughthe Magic Vs’s inner display also wasn’t quite asbright as its competitors, though it definitely isn’t bad.We measured a maximum of 600 nits witha manual slider, and it can boost to880 knits in auto mode and bright conditions.The COVID screen, on the otherhand, can achieve nearly 1300 knits.Content looks good here on either screen.They’re sharp and contrasty, and you have support forboth ten bit color and HDR Ten Plus.The color accuracy is respectable too.
Speakers quality test
For audio, the Honor Magic Vshas a pair of stereo speakers.Their loudness is very good, and the soundquality is nice too, with noticeable bass awake.But you’re you can wake up andunlock the phone with the side mounted.
Storage options and Fingerprint reader
fingerprint reader built into the power button.And the Magic Vs comes with 256 or 512gigs of storage, which isn’t expandable to microSD.
Android 13, MagicOS 7.1
interface of the phone is Honors Magic UI sevenone on top of Android 13.It’s pretty similar to what you’ll findon recent Honor or Huawei phones.One major difference from Huawei though, is that hereyou get full support for Google Apps and services.There are plenty of options to customize thelooks of your interface, but what you won’tfind here is an app drawer.All of your apps will appear on the home screen.You can split the screen into two for multitasking, andthat can be a vertical or a horizontal split.Some apps don’t support horizontal though, and on topof that you can have a supported app anda floating window for three apps total.
Folded and half folded options
When the screen is half folded, certain apps like YouTubewill split their UI into the top and bottom halves.But strangely, the camera app doesn’t adjust tothe folding screen and you’ll end up withthe shutter button inside the crease.Fold it too far and theUI disappears onto the COVID screen.That means you can’t really use the foldingphone as a sort of tripod for shooting.
Camera UI and options
while the phone is unfolded, there’s no wayto control the cameras through the COVID display.To take selfies with the rear cameras, there’sa viewfinder, but you can’t interact with it.Taking selfies with the rear cameras is at this pointa key feature for foldable phones, and we’re not surewhy Honor has left it out from the UI.At least when you’re shooting, your subjects can seethemselves as a live preview on the COVID screen.
Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
Under the hood of the Honor Magic Vsis a snapdragon eight plus gen one chipset,the top qualcomm silicon of last year.This means you get high end performance, but not quiteup to the level of this year’s new flagships.Running on a snapdragon eight gen two.On top of that, in CPU benchmarks, theMagic Vs even seems to fall behind otherphones that have the same chipset.The graphics performance is in line with what you’dexpect, though benchmarks aside, you should expect plenty ofpower here for heavy games and multitasking.
Thermal chart
The thermal management is quite good too,with the Magic Vs maintaining high and stableCPU performance throughout our prolonged stress test.
Battery life and charging speed
The Honor Magic Vs has the largest battery ofall current foldables at 5000 milliamp hours.For whatever reason though, the battery life is justaverage, at least when tested on its inner screen.In this case, the phone earnedan endurance rating of 85 hours.With the screen on tests running on theCOVID display, the scores were much better foran endurance rating of 100 hours.The Magic Vs supports 66 watt charging andwith the bundled adapter was able to chargefrom zero to 85% in half an hour.Quite speedy.
Main cameras, Daylight image quality, rear cameras
Now on to the cameras.On the back there’s a 54 megapixel main cam,an eight megapixel three x Telephoto cam and a50 megapixel Ultra Wide cam which has autofocus.The main cam captures very good photos thatcome out at 12.5 megapixels due to acombination of pixel binning and a slight crop.There’s good detail with a balanced rendition, colorsare expressive and there’s plenty of contrast.The dynamic range is wide too.If you shoot in the full 54 megapixels,you will get a wider field of viewas you’re using the whole uncropped sensor.You don’t get any real improvement interms of detail or quality though.Three times zoomed shots from the Telephoto cam aresolid, detail is very good and there’s no noise.Color reproduction and dynamic range leavenothing to be desired either.The ultrawide camera doesn’t disappoint.Its field of view is extra wide, and it alsodelivers good sharpness across the frame and excellent detail.The colors and dynamic range are good too.Since the Ultra Wide has autofocus, you canuse it to take macro closeups with.The macro mode even has threedifferent zoom levels to choose from.
Low-light image quality, rear cameras ,Selfie camera image quality
In low light conditions, the Magic Vs willautomatically apply night mode processing to its photos.There’s also a night mode you can toggleon, but the results are the same.Shots from the main cam have abalanced exposure with welldeveloped shadows and preserveddetail and highlights, rather than going fora brightened up and artificial look.The presentation seems pretty true to life.Colors are well saturated, noise is minimal, andthe detail is good when zooming at night.You also get excellent exposures and dynamicrange with again nice color rendition.The level of detail is good, but notquite as sharp as during the day.The Ultra Wide also does a great job at night.It produces well exposed images with excellent dynamicrange, good detail and basically no noise.You do end up with some extra warmth when facedwith certain types of light, but it’s not too bad.Like I mentioned before, you can’t use the externalscreen as a viewfinder to take selfies with themain cam, so you’ll be taking them with oneof the two identical 16 megapixel front facing cameras.These selfies are okay with enough detail,decent dynamic range and low noise.
Video quality, rear cameras, Video low-light quality, rear cameras
Videos can be recorded with all three rear cameras in four k,and the main cam can record in up to 60 FPS.The video quality from the main camis all right, there’s a decent amountof detail, but the sharpening is excessive.There’s also too much contrast, and this makesa negative impact on the dynamic range.The Telephoto cam’s footage is actually solid, the detail iscrisp, the contrast is still high, but not quite somuch in your face, and the dynamic range is good.The Ultrawide’s 4K video is even morecontrasty, though with limited dynamic range.Detail is rather sketchy too.Stabilization is excellent on the Magic Vs, providing praiseworthystability on all three cameras in low light 4Kvideo from the main cam is decent, contrast isstill high and light sources do wind up clipped.Halos around lights are controlled well, though detail is goodif a bit noisy and colors are well saturated.There is a super night mode as well, whichimproves the highlights but is limited to 1080p resolution.So that’s the honor.
Conclusion, Selfie camera video quality
So that’s the honor.Magic vs.There’s a lot to like here.You have the large displays, fast charging,a flagship chipset and great cameras.However, there are a few thingsthat are holding it back.Its launch price is quite high andyou can currently get its biggest rival,the Galaxy Zfold Four for much cheaper.And at the same time, the ZfoldFour provides features which you don’t gethere stylus support, waterproofing and wireless charging.And we’re not sure why rear camera selfiesare too much to ask for here.So all in all, while the Magic Vs isphone, its shortcomings make it hard to recommend ifyou’re looking for the most value for money.