Honor Magic V2 review: foldable flagship phone is big and brilliant

Honor’s foldable is a glimpse at the way phones should be.

An Honor Magic V2 foldable phone sitting on a desk
(Image: © Ian Evenden)

Our Verdict

Having a foldable phone takes a lot of the hassle out of carrying a big phone, or even a small tablet, around with you, and Honor’s Magic V2 ups the ante by being a generally great phone. It’s responsive, takes good pictures, and thanks to its folding screen makes an excellent media consumption device. If you thought folding phones were bulky and compromised, then this might be the one to change your mind.

For

  • Vibrant screens
  • Good performance
  • Slim for a foldable

Against

  • Expensive
  • Folding screen easily damaged

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The story of foldable phones has often been one of compromises. They’re too thick, have an unsightly seam down the middle of the larger screen, pack disappointing cameras or underpowered processors, and are too expensive. Honor has had a damned good go at fixing those flaws (apart from the last one) and has produced a folding phone that’s easily pocketable, has a glorious foldable OLED screen, and performs well, but will still burn a sizeable hole in your pocket. Is it good enough for a place on our list of the best camera phones, though? Let's find out.

An Honor Magic V2 foldable phone sitting on a desk

(Image credit: Ian Evenden)
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Chipset:Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
GPU:Adreno 740
RAM:16GB
Storage:512GB
Foldable display:7.92in, 2,344 x 2,156, 120Hz LTPO OLED
Front display:6.43in, 2,376 x 1,060, 120Hz LTPO OLED
Rear cameras:50MP, f/1.9 main, 50MP, f/2 ultrawide; 20MP, f/2.4 2.5x telephoto
Front cameras:2x 16MP f/2.2
Connectivity:USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC
OS:MagicOS 7.2 (based on Android 13)
Battery:5000mAh
Dimensions:156.7 x 74.1 x 9.9mm (folded); 156.7 x 145.4 x 4.7mm (unfolded)
Weight:231g
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Honor Magic V2 benchmark scores:
Geekbench 6:Single-core: 2,024
Row 1 - Cell 0 Multi-core: 4,983
Row 2 - Cell 0 GPU: 8,696
PCMark:Work 3.0: 116,068
PCMark battery test:9h 20m
The Verdict
9

out of 10

Honor Magic V2 review: foldable flagship phone is big and brilliant

Having a foldable phone takes a lot of the hassle out of carrying a big phone, or even a small tablet, around with you, and Honor’s Magic V2 ups the ante by being a generally great phone. It’s responsive, takes good pictures, and thanks to its folding screen makes an excellent media consumption device. If you thought folding phones were bulky and compromised, then this might be the one to change your mind.

Ian Evenden

Ian Evenden has been a journalist for over 20 years, starting in the days of QuarkXpress 4 and Photoshop 5. He now mainly works in Creative Cloud and Google Docs, but can always find a use for a powerful laptop or two. When not sweating over page layout or photo editing, you can find him peering at the stars or growing vegetables.

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