During HONOR’s big IFA launch on Thursday, launching the Magic V3 globally, the company compared the new foldable to the iPhone 15 Pro Max quite a bit during its presentation. Versus comparing it to a number of other foldables on the market. HONOR did compare it a few times to the Galaxy Z Fold 6, but for the most part, it was the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Why? According to HONOR CEO George Zhao, “to be frank, today I do not find that any foldable can compete with HONOR Magic V3. No real competitor in the foldable category.” So HONOR is looking for competitors in the bar phone category, and is comparing the Magic V3 to bar phones like the Galaxy S and iPhone.
On the one hand, Zhao is correct. When it comes to foldables, there’s not really anything that can compete. While we have foldables like the vivo X Fold 3 Pro and the OnePlus Open with very good cameras and displays, neither are as thin or lightweight as the Magic V3. The HONOR Magic V3 is just 9.9mm thick when folded, and 4.35mm when unfolded. Actually making it thinner than many slab phones when folded. And it weighs in at 226g. That’s also lighter than a lot of slab phones, for example, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is 232g and it has a smaller battery.
HONOR is very confident in the Magic V3
HONOR seems to be very confident with the Magic V3 this year. It’s been on a media blitz showing how light the foldable is, as well as how far ahead it is of its Western competitors like Samsung. There were a few slides in the presentation on Thursday about how Samsung was able to shave off 1.3mm in width on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 5. But it’s still about 2.2mm thicker than the Magic V3.
There’s also the camera setup, including a 50-megapixel primary camera, a 50-megapixel 3.5x telephoto, and a 40-megapixel ultrawide, which has been providing some impressive pictures during my testing with the Magic V3. In fact, I’ve been comparing its camera to the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and it’s somewhat mindblowing how much better it is.
So, HONOR should be confident in the Magic V3; this is a really well-built phone. The only major problem now is going to be software. As I mentioned in my review, I still think there’s more that HONOR can do to make MagicOS really take advantage of the larger screen here. Unfortunately, we Westerners will never really get to use this phone. Since it doesn’t work fully on US networks, it will be pretty pricey to import, as it does start at €1,999 in Europe.
