Honor Magic V3 Review: A Lesson in Mastery to Be Refined

Honor has just unveiled its new foldable smartphone to be released internationally. We were able to test the Honor Magic V3 exclusively and it turns out to be amazing.

While many eyes in the tech world were riveted on Apple and its new ultra-thin iPad Pro, it was with this same idea that Honor launched into the design of its latest foldable smartphone. The Honor Magic V3 was recently unveiled by the firm with a promise: to offer the thinnest foldable smartphone. The company even directly attacked the market leader, Samsung, with its latest Galaxy Z Fold 6 released at the beginning of the summer 2024.

Honor kindly gave us its new Honor Magic V3 to test before its official release and it clearly stands out as one of the best candidates in its field. Discover our test of the new Honor Magic V3 foldable phone.

Editor's note: this test was carried out entirely using a copy loaned by the brand.

The new Honor Magic V3 unfolded. © Linternaute/Julian Madiot

A design that sets a record for finesse

Let's talk about what is surely the Honor Magic V3's greatest feat: its design. The folded smartphone measures only 9.2mm, making it the thinnest foldable phone in the world at the time of writing. A pretty impressive design, especially when compared to the thickness of its competitors:

We can therefore observe a clear difference between the thickness of the folded Honor Magic V3 and its larger competitors on the market. This is also felt in the weight of the device which is lower and, therefore, more pleasant to use on a daily basis.

The front of the Honor Magic V3 remains very sober. We have a 6.4-inch panel with its selfie camera embedded at the top of the screen. This sober design, however, allows the Magic V3 to look like a completely classic smartphone and many of our friends have not realized that it was a foldable phone during our weeks of testing.

The folded Honor Magic V3 looks like any other classic smartphone. © Linternaute/Julian Madiot

On the side we find the power button which also serves as a fingerprint sensor. The latter is well placed and reacts very well under the thumb even if we would have appreciated having a more "clicky" and less timid feeling. Just above, it is possible to find the volume buttons for which we could make the same observation. Smaller hands may however have some difficulty using the upper volume button without adjusting their grip as it is located a little high.

Let's continue with the sobriety with the back of the Honor Magic V3. The latter has a rather austere matte plastic coating and is prone to fingerprints. We only find the name of the brand and the photo module arranged in the shape of a hexagon. While the latter is quite imposing, it is more practical than the photo module of the Honor Magic V2 which was placed on a single corner of the phone and made it tilt when used on a flat surface.

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Once unfolded, the Honor Magic V3 reveals a 7.2-inch panel that is once again very classic with an integrated selfie camera on the right inner screen. There is no jack port or micro SD card slot on the program, but these are slots that are becoming rare these days.

Using the Honor Magic V3 on a daily basis is pleasant. The smartphone manages to completely make us forget its foldable side thanks to its small size, its finesse which still surprises us today and especially its small weight of 228 g. People who are not used to the foldable format can fully use it as a classic smartphone without feeling the traditional defects inherent to this type of device (heaviness, imposing size, mixed photo shutter and average autonomy).

The Honor Magic V3 is quite impressively thin. © Linternaute/Julian Madiot

Uneven screens, but pleasant to use

The two screens (inner and outer) of the Honor Magic V3 are composed of AMOLED panels that can display up to 1.07 billion colors according to the firm. The outer screen has everything you need for a real premium smartphone screen. It includes a refresh rate that can automatically go up to 120 Hz in order to have great fluidity on a daily basis. The Honor Magic V3's outer screen also has a maximum brightness of up to 5000 nits. An impressive figure, but one that comes in handy when the phone is used in direct sunlight to keep your content readable.

The Honor Magic V3's internet screen also has a refresh rate that can automatically go up to 120 Hz. A real pleasure when watching movies or serious games, but especially when playing video games capable of displaying 120 FPS continuously. Seasoned gamers will be in heaven with the Magic V3's internal screen, provided they don't use it too much in direct sunlight. Indeed, this unfolded screen can only go up to 1600 nits maximum for its brightness and it is felt a little.

The Honor Magic V3 internet screen sometimes lacks brightness. © Linternaute/Julian Madiot

Amazing performances but watch out for the heat

We wanted to put the Honor Magic V3 to the test by running multiple video games that are quite resource-intensive. Honor's latest foldable phone is equipped with 12GB of RAM and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, the latest chip from Qualcomm after all!

The result surprised us to say the least: titles like “Call of Duty Mobile” or “Genshin Impact”automatically launch with the graphics set to “high”. A fairly rare occurrence since many high-end smartphones prefer to launch these titles with medium settings to avoid overheating the processor or possible slowdowns. We even pushed the vice to the limit by setting the FPS to the maximum on each game and everything remained very fluid. We only observed a few heats during major updates or long gaming sessions. Nothing that prevents you from enjoying the phone, but we would still recommend letting it rest a little from time to time to cool the processor.

© Linternaute/Julian Madiot

A photo panel sublime

Many foldable smartphones don't particularly shine in photography. This is another point on which the Honor Magic V3 stands out since the smartphone is capable of taking superb shots day and night. But since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are some photos taken with the Honor Magic V3.

The results are therefore very good. The colorimetry is good and the Honor Magic V3 respects the subjects captured without exaggerating too much on the colors as can often be the case on devices from Samsung or Motorola. Better still: the smallest details in the distance such as vegetation or corners of buildings remain quite sharp. The portrait mode also does rather well even if the detour to the inside of the glasses unfortunately remains sharp and does not benefit from a Bokeh effect (or blur if you prefer). But at this level of quality and details, we are nitpicking.

At night, the Honor Magic V3 also does well. However, the foldable smartphone will tend to force the brightness a little too much with its integrated “night mode”. In our test shots, we have the impression that we are rather in the late afternoon and that the sun is setting when it was actually around 11 p.m. Light sources such as electric poles and car headlights are however very well managed and do not spoil our images.

Clear communications and rock-solid connectivity

We were able to try out the Honor Magic V3 for several weeks. We had several phone conversations with the device and these calls were pleasant to have. The Honor Magic V3 does a good job of reducing unwanted background noise and keeping conversations clear for us or our interlocutors.

The Honor Magic V3 is compatible with both 4G and 5G communication bands and we did not experience any network issues during our tests.

Connectivity-wise, we paired the Honor Magic V3 with several types of earphones and headphones from Google, Apple, and Nothing without experiencing any connection or latency issues. We also used the foldable smartphone with smartwatches from Google and Huawei without any issues!

Excellent battery life and really fast charging

The other major flaw of foldable smartphones is often the battery life. It's hard to put a good battery in a phone that folds and unfolds! However, Honor seems to have succeeded since its Magic V3 has good battery life. Our copy was able to easily last an entire day with different uses ranging from SMS to social networks, including a few games and streaming videos. Unplugged at 8am, the Honor Magic V3 ended up turning off the next day in the middle of the day. A performance that remains correct without being incredible.

The Honor Magic V3 is compatible with fast charging of up to 66W wired and 50W wireless (provided you have a compatible charger or station). The result is amazing: the Honor Magic V3 recharges in just under an hour at 100%.

Our conclusion to the Honor Magic V3 test

While Honor already did very well last year with its Magic V2, the company did not rest on its laurels to reveal an even better new generation. If we really had to find faults with the Honor Magic V3, we could mention its night photos which remain quite improvable and software monitoring which is only 4 years old. Android update and 5 years of security patches, which is still okay, but below the standards of Google and Samsung.

But these small flaws in no way detract from the overall experience of the Honor Magic V3, which clearly establishes itself as one of, if not the best foldable smartphone available on the market.