Honor Magic V2 is a foldable nearly as thin as a regular phone

Ben Schoon | Jul 12 2023 - 9:36 am PT

The latest book-style foldable is the Honor Magic V2, and it’s pushing the market forward with what seems like an impossibly thin design that, even when folded, is only slightly thicker than a regular phone.

One of the inherent challenges of a foldable device is thickness, as folding a device in half quickly adds up. Many foldables have settled for a form factor around 12-16mm thick, with the Galaxy Z Fold 4 being one example of a thicker option. At its thickest, the Fold 4 is 15.8mm. Some others have made progress, of course, such as Google’s Pixel Fold being 12.1mm thick, and Xiaomi’s Mix Fold 2 being 11.2mm thick when folded up.

But Honor is now pushing the boundaries here, with the Magic V2 foldable being just 9.9mm thick when it’s folded up.

Announced for China today, the Honor Magic V2 builds on last year’s Magic Vs with a 7.92-inch inner display and 6.43-inch outer display. Both can handle 120Hz and come in at 2344×2156 and 2376×1060, respectively. The outer display can also peak at a crazy 2,500 nits of brightness, with the inner panel topping out at 1,600 nits. The inner display is also stylus-compatible.

The hardware, when opened up, is just 4.7mm thick. But things will vary by model. The thinner version uses a leather backplate, while a glass-backed model adds 0.2mm to the folded thickness. Still, it’s incredibly impressive.

Under the hood, Magic V2 is packing Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Android 13 with MagicOS 7.2, and 16GB of RAM paired with 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage. The rear cameras include a 50MP main sensor, 50MP ultrawide camera, and a 20MP sensor used for telephoto. There’s also a 16MP selfie camera on the front display, too.

Despite the foldable being so insanely thin, it still packs one of the biggest batteries in any foldable at 5,000 mAh. That’s much bigger than the roughly 4,400 and 4,800 mAh batteries in Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Pixel Fold, and the Magic V2 also beats out both of those devices with 66W wired charger. There is no Qi support, though.

It’s unclear when Honor Magic V2 could make an international debut – Magic Vs only arrived back in February – but in China, it will come with a starting price of 8,999 yuan, about $1,250 USD.