HONOR wanted everyone to know they are a brand to take seriously after releasing the Magic V2. Now, the company proved they are no one-hit wonder in the foldable space by introducing the HONOR Magic V3.
After getting the world’s thinnest foldable title for the V2, HONOR managed to make the newer version even thinner. Along with it is a list of improvements that should ultimately make it a much better smartphone.
In our HONOR Magic V3 review, we’ll check out those upgrades, how is it better than its predecessor, and more importantly, how it compares to the competition to see if it’s the right one for you.
HONOR Magic V3 Specs
- Android 14, MagicOS 8.0.1
- Dual SIM, Dual standby
- 7.92-inch FHD+ LTPO OLED foldable display, 2344 x 2156 pixel resolution, ~402ppi
- 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate
- 9.78:9 aspect ratio
- 3840Hz PWM dimming
- 1600-nits peak brightness
- 6.43-inch LTPO OLED cover display, 2376 x 1060 pixel resolution, 402ppi
- 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate
- 20:9 aspect ratio
- 4320Hz PWM dimming
- 5000-nits peak brightness
- HDR10+, HDR Vivid, Dolby Vision
- SGS, TUV Rheinland eye care certifications
- 3.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 octa-core processor
- Vapor chamber cooling
- 12GB RAM
- Adreno 750 GPU
- 512GB UFS 4.0 storage, non-expandable
- 20-megapixel front camera
- 20-megapixel cover camera
- 50-megapixel (f/1.6, PDAF, OIS) + 50-megapixel (3.5x periscope zoom, OIS, PDAF, f/3.0) + 40-megapixel (ultra-wide) rear cameras, LED flash
- IPX8 splash resistant
- Stylus support
- Stereo speakers
- Side-mounted fingerprint scanner, Face unlock
- HSPA+, 4G LTE, 5G
- WiFi 7, dual-band
- Bluetooth 5.3
- dual-band GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS
- NFC
- IR blaster
- USB-C
- Dimensions: 156.6 x 145.3 x 4.35mm (unfolded) | 156.6 x 74.0 x 9.2mm (folded)
- Weight: 226g
- Colors: Black, Green
- 5,150mAh non-removable battery, 66W wired, 50W wireless, 5W reverse wired charging
Design and Build Quality
The HONOR Magic V3’s claim to fame is being the World’s Thinnest Foldable phone, and it definitely is. Probably one of the testaments to that is when I would constantly mistake it for my iPhone 15 Pro Max when I’m trying to feel it in my bag. I would usually pull out the device that felt thinner, expecting it to be the iPhone, only to be surprised that it’s the Magic V3 instead. And that’s with a case on.
While the Magic V3 is actually 1mm thicker than the iPhone when unfolded, the difference is almost unnoticeable, even more so with the chunky case I’m using. What I want to highlight here is how the dimensions of a foldable like this are almost identical to a traditional bar smartphone.
HONOR did a great job of making the Magic V3 so thin it’s not intimidating to use and doesn’t feel like you’re using two phones stacked together, unlike other foldable phones on the market.
The Magic V3 is about 9.3mm thick when unfolded and only around 4.4mm when opened. However, it has quite a sizeable and redesigned camera island. It’s now round, in the middle, and has a thick octagon-shaped bezel.
It’s aligned with the design language of the Magic6 Pro and more striking than the Magic V2‘s, which I appreciate.
Apart from its compact design, the Magic V3 is closing the gap with traditional smartphones by having an IPX8-rated water resistance which HONOR claims can survive a water depth of 2.5 meters. While you shouldn’t test how resistant it actually is from water exposure, it should give you peace of mind knowing that it would probably survive accidental liquid spills or light rain.
More on durability, the cover screen comes with HONOR Anti-scratch NanoCrystal Shield. HONOR also claims that “the external screen is even as wear-resistant as a bar phone.” There’s also a pre-applied screen protector on this thing.
As for the main inner display, HONOR used nanoscale anti-scratch coating that’s apparently 5x more scratch-resistant than traditional inner screens. Other than the few hairline scratches on the cover screen protector, I had no problems with both screens’ durability.
HONOR threw in a premium case in the box, too. The front part is so thin it had to have adhesive, so it doesn’t come off easily. I also like how the height protects the cover screen from any surface, albeit it feels a little too high it can be hard to tap the edges of the screen at times.
The second part of the case hugs the bottom part of the device and protects it nicely. A flap on the side to protect the hinge without restricting its movement is also here. Plus, there are triangle patterns on the back that add a bit of impact resistance.
It then has a faux leather texture and a sturdy kickstand that protects the bezels of the camera and can prop the device vertically or horizontally, whether you’re using the cover or the main display.
The hinge feels pretty solid. It can be stiff to open at first, but you can easily get used to it. The device can open comfortably at a 45 and 90-degree angle with great stability, perfect for shooting videos if you don’t have a tripod.
Taking a tour, we have the 6.43-inch LTPO cover screen on the front, with a punch-hole for the 20-megapixel selfie camera. Not the thinnest bezels we’ve seen, though.
The top has two microphones, an IR blaster, and a secondary loudspeaker.
We have the other speaker, a USB-C port, a microphone, and a SIM tray for two nano SIMs at the bottom.
The triple cameras are on the back with a pill-shaped LED flash in the middle. The one on top is the periscope zoom lens, the bottom left has the main camera, while the right is for the ultra-wide sensor.
Fold it open and you get yourself a large 7.92-inch foldable screen with its own punch-hole for another 20-megapixel selfie camera. The bezel size is not out of the ordinary but good enough as it also prevents mistouches.
Like on most foldable phones, the crease is here and you can feel it with your fingers. But over time, you get used to it and it kinda just disappears unless you’re looking for it.
Overall, the HONOR Magic V3 is a well-built and well-designed piece of tech, making it one of the most practical foldable phones to actually use as a daily driver. It is available in Green and Black in the Philippines, while other markets can also get it in Red and White.
Display and Audio
As you already know, the HONOR Magic V3 comes with two displays. The main one is a 7.92-inch FHD+ LTPO OLED foldable screen with 2344 x 2156 pixel resolution, ~402 pixel-per-inch, a tall 9.78:9 aspect ratio for multitasking, 33840Hz PWM dimming, and 1600-nits peak brightness.
Meanwhile, the cover screen is a 6.43-inch LTPO OLED panel with a 2375 x 1060 resolution for the same pixel-per-inch, a wider 20:9 aspect ratio for basic tasks, high 4320Hz PWM dimming, and up to 5,000 nits of peak brightness.
Both screens have a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate and support for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. There’s also an AI Defocus Display feature that you can toggle in the settings, which helps reduce the bad effects of having your eyes close to the screen for a long time by using AI for a controlled defocus effect.
The display quality from both screens was great and fitting for a premium device. Colors pop and blacks are deep, Dolby Vision works great on streaming platforms, and the different screen sizes (and aspect ratios) serve their purpose well.
I find the cover screen great for day-to-day use: social media, taking pictures, gaming, and thanks to its wide enough aspect ratio, watching movies.
But when I need to work and don’t have our laptop with me, the extra real estate of the foldable screen has been useful for running two apps side-by-side. You can even have two extra apps running in a floating window if you need to.
Unlike the display, the speakers are pretty average. The volume could be louder, the bass is there but lacks oomph, the mids are a little dull, but the treble is thankfully crisp.
Hardware and Performance
The HONOR Magic V3 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 — the best Qualcomm chip available when the device first came out months ago. It has an Adreno 750 GPU, 12GB of RAM, and 512GB of fast UFS 4.0 non-expandable storage.
HONOR Magic V3 Benchmark Scores
HONOR also highlighted the device’s Titanium Vapor Chamber is now 40% lighter and ultra-thin at just 0.22mm.
It may not have the best benchmark scores for a high-end phone, but its performance was still powerful. It’s very quick and snappy when multitasking on the large display, apps open fast, take pictures quickly, and more.
Now, let’s get into gaming. Genshin Impact was incredibly smooth under the Highest settings, with no overheating problems either, even when playing on the bigger display.
PUBG Mobile was incredibly smooth under UltraHDR/Ultra, as well as Call of Duty: Mobile on Very High/Max. Farlight84 ran fine with Extreme/Very High settings, but I noticed thermals rising fast, so I dialed down the graphics quality to Ultra.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Asphalt Legends Unite had no issues running on the highest available settings. So, to confirm what we already know and expect, yes, the HONOR Magic V3 can definitely game and we have no significant heating issues to report.
| Game | Graphics Settings |
| Call of Duty: Mobile | • Graphics Quality: Very High • Frame Rate: Max |
| Farlight84 | • Graphics Quality: Ultra • Frame Rate: Very High |
| PUBG Mobile | • Graphics Quality: Ultra HDR • Frame Rate: Ultra |
| Genshin Impact | • Graphics Quality: Highest |
| Mobile Legends: Bang Bang | • Graphics Quality: Ultra • Frame Rate: Ultra • HD Mode: On |
| Asphalt Legends Unite | • Visual Quality: High Quality • Frame Rate: 60 |
Software and User Interface
Unfortunately, the HONOR Magic V3 still runs on Android 14-based MagicOS 8.0.1. On the upside, it’s scheduled to receive three major OS upgrades, and that includes the current Android 15 version with MagicOS 9 on top.
To accommodate the bigger screen, HONOR tweaked MagicOS to take advantage of the extra screen space and give it the foldable flexibility.
The photos above show how it immediately displayed two home screen tabs to fill the screen instead of just stretching and spreading app icons and widgets. Fold it back and you will revert to the standard single home screen view with the cover display.
There’s even a dedicated Foldable Phones section in the settings that lets you decide what happens to the UI when you switch screens, enable App Extender on very few apps, toggle app scaling, and more.
You can also customize the lock screen styles, Always-On Display (AOD), themes, fonts, and the Standby feature that works like a nightstand clock on idle.
Thanks to the large foldable display, multitasking on this device was intuitive. You can run different apps side-by-side and then have two more displayed as a floating window that you can also move around. You can then minimize apps to a bubble on the side of the screen for later use.
There’s a Toolbar that you can summon from anywhere you are by swiping up, but there’s a learning curve here as a wrongful swipe-up will close the existing app and will send you back to the home screen. Still handy, though. You can drag and drop an app to where you want it to open.
If I remember it correctly, the Magic V2 didn’t have this basic foldable feature when it launched here in the Philippines, so it’s good to see that HONOR is also improving on the software side.
HONOR’s Magic Portal lets you drag and drop texts, images, and other media from one app to another. Did you see a recipe online? Highlight it, drag it to the corner of the screen, then drop it to the Notes app for later. Looking for the nearest shoe store? Go to the brand’s directory website, copy the address, and paste it into Google Maps to immediately to start navigating.
Of course, the HONOR Magic V3 also has an AI suite. It’s called HONOR AI and it’s powered by Google AI.
You can access the Google AI assistant by holding the gesture button at the bottom. Once it lights up, you can either type what you want to look up, have it look up a song for you, or circle any item on the screen to look it up.
Like most brands, HONOR also has its own AI Erase feature in the camera app. Circle to Erase is much faster but Brush to Erase can be useful if you want extra precision.
The advanced Notes app lets you record meetings and ask AI to transcribe them for you or show who the speakers are. Handy for creating minutes of the meeting.
HONOR made the sensible move and went with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner instead of having two under-display ones for each screen. The biometrics feature worked fast and accurately, even the face unlock function. No problems here.
HONOR used Google Keyboard on this one. The layout cleverly splits the keyboard so your thumbs can easily reach it while using the big display.
The camera app on a foldable is always interesting, and this is no different. You can use the cover display as a viewfinder, which is great for taking selfies with the rear cameras or to get approval from the subject that you have the framing right.
You can also split the screen to have the full camera app on one side and the gallery on the other so you can quickly see the photos you’ve taken.
Cameras
The HONOR Magic V3 is equipped with a 1/1.56″ 50-megapixel IMX906 sensor from Sony, with a bright f/1.6 aperture and optical image stabilization. The 50-megapixel ultra-wide from the V2 has been downgraded to 40-megapixel, but the telephoto has been promoted to 50 megapixels from 20-megapixels.
Daylight shots are clean and worthy of the device’s flagship status. The device processes the photos well without adding oversaturation or over-sharpening. This results in lifelike colors, and spotless details even when you zoom in, and the dynamic range is immaculate.
It managed to hold its ground in low light. While many flagships perform better, night and indoor shots still look well-detailed, have smooth bokeh, and nice colors. Noise and grains were also kept at bay.
Also, thanks to the secondary display, you can take selfies with the rear camera, which would look better than the inner cameras, especially in low-light scenarios.
The main camera is also capable of 2x shots that mimic a 52mm lens that’s popular for portrait photography, so you can center the attention to your subject better. Despite the crop, the details are still impressive.
Next stop, we have the 50-megapixel telephoto camera with 3.5x zoom for a 90mm lens equivalent, so you can frame farther away subjects better. The image quality is almost as spotless as the main shooter. The colors and details are realistic, and the dynamic range is almost perfect.
You can then swipe the zoom buttons to dial it up all the way to 100x, which has an equivalent of 2,571mm. Images under this zoom are actually respectable and you can really see AI doing its best to sharpen the image, especially if there are texts in the frame.
The 40-megapixel ultra-wide camera may have received a downgrade in megapixel count, but it still managed to take flagship-grade photos. Color quality and dynamic range are still good, sharpness is ample, and the barrel distortion correction, while not perfect, did its best to straighten the corners of the photos.
Finally, we have the 20-megapixel selfie cameras for the cover and main displays. Image quality is passable. It has the right amount of details, skin tones are nice, and the dynamic range can keep up with sunny outdoors.
It should suffice for casual snaps or video calls, but if you can, just use the main rear cameras with the cover display as your viewfinder for better-looking selfies and even group shots with the ultra-wide sensor. That’s one of the main benefits of having a foldable like this, anyway.
Clearly, the HONOR Magic V3 is more than just a multitasking machine. Those who have a knack for photography will appreciate its impressive image processing and flexible lenses.
Battery and Charging
The HONOR Magic V3 is equipped with a 5,150mAh battery, which is just 150mAh bigger than the V2. It also comes with a 66W wired and 50W wireless charging support.
Unfortunately, it received disappointing scores in our tests. In PCMark’s synthetic battery loop test, it only lasted 12 hours and 37 minutes, lower than the average score of 14 hours we usually get on other devices.
It’s worse in our 1080p YouTube video loop test which only lasted 11 hours and 32 minutes, versus the average score of 14 hours and 30 minutes on other devices.
To make up for the poor battery life, the HONOR Magic V3 has fast and convenient charging solutions. The 66W wired charger managed to pump the battery to 36% in just 15 minutes. Full charging test results are below:
- 15mins: 0-36%
- 30mins: 64%
- 45mins: 91%
- 53mins: FULL
Verdict
HONOR nailed it again with the new HONOR Magic V3. It has the perfect blend of design and hardware, making it the most practical and comfortable foldable phone to use as a daily driver.
The company is closing the gap between foldable and traditional bar phones by creating this ultra-thin device. If you’ve always wanted to own a foldable but worried about the size sticking out of your pocket, HONOR has already addressed that right from the Magic V2.
More than the design, the Magic V3 provides a complete flagship-grade performance thanks to its snappy processor, all-rounder cameras, fast charging, and of course, the flexibility the displays provide if you’re a heavy multitasker.
It’s far from perfect, but we’re still bumped out with its below-average battery life, the lack of power from the stereo speakers, and the fact that HONOR can’t roll out the new Android 15 update soon enough.
Still, there’s no denying that the HONOR Magic V3 feels like the most market-friendly, practical foldable phone that you can confidently use on a everyday.
HONOR Magic V3 pricing and availability in the Philippines
The HONOR Magic V3 has an SRP of Php89,999 in the Philippines and comes in a single 12GB/512GB variant. You can get it at Globe Postpaid Plans starting at GPlan 2499.
Pros
- Most comfortable foldable to daily drive thanks to thin design and nice build quality
- Great displays for content and multitasking
- Snappy flagship performance
- Flexible cameras
- Free case with a kickstand
Cons
- Still ships with Android 14 (update coming soon)
- Stereo speakers lack power
- Battery life could be better