Honor Magic V3 : On Its Way To The Top

Unboxing

Review Video

A Little Bit Of Everything

The HONOR Magic V3 implements a lot of new visual elements that makes it completely stand apart from the Magic V2, starting design. It’s a lot thinner, with measurements mounting to a ridiculously thin 9.2mm when it’s folded, which is a a tad thinner than its predecessor. Unfolding it halves that number to 4.35mm, which is just equavalent to a thin stack of stick-it notes. It’s a real marvel that I know is admired by adopters of earlier models. Thin foldables are greatly admired, and HONOR has certainly done it again.

Edges are rounded as usual, with the left corners a little sharper since that’s where the hinge is. It comes in 3 colors, Mossy Green, Silk Brown, Classic Black. The Green and Black have a matte metallic finish while my unit, the Silk Brown, comes in a pleather finish. The charm lies in the color combination, with the back cover coming in a Red Clay color that’s contrasted with a complementing Rose Gold frame that even extends to the camera module, which is now an octagonal island similar to the Magic 6 Pro RSR Porshe Design Edition, which is hexagonal. I also quite liked the hinge design, having little shaped flourishes to add a bit of class to the whole thing, making it hard to put a case on since it’s actually a point to admire.

It’s also factually one of the strongest and slimmest hinge HONOR has developed so far, and with this release is the HONOR Super Steel Hinge, which is now in its second generation. However, the Magic V3 at its strongest point is able to stand confidently from a 90 degree angle with some slight deviation. Major deviations simple result in the foldable closing down on its own. It’s not really a problem because no a lot of people will use the Magic V3 in a specific angle since the phone is set to be slimmer than everyone else, so there only so much hinge you can put into such a thin form factor.

Finally, even at this extremely thin form factor, the HONOR Magic V3 comes with an IPX8 water resistance rating, giving it extra points in durability has it can even be submerged up to 2.5m in water depth and still remain usable.

Dual OLED Screens, Stuffed With Tech

The HONOR Magic V3 comes in a 6.43″ display size with the choice of panel being OLED with a 120Hz refresh rate. The star of the show is when you unfold it, in which is a 7.92″ full screen that people are paying for. This massive screen is an LTPO AMOLED that goes up to 120Hz, and will variably switch around to save some power when you’re not doing something super intensive. Both screens are gorgeous, though obviously I’d prefer to use the unfolded screen any time. It’s a pretty full experience with relatively thin bezels within a level of acceptance for most people.

As usual with most HONOR smartphones, there’s PWM dimming for better low-light viewing thanks to more aggressive anti-flicker capabilities that the company has been working on for years, since the HONOR 4 Pro. For the Magic V3, both inner and cover screens have this benefit, with the inner screen going up to 3840Hz while the cover screen is 4320Hz. I too am guilty of viewing content and online shopping when I’m already in bed in the dark, and when I lower the brightness, I really don’t experience any flicker or experience any movement ghosting, which not only keeps things smooth but my eyes less exhausted from the constant need to focus.

Both screens support HDR10, Dolby Vision and have L1 Widevine Certifcation for Netflix.

Shape-wise the screens are curved, and while that makes the screen seem fuller, there’s just a pill-shaped cutout to house the selfie camera on both screens. It’s no huge intrusion because that cutout also serves the function of being a dynamic island, known as Magic Capsule, as seen on the Magic 6 Pro and 200 Pro.

It’s basically a top-placement mini area where certain minimized apps would jump into while you’re looking at something else on the big screen.

Performance and Daily use

As far as the Magic V3 is concerned, performance is no issue on the HONOR Magic V3. Foldable users tend to lean towards the need using their phones for productivity tasks through the means of multi-windows, multiple widgets in one big screen and even writing a note or two using a stylus. Look, the Magic V3 can do all those things and you know it. Its implementation of MagicOS 8 as a foldable clearly allows for a rich multi-window experience sprinkled with well thought out AI features.

For starters, Magic Portal. You can select Text or Images without needing to tap copy/paste/download by just tap-holding the media itself and dragging it onto the side of your screen to directly share to social media, email or messaging apps, which does factually save you time. It can be enabled/disabled in the settings. What’s new is you’re also able to gentle tap (with only your knuckle) and circle any part of your screen and drag it to the side of the screen to Magic Portal as well, including Google, making it an effective means to circle and search for a particular object in just 3 steps.

Multi-window experience is straightfoward, allowing you to minify and tab up to 3 apps around your inner screen to keep you ahead of your tasks and whatever you’re viewing.

Every app you intend to run and use will have a little pill button on top of it, in which once you tap on it, you can choose between Enlarging into fullscreen, turning it into a smaller size to fit more open apps, minimize it into a tab located onto the corner of the screen, as well as going half and half (2 open apps taking one side of the screen each) with the final option to add a minified window in the center, making it a combined capability of 3 total open apps at once on a screen. This is indeed flexible and very easy to pick up. It’s also worth noting that the multi-window experience moves to the cover screen as well in terms of continuity. It doesn’t become a mess when you switch screens which is a plus.

Gaming

Specs is already up there as you know, headlining with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 , 12GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage. The expectation does come, that a phone like this does play games. Though by specs it can, in real life performance it’s no chart-topper and that’s fine.

The issue is throttling. FPS begins to drop on demanding games Time to throttle averages about 20-30 minutes from time of start), while more stable titles including the likes of MLBB would run completely fine at full FPS for at least 5 long matches. Again I’d like to stress that the phone is factually really thin, and you’ll feel the heat sooner on your hands. It’s simply the price one pays for such a lovely form factor.

Conclusively, it’s no gaming phone, and it really does better as a productivity, media and camera device.

Battery Life

The Magic V3 packs a new-gen 5,150 mAh silicon carbon battery pack, which offers denser capacities without the bulk, and is therefore made thin enough to fit into the device. That being said, the Magic V3 can last a little over a day, with 80% of the time using the unfolded screen, under constant messaging, calls, music playback, multi-window operation including video playback. It was actually not easy to drain the battery, and that is a feat that no foldable except the Magic V3 can easily fight. I can confidently say that even the busiest, most forgetful workaholic would take almost 2 days to complete drain the device, which is impressive in itself.

A flat battery takes about 40 minutes using the provided 66W HONOR SuperCharger, while it takes about an hour using the company’s own 50W wireless charger.

Average Screen-On Time : 4.5 Hours
Maximum Screen-On Time : 6 Hours

Fully Loaded Camera Setup

This is one of the many areas the Magic V3 takes the cake as a foldable, which are its camera specs. The HONOR Magic V3 boasts a versatile triple camera system on the rear, including Harcourt Portrait capabilities. Stabilisation is taken care of via a dual gyro-EIS+OIS system, varying across lenses.

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Here’s a breakdown of the three lenses:

Main Sensor:

• 50MP, includes PDAF and OIS
• Measures up to 1/1.56″ in sensor size
• Aperture f/1.6, making it the largest and brightest available on a foldable now

Telephoto Lens:

• This lens offers up to 3.5x optical zoom bringing distant subjects closer without significant quality loss.
• The sensor is also able to zoom up to 100x via periscope approach, though it is a digital crop
• Sensor size is 1/2.51″, and includes PDAF and OIS. Aperture is f/3.0

Ultrawide Lens:

• This 40MP ultrawide sensor will shoot with a 112˚ field of view, and has AF (autofocus)
• Aperture is f/2.2

Front Facing Cameras:

• The selfie system comprises of 2 selfie cameras packing a 20MP sensor with a f/2.2 aperture.
• Sensors are on both the cover and inner screens with the exact same specs
• Both sensors shoot with a 90˚ field of view

Portrait Photography

This is my favorite part of using the Magic V3 as it includes the recent Harcourt Portrait Tech that debuted on the HONOR 200 Pro. I got to enjoy Harcourt’s signature colors and camera quality, which translated really really well in real life camera testing. Images were beautiful, sharp and full of life. It really helped me realize that even some foldable users take photography seriously and deserve to have such a system.

Selfies

Both inner and cover screen selfie cameras are of the same spec and produce identical results. They produce decent shots, with natural colors and toning, with an acceptable level of sharpening that’s subtle and leaves a bit of softness for a more realistic touch.

Should You Buy It?

Lets drop some hard facts. If you’re here looking to whether I’m going to tell you to buy this phone, it’s no longer about value crunching, but more on what you’re able to get by spending so much on HONOR’s currently best foldable. The improvements are there and all over the place, from stronger durability and waterproofing, reliable performance for work, to advanced, beautiful screens. It charges fast and lasts long, it takes fantastic photos as far as foldables are concerned in Malaysia.

However, to love this phone and justify the investment, you have to spend time getting to know MagicOS 8.0 and its barrage of AI features, on top of just enjoying the phone. You’ll also need to spend time getting to know how multi-window works as it’s more focused on tapping for resizing and tabbing, instead of what we’re used to, which would be swiping and dragging.

Pricing is competitive if we’re talking about the specific segment, so look no further if you’re looking for an extremely reliable foldable that’ll last long, looks fancy and does everything smoothly.