Well-built and packed with grunt, the Honor Magic V6 folding phone stacks up well against the foldable heavyweights, yet it suffers from a painful Achilles Heel.
While they still generate plenty of interest, foldable smartphones are no longer the ‘Next Big Thing’. It’s eight years since the debut of the Royole FlexPai, seven since the first Samsung Galaxy Fold took foldables mainstream and four since Honor threw its hat in the ring.
Over that time, Samsung has remained the foldable king ahead of Google, Motorola, Oppo, Honor and others. There’s even more competition now, after Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, and it will be interesting to see if Apple finally comes to the party this year.
As with all new gadgets, the first few foldable iterations saw rapid innovation, but revolution has settled into evolution as the form factor has matured.
As it is with the $2,999 Honor Magic V6, which bumps up the price on last year’s $2,599 Honor Magic V5. In the process, it makes a few strategic improvements that might win over those prepared to look beyond the usual suspects when spending top dollar on a foldable.
Of course it’s not the only foldable contender. Right now, the Magic V6 is up against the $2,699 Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, $2,799 Motorola Razr Fold, $2,899 Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and $3,299 Oppo Find N6.
Table of contents
Honor Magic V6 first impressions
While Honor tends to ape Apple’s design principles, the Honor Magic V6 doesn’t attempt to mimic how you’d imagine a folding iPhone might look.
At first glance, there are certainly similarities to the Honor Pro 600’s Apple-esque unibody aluminium matte frame with sharp edges. The Honor Magic V6 has the power and volume buttons on the right but, surprisingly for a flagship, you miss out on the Pro 600’s programmable Apple-esque touch-sensitive Quick Button.
With a 6.52-inch display when closed, and only 8.75 mm thick, the Magic V6 is barely larger than the Pro 600 and still fits very comfortably in your hand. It’s great to see the fingerprint reader built into the power button, so you don’t need to reach down for an onscreen reader and risk the phone toppling out of your hand.
Fire up the Honor Magic V6, and you’re faced with a bright and vivid 2420 x 1080 pixel external display, at the standard 20:9 aspect ratio. Stepping up to LTPO 2.0 OLED, the screen offers 10-bit colour and an adaptive 120 Hz refresh rate for smooth scrolling.
With Global Peak Brightness of 2,000 nits and HDR Peak Brightness of 6,000 nits, it’s designed to do justice to High Dynamic Range content including HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. Plus you’ve got the advantage of an anti-reflective coating.
At the bottom of the handset, you’ll find got a USB-C port, alongside a dual nano-SIM port with the benefit of eSIM, but no microSD card support. The handset features dual speakers for stereo, but you miss out on an old-school headphone jack.
Turn the handset over, and you’re presented with a very prominent triple camera array that certainly doesn’t look like it was borrowed from an iPhone. If anything, it’s actually more reminiscent of the Oppo Find N6.
The Magic V6’s back is also very distinctive, relying on different materials depending on the colour you choose: the Red model pictured features vegan leather with a suede-like feel, the White is built from an aerospace-grade special fibre, and the Black and Gold variants feature a durable fibreglass. Keep in mind, Gold isn’t available in Australia.
The phone also comes with a protective case with a ring around the camera array that folds out to act as a stand.
Of course, the split around the edges of the handset alludes to the fact that there’s more to the Magic V6 than meets the eye. The front screen folds open to the left like a book, quickly awakening the 7.95-inch screen within, with a barely visible fold.
Thanks to magnets, the hinge has enough resistance that it won’t fold open by accident. You can’t simply flick it open with your thumb, but it’s not too difficult to pry apart with two thumbs. A slight indentation to help your thumbs get purchase would be appreciated.
The inner screen is a squarish 9.75:9 aspect ratio, apart from which it retains the same impressive specs as the external screen. When folded open, the phone is about the same size as Samsung and Oppo’s foldables.
The open device is thin and light enough that it’s still comfortable to hold in one hand, although you’ll want a steady grip considering the hefty price tag. Again, at 219 gm about the same weight as Oppo and Samsung’s alternatives.
Unfortunately, it has significant wobble when you lay it flat on the table, due to the rear camera array. To be fair, that’s obviously difficult to eliminate on such a form factor.
Viewed side-on, the Magic V6 is an impressive bit of engineering – currently the thinnest foldable on the market at 4.0/4.1 mm (depending on which colour you buy). It’s about as thin as a device can be while still retaining a USB-C port, so we’ve probably reached the limit unless a competitor is brave/foolish enough to opt for wireless-only charging. It will be interesting to see how they respond.
Honor Magic V6 specifications and price
| Display size | External screen: 6.52 inches, 20:9 aspect ratio, 406 ppi Inner screen: 7.95 inches, 9.75:9 aspect ratio, 403 ppi |
| Display resolution | External screen: 2420 x 1080 pixels Inner screen: 2352 x 2172 pixels |
| Display technology | External screen: OLED HONOR Anti-scratch NanoCrystal Shield HDR Peak Brightness: 6000 nits Global Peak Brightness: 2000 nits Inner screen: foldable OLED HONOR Super Armored HDR Peak Brightness: Inner Screen 5000nits Global Peak Brightness: Inner Screen 1300nits AI Defocus Display, 4320Hz PWM Flicker Free Dimming, Dynamic Dimming, Circadian Night Display, Nature Tone Display |
| Bands | 5G(NR), 4G (LTE TDD/LTE FDD), 3G (WCDMA), 2G (GSM) |
| Chipset | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Mobile Platform Octa-core: 2×Prime 4.6 GHz + 6×Performance 3.62 GHz |
| GPU | Adreno 840 |
| Rear cameras | 50MP Ultra Wide Camera (f/2.2) |
| 50MP Ultra Wide Camera (f/2.2) | |
| 64MP telephoto Lens Camera (f/2.5, OIS)3x optical zoom, 100x Digital zoom | |
| Front cameras | 20MP Wide Camera (f/2.2) (Interior screen) |
| 20MP Wide Camera (f/2.2) (Exterior screen) | |
| RAM | 16 GB |
| Onboard storage | 512 GB |
| Connector | USB Type-C, DP1.2 and USB 3.2 GEN1 |
| SIM | Dual Nano SIM + eSIM |
| Charging | 80W wired HONOR SuperCharge fast charging up to 20V/4A SuperCharge 66W wireless HONOR SuperCharge fast charging |
| Battery | 6660 mAh (typical value), 6510 mAh (rated value) |
| Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 7 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be 2.4GHz/5GHz/6GHz2x2 MIMOSupport WLAN Hotspot and WLAN Direct RF Enhanced Chip HONOR C1+ |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 6.0, Bluetooth Low Energy, LE Audio, Auracast, SBC, AAC, LDAC, aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless, LC3, LHDC5.0/4.0/3.0, ASHA, LE Audio Hearing Aid |
| Operating system | MagicOS 10 (Based on Android 16) |
| Security | Fingerprint reader, Face Unlock |
| Ruggedness | IP68, IP69 |
| Dimensions | Height 156.7 mm Width folded: 74.5 mm Width unfolded: 145.6 mm Depth folded (White): 8.75 mm Depth unfolded (White): 4.0 mm Depth folded (Other): 9.0 mm Depth unfolded (Other): 4.1 mm |
| Weight | White: Approx. 219 g (including the battery) Other: Approx. 224 g (including the battery) |
| Colours | Red, White and Black |
| Price | $2,999 RRP |
| Warranty | 2 years |
| Official website | Honor Australia |
Features
The Honor Magic V6 runs Android 16, customised with Honor’s very iOS-esque MagicOS 10 that includes the brand’s take on ‘Liquid Glass’.
Here’s the potential deal-breaker: Honor says the Magic V6 will only receive two major Android OS updates and three years of security patches in Australia. That’s outrageous considering that Europeans get six years of coverage for the exact same device.
It’s bad enough that the $1,499 Honor 600 Pro only gets three years of security updates, but it’s absolutely unforgivable on a $2,999 flagship device. Especially when Google, Samsung and Motorola offer an industry-leading seven years of updates for flagship devices like their foldables. Oppo makes it six years.
It’s bad enough that Motorola skimps on updates for its budget phones, without Honor selling Australians short on its $2,999 flagship.
When pushed for a justification for treating Australians as second-class citizens, Honor says it is “continuing to evaluate based on market and consumer needs”.
Looking back, the Magic V5 got the same rough deal in Australia, so I guess Honor has decided it can get away with it. It would be a damn shame if Magic V6 sales flop in Australia over this issue, forcing Honor to be a bit more generous in future.
Moving on, a look under the bonnet reveals the Magic V6 packs Qualcomm’s flagship octa-core Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform and Adreno 840 GPU. You’ll also find a generous 512 GB of storage and 12 GB of RAM.
As you’d expect at these prices, the Magic V6 also boasts a decent triple-lens rear camera array. There’s a 50 MP main shooter, 50 MP ultrawide and 64 MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom, 100x digital zoom and the benefit of optical image stabilisation.
Around the front are 20 MP wide lenses on the inner and external screens, both lacking autofocus. They stick with an old-school punch-hole design rather than a notch, although MagicOS still replicates Apple’s Dynamic Island with Magic Capsule.
When it comes to the main shooter, the Magic V6 falls short of the 600 Pro, just as Samsung and Google’s foldables can’t quite match the photographic credentials of their non-folding flagships.
As for connectivity, it’s a sub-6 5G phone with the benefit of dual nano-SIM and eSIM. You can take advantage of Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, with an impressive spread of audio codecs, including aptX Lossless, thanks to the Qualcomm silicon within.
The phone packs a reasonably generous 6660 mAh battery, which should be good for 24 hours even if you’re using the large inner display. As for charging, it can take advantage of 80-watt wired and 66-watt wireless (no Qi2), but there’s no AC charger in the box.
Quality
Sporting the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the Honor Magic V6 should easily outgun the Honor 600 Pro, which relies on the previous Snapdragon 8 Elite. The benchmarks tell a different story, but you need to dig deeper to unlock the Magic V6’s true potential.
Out of the box, the Magic V6 returns underwhelming Geekbench 6 scores of 1,582 single-core, 6,013 multi-core and 16,057 OpenCL. Interestingly, performance is set to Balanced by default under the battery menus.
Switching to Performance mode unleashes the 8 Elite Gen 5’s real potential, with Geekbench 6 results leaping to 3,604 single-core, 8,132 multi-core and 23,208 OpenCL.
| Device | Geekbench 6 CPU Single-Core | Geekbench 6 CPU Multi-core | Geekbench 6 GPU |
| Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra | 3,770 | 11,422 | 23,805 |
| iPhone 17 Pro Max | 3,768 | 9,443 | 45,451 |
| Motorola Razr Fold | 2,617 | 9,177 | 17,754 |
| Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 | 2,663 | 8,586 | 19,567 |
| Honor Magic V5 (Performance mode) | 2,334 | 8,313 | 18,025 |
| Honor Magic V6 (Performance mode) | 3,604 | 8,132 | 23,208 |
| Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 | 2,375 | 8,038 | 19,121 |
| Honor Magic V6 (Balanced mode) | 1,582 | 6,013 | 16,057 |
| Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold | 1,949 | 4,698 | N/A |
When it comes to photography, the 50 MP primary shooter does an excellent job, delivering sharp and vivid images that don’t look too overblown or overprocessed – although it doesn’t quite match the contrast of the Pro 600 (thanks to its improved sensor). It’s great to see no drop in quality when switching across to the 50 MP ultrawide.
The 100x super zoom with 3x optical zoom is also impressive, basically matching the results from the 120x super zoom 3.5x optical on the Honor Pro 600. The Honor Pro 600 might be able to zoom in a bit further, but here the Magic V6 matches it on detail and contrast.
Like the Honor Pro 600, the Magic V6’s low light capabilities are impressive but work a bit too hard in some situations.
The photo below was taken at 10:30 pm mid-winter. The clear sky should be black; thankfully, at least one star is visible (at least on my MacBook Pro if not here). The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra handles this challenge better, but not as well as the iPhone 17.
When it comes to selfies, the results are respectable, but by default you still see tell-tale signs of beautification if you open the image on your computer.
Who is the Honor Magic V6 for?
Not that you’d be in a rush to upgrade, but the folding Honor Magic V6 is a decent upgrade from Magic V5 in terms of performance, battery life and durability. It also stacks up well against foldable heavyweights from Samsung, Google, Motorola and Oppo, although we’re waiting to see what they all do next.
The Honor Magic V6 is a worthy contender, right until you remember that you’ll stop getting software updates in only three years (including two years of OS upgrades), simply because you live in Australia. Meanwhile, Samsung, Google, and Motorola have Aussies covered for seven years. This alone makes it hard to recommend the Honor Magic V6 to Australians, and is why an otherwise decent foldable gets such a low value for money score.
The post Honor Magic V6 review: Great foldable but lacks software support appeared first on GadgetGuy.
0 comments:
Post a Comment