At only 4.1mm thick at its thinnest unfolded point, the Honor Magic V5 is incredibly skinny. In fact, the company has said it's the world's thinnest foldable measuring in just 0.1mm skinnier than Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7. That claim is debated -- it depends whether you include the built-in screen protector or not -- but we're almost literally splitting hairs at this point. World's thinnest or not, it's mind-blowingly svelte.
Well, it blew my mind, anyway. The other foldables I've been using recently include Google's Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the OnePlus Open, both of which feel positively bloated when held against the Magic V5. Getting my hands on Honor's latest foldable made me realise just how far the technology has come in a few short years.
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But you'll pay for that skinny design. Starting at £1,700, the Magic V5 is hardly what you'd consider cheap, although it's around £100 cheaper than Samsung's equivalent. Honor doesn't sell its phones officially in the US, so for reference that UK price converts to $2,299.
I've spent the last couple of weeks with the phone and here's what I Iike about it.
The camera unit dominates the rear of the phone. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
Skinny design
It's an obvious start, really. That thin body addresses my main concern about book-style foldables. It's barely thicker than a regular phone when folded up, so it's much easier to hold and easier to slide into a jeans pocket. Well, most of it is. While the phone's body is only 8.8mm thick when shut, the camera unit protrudes an additional 7mm -- almost doubling the overall thickness of the phone.
As a photographer I've never said this about a phone before but it's almost a shame Honor didn't really cut back on the cameras. I'd have loved to see what a foldable phone felt like that was so slender the whole way across.
While you'd probably imagine such a thin phone would be incredibly delicate, Honor actually boasted that it holds a Guinness World Record for the heaviest weight (104 kilograms) lifted by a foldable phone. How that actually translates to real-world durability over time remains to be seen, but the phone certainly felt sturdy in my hands-on time.
The Honor Magic V5 (bottom) is a good deal skinnier than the Pixel 9 Pro Fold (top). Andrew Lanxon/CNET
Its IP59 dust and water resistance will also help keep it safe from spilled drinks and other debris, but Google's latest Pixel 10 Pro Fold takes the crown as the first foldable to offer IP68 resistance, giving it greater protection against dust or other particles getting inside and potentially harming the hinge.
The inner screen measures 7.95 inches and provides loads of room for videos or games. Like most book foldables, it has an almost square aspect ratio, so widescreen movies will still play as a strip through the middle. The crease isn't especially noticeable under mixed lighting conditions. The outer 6.43-inch display fills the front of the phone and it's bright and vibrant.
Powerful processor and Android software
The Magic V5 runs on the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and it put in some great results on our suite of benchmark tests. Navigating around the interface is swift and games like Genshin Impact and PUBG play well, even at max settings. They also look great when played on the massive inner display.
The outer display is as big and vibrant as you'd expect any standard smartphone to be. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
It runs Android 15 at launch although an update to Android 16 is expected later in the year. Honor has customized the interface with its own UI which makes various changes to the layout, apps and text, although it's still easy to get to grips with.
It comes with various Honor AI tools built in, including an image editor that does things like object removal or expanding the canvas -- the latter giving me the infinitely long arms I always dreamed of. It also includes the image-to-video generative AI tool that rocked my world previously by bringing my dad back to life. It works just the same here.
You'll also find the usual array of Google AI tools including Gemini Live and Circle to Search. Honor says the phone will receive a total of seven years of software and security updates.
The inner display is big, vibrant and the crease is minimal under most lighting conditions. But as with most book foldables, watching widescreen content results in a lot of wasted black space on the nearly square aspect ratio. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
The phone has a 5,820-mAh battery, which should be good for at least a full day of mixed use, depending on what you get up to with it. Spend the whole morning streaming video on the massive inner screen and you'll probably need to give it a top up later in the day. Doing so is quick, though: It supports 66W wired charging, as long as you have a compatible charger.
Solid cameras for a foldable
That massive rear bump houses three cameras: a 50-megapixel wide camera, a 50-megapixel ultrawide and a 64-megapixel telephoto camera providing 3x optical zoom. I've not spent much time testing the cameras, but from my early use I'd say they're decent. But they can't quite challenge today's top camera phones like the iPhone 16 Pro or Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Lovely crisp details and accurate colors on this image taken with the main camera. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
Also taken with the main camera, this street scenes looks over-processed, with a crunchy HDR look and oversaturated colors. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
While this street scene looks much more natural. Lovely stuff. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
The portrait mode has done a good job of separating this subject from their background and while the colors still look vibrant. It actually works in the image's favor in this instance. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
Taken with the internal selfie camera, this image of me -- waiting for what turned out to be a delicious flat white -- is sharp and well exposed. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
Then I wanted to see what the AI editor would do with it. Apart from applying beauty effects to my face (which make me more pale and smooth my skin horribly) I also used the generative expand tool to give me a body so long so you'd need oxygen to climb to the top of it. No, I have no idea what's going on with those pipes at the top. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
This is pretty much par for the course for foldable phones. Most companies tend to outfit their foldables with more midrange camera hardware in order to try and keep the already high price from going any higher. While the cameras on the V5 are certainly decent (especially for a foldable), if photography is your main consideration when buying a phone then it may not be the handset for you.
Is the Honor Magic V5 a good phone to buy?
Its slim design alone makes it one of the more impressive foldable phones I've held. It feels like a totally different level of device from earlier book-folding foldables like the OnePlus Open and it's absolutely worth taking a look for that reason alone. Add in the powerful Qualcomm processor, the promised durability and the solid camera performance and the Honor Magic V5 has a lot to offer.
The camera unit really pokes out. Andrew Lanxon/CNET
And it does it at a price that slightly undercuts Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7. Sadly, I haven't had my hands on the Z Fold 7 so I can't say how the two phones compare, but on paper it seems like it's a close battle.
The main reason for those of you in the US to buy the Samsung over the Honor is simple; You can't buy the Honor in the US. Everyone else, you'll have a tougher time deciding.