Review of Honor Magic V2: Impressive hardware overshadowed by software shortcomings

Honor’s Magic V2 is the best designed foldable phone tablet ever. When it’s closed, it feels like a regular phone, but when it opens like a book, it reveals a big, gorgeous screen.

Magic V2, which was launched in China last year, has now arrived in Europe, but it’s not exactly affordable. Priced at £1,700 (€2,000), it falls between the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and OnePlus’ slightly cheaper Open.

However, it has one major advantage over competing products. It’s the thinness. Honor has managed to slim down the hinge and body to effectively remove the bulk that has burdened foldable phones in the past. The large, bright outer screen has slim bezels and curved sides, and when closed, it feels and behaves like regular Android. The tablet is also only 4.8 mm thick when opened, which is the same as six credit cards stacked on top of each other. It’s incredible.

The 7.92-inch screen inside is slightly larger than its rivals, but just as bright, smooth, and looks great. The crease in the center is a little more noticeable than the open one, but it blends in better with the background when used.

The hinge is rated to withstand at least 400,000 bends, allowing you to hold your phone open at a variety of angles. However, the hinge doesn’t feel as solid as some rivals, and the phone doesn’t have any water or dust protection.

specification

• Main screen: 7.92 inch (402ppi) 120Hz OLED flexible display

• Cover screen: 6.43 inch (404ppi) 120Hz OLED

• Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 2nd generation

• Ram: 16 GB

• storage: 512GB

• operating system: MagicOS 7.2 (Android 13)

• camera: 50MP + 50MP Ultra Wide + 20MP 2.5x Tele; 2x 16MP Selfie

• Connectivity: 5G, dual sim + esim, USB-C, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, GNSS

• water resistance: none

• Dimensions when folded: 156.7×74×10.1mm

• Unfolded dimensions: 156.7×145.4×4.8mm

• weight: 237g

Last year’s top Android chips

The Magic V2 is powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Qualcomm’s top chip since 2023, rather than the new Gen 3 version that started appearing in phones last month. It still provides plenty of power for multitasking, gaming, and whatever you want to do with it, but it’s not exactly the latest technology despite the high asking price. Battery lasts longer. With more than 6 hours of active use of two screens and 3 hours of active 5G, the battery will last up to 49 hours between charges. This means recharging every two days.

sustainability

Honor doesn’t provide an expected lifespan for the battery, but it should last more than 500 full charge cycles at at least 80% of its original capacity.The phone is Normally repairable by Honor.full battery Replacement cost is £110 Replacing the folding screen will cost £737.80 outside of warranty.Phone contains recycled plastic and Honor We will publish the breakdown environmental impact and We offer a trade-in system.

MagicOS 7.2 is unsophisticated

Software is the Magic V2’s biggest weakness. It ships with MagicOS 7.2, which is based on 2022’s Android 13, rather than Android 14, which we’d expect from new devices in 2024. Honor only provides Android updates for his 3 years since release and security updates for a total of 5 years. It’s at least two full years short of the benchmarks set by Google, Samsung, and Apple.

MagicOS has some great ideas, like a mode that turns your phone into a digital desk clock when idle, but it’s generally a little rough around the edges when compared to the best software experiences of its competitors. It has advanced multitasking tools and can display up to 4 apps on screen. Two are split screen and two more are displayed in small free-floating pop-out windows.

But when you tap a notification for a message like email or WhatsApp, your phone asks to open each app in a mini floating window instead of full screen. Sometimes that’s useful. Other times, it’s just frustrating and there’s no way to stop it. You never want Gmail to open like a chat app.

This phone also comes pre-installed with unnecessary apps like Booking.com, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, WPS Office, etc. All of this can be uninstalled, but this is a £1,700 phone and you don’t need the kind of bloat you get on lower priced devices.

camera

The Magic V2 has three cameras on the back, one selfie camera on the front, and one camera on the inner screen.

Both selfie cameras are solid, but the main camera is better at taking photos, and you can use the outer screen as a viewfinder to easily take selfies.

The main 50MP camera takes good photos in a variety of lighting conditions, but colors tend to be oversaturated and scenes are frequently brightened, losing contrast and looking a bit flat. The 50MP ultra-wide angle performs well in bright scenes, while the 20MP his 2.5x telephoto typically produces stable images. However, the reach is not very long, especially when compared to his best competitors with 2x optical magnification.

All three cameras struggle a bit in low light levels, losing fine detail and sharpness, and becoming increasingly unstable at night. There is also a noticeable difference in color between the ultrawide camera and his other two cameras, which is disappointing at this price.

None of these issues are deal-breakers, but Honor has some work to do to catch up with the best in the market.

price

Honor Magic V2 cost £1,699.99 (1,999.90 euros).

For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 prices are as follows: £1,749Google Pixel Fold price £1,749 and OnePlus Open cost £1,599.

verdict

The Honor Magic V2 is a sophisticated piece of hardware with software that doesn’t live up to expectations.

When folded, it looks so much like a regular phone that it’s easy to forget that there’s a huge screen hidden inside.

However, the software isn’t as sophisticated, doesn’t have as many features, and doesn’t have as much support as its rivals. There is no water resistance rating, so durability is questionable, and the camera’s performance may be a little weak in some areas. None of these issues are completely deal-breakers, and many could be fixed with updates. But for a device at this price, it’s disappointing, especially when cheaper rivals are better in these respects.

Strong Points: Ultra-slim and lightweight phone and tablet in one, just like a regular phone when closed, with great performance, very long battery life, a great internal screen, and a great fingerprint scanner. Masu.

Cons: It’s not water resistant, it’s very expensive and expensive to repair, its software isn’t as sophisticated as it needs to be, its software support is short, its chips are outdated, and its camera performance lags behind

Source: www.theguardian.com