Honor Magic V3 announced with a slimmer and lighter body, SD 8 Gen 3 and 55W wireless charging

2024-07-18

Last year Honor made a big splash with its Magic V2 which at the time was the thinnest foldable on the market, measuring 9.9mm in its folded state and 4.7mm when unfolded. Today Honor announced its successor – the Magic V3 which offers upgrades across the board in a slimmer and lighter body.

Honor Magic V3 debuts with a slimmer and lighter body, SD 8 Gen 3 and 55W wireless charging

Magic V3 measures just 9.2mm (camera bump not included) in its folded state and comes out to 4.35mm when you unfold its 7.92-inch main screen. Honor slimmed down its flagship foldable by utilizing an upgraded hinge mechanism which is just 2.84mm thick and is rated at 500,000 folds. The frame is made from 7-series aluminum alloy.

Even more impressively, Magic V3 weighs just 226 grams – that’s 13 grams less than the newly launched Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 and on par with bar phones like the Magic6 Pro.

New for this year is the IPX8 water resistance rating which is actually a first for Honor foldables.

Magic V3 features a 6.43-inch LTPO cover screen with FHD+ resolution, a 1-120Hz refresh rate. It’s got a 20:9 aspect ratio which should help with general use and typing. It’s also rated for 2,500 nits peak brightness and supports stylus input just like last year’s Magic V2.

The main display is also of the LTPO OLED variety and measures 7.92 inches. It’s got FHD+ resolution, a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate, and is rated at up to 1,800 nits of peak brightness. Honor also added a side-mounted ultra-narrow capacitive fingerprint sensor from Goodix which allows for faster fingerprint enrollment.

Magic V3 brings Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset which is configurable with up to 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and 1TB UFS 4.0 storage. Despite its slim and lifht profile, Honor still managed to fit a larger vapor chamber (VC) cooling system than the outgoing Magic V2.

The back houses a trio of cameras with a 50MP main shooter (f/1.6 aperture) with OIS, а 50MP periscope with 3.5x optical zoom (f/3.0), and a 40MP ultrawide lens (f/2.2). The cover and main screens also house 20MP front-facing cameras. Honor is also promising support for the Harcourt portrait mode in August.

The software side is covered by MagicOS 8.0.1 based on Android 14 which comes with a host of AI features including circle to search and Honor Parallel Space. The latter combined with the dual SIM support allows you to split the main display and essentially have two separate phones with their own apps and profiles.

Magic V3 packs a 5,150 mAh silicon-carbon battery with 66W wired and 50W wireless charging.

Honor Magic V3 comes in red, white, green, and black colors. Pricing starts at CNY 8,999 ($1,240) for the 12/256GB trim and goes up to CNY 10,999 ($1,516) for the 16GB RAM and 1TB storage model.