Honor launches Magic V5 as the world’s thinnest* foldable

After several leaks and teasers, Honor yesterday unveiled its latest folding flagship, the Magic V5, in China. With this launch, it takes back the crown for the world’s thinnest folio-style foldable, if only on technicalities.

The Honor Magic V5 is still an impressive feat. It measures just 4.2mm or 4.1mm thick (depending on the model and if you ignore the camera bump). For context, the Magic V3 Honor launched around this time last year, was an already meagre 4.35mm thick.

Along with its impressive side profile, it sports flagship-level internal specs and a supposedly improved rear camera array.

Hopefully, we won’t have to wait too long before it shows up in South Africa.

Behold, the Honor Magic V5

Sandwiched in the phone is a Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC with 12GB or 16GB of RAM and 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of system storage. While 1TB or local storage would be great, South Africa is more likely to top out with the 16Gb/512GB option.

Both the cover and inner folding displays use LTPO OLED display tech, providing a variable refresh rate up to 120Hz. They respectively measure 6.43in and 7.95in diagonally and boast crisp resolutions of 1,060 x 2,376 and 2,172 x 2,352. The cover screen is protected by Honor’s ‘NanoCrystal Shield’.

There are a total of five camera lenses through which to snap your pics. The rear array, housed in the sizeable bump, includes a 50MP main shooter, a 64MP periscope telephoto with 3x optical zoom, and a 50MP ultrawide. Sadly, only the main camera uses OIS. Then, for selfies or video calls, there’s a front-facing lens on the cover screen and another punched out of the folding inner display.

Rounding out the specs, the Magic V5 has increased battery capacity. The China-only model boasts a whopping 6,100mAh, which is reduced to a still-impressive 5,820mAh in international models. That comes with 66W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.

For what it’s worth, this is also one of the latest smartphones to support the Bluetooth 6.0 standard. There’s at least one person out there who will care about that. We got you.