The Honor Magic V2 has finally arrived in markets outside of China, bringing even more competition to the likes of Samsung and Google in the European foldable market.
We considered the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, Google Pixel Fold and OnePlus Open to be the best foldable phones of 2023, but Honor's latest offering – which succeeds the capable-but-not-groundbreaking Honor Magic VS – looks impressive enough to give prospective foldable buyers another option to think about.
You can read our early thoughts on the new phone in our hands-on Honor Magic V2 review, which we'll be updating with more detail in due course, but in this guide, you'll find everything you need to know about the Honor Magic V2's price, release date, specs and features.
What you need to know
- What is it? Currently the world's thinnest inward-folding smartphone
- Where is it available? China, Europe and the UK
- When is it out? Available to pre-order now, ships on February 2
- How much does it cost? £1,699.99 / €1,999
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Honor Magic V2: Release date and price
- Announced in China on July 12, 2023
- Launched globally on January 26, 2024
- Costs £1,699.99 / €1,999
- Begins shipping on February 2, 2024
The Honor Magic V2 was first unveiled on July 12, 2023, but that was just for China. The foldable flagship then received a further European unveiling at IFA 2023 on September 1, 2023, before being officially announced again – and launched for European sale – on January 26, 2024 in Leipzig.
The Honor Magic V2 is available to pre-order now from Honor directly – as well as from Amazon, Very, Argos and Currys – at a cost of £1,699.99 in the UK. That sounds like a lot of money – and it is! – but the blow is softened somewhat when you consider that that Galaxy Z Fold 5 starts at an even higher £1,749 (or $1,799.99 / AU$2,599). The European price of the Magic V2 is €1,999.
Honor will also bundle some pretty neat freebies into your Magic V2 pre-order. For starters, you’ll get a pair of Bang and Olufsen headphones (worth £459) included with your purchase, as well as six months of screen protection and a 66W HONOR SuperCharge Power Adapter. An early-bird voucher – which shaves £200 off the phone’s price if activated before March 1 – is also available (use code AV2PR200 at checkout). So, at the time of writing, you can pre-order the Honor Magic V2 for as little as £1,499.99 in the UK.
The phone will begin shipping from February 2, 2024, at which point it'll also be available to purchase from Three.
As with most Honor devices, future availability in the US and Australia is unlikely.
Honor Magic V2: design
- Very slim at just 4.7mm thick when unfolded
- Light at 231g
- No IP rating
The Honor Magic V2 is a large, book-style foldable with a design similar to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Google Pixel Fold.
However, it stands out through being thinner than either of them, at just 4.7mm thick when unfolded, and 9.9mm thick when folded shut. It’s also lighter than those rivals at just 231g. This is achieved, at least in part, through Honor's "state-of-the-art Super-light Titanium Hinge," which will allegedly see the Magic V2 through more than 400,000 folds.
The full dimensions of the Honor Magic V2 are 156.7 x 145.4 x 4.7mm when unfolded and 156.7 x 74.1 x 9.9mm when folded, not including the camera bump, which adds a negligible amount to the thickness.
In China, the phone comes in a choice of Silk Black, Black, Silk Purple, and Gold shades, with some having a glass back and others being clad in "eco-friendly leather." Elsewhere, however, those color options are limited to Black Vegan Leather and Phantom Purple.
One point against the phone is its lack of official IP rating, so don’t count on it being water resistant. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Google Pixel Fold, by contrast, do boast an IPX8 water resistance rating.
Honor Magic V2: display
- 7.92-inch foldable OLED display
- 6.43-inch secondary outer screen
The Honor Magic V2 has a 7.92-inch, 2156 x 2344-pixel foldable OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+ support, and a peak brightness of 1,600 nits.
It also has a 6.43-inch, 120Hz OLED cover display with a 1060 x 2376 resolution, which uses drop-resistant nanocrystal glass. Both screens have around 402 pixels per inch.
These are competitive specs that, in the case of both screens, are largely in line with what you’ll get from key rivals. The Honor Magic V2 also has smaller bezels around its foldable display than the Pixel Fold, but slightly bigger ones than you'll find on the Galaxy Z Fold 5.
Honor Magic V2: cameras and battery
- 50MP + 50MP + 20MP rear cameras
- Two 16MP selfie cameras
- A 5,000mAh battery with 66W charging
The Honor Magic V2 has three rear cameras: a 50MP f/1.9 main lens, a 50MP f/2.0 ultra-wide lens, and a 20MP f/2.4 telephoto lens offering 2.5x optical zoom. The main and telephoto cameras also have optical image stabilization (OIS).
There’s also a 16MP front camera on each screen in a punch-hole cut-out (though, of course, the foldable design means you can use the rear cameras with the cover screen anyway). When it comes to video, you can shoot in up to 4K quality at up to 60fps.
The battery in the Honor Magic V2 is a 5,000mAh cell, which means it’s larger than the batteries in most foldable phones. It also charges faster than most, at 66W. Honor claims that this wattage allows you to fully charge the phone in around 45 minutes, which, if true, is impressive.
However, there's no wireless charging, so the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Pixel Fold win out on that front.
Honor Magic V2: specs and features
- Powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset
- 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage
The Honor Magic V2 is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, just like most of the best Android phones of last year, including models in the Samsung Galaxy S23 line and the OnePlus 11.
In China, the phone comes with 16GB of RAM and a choice of 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage – but in the UK and Europe, there's just one storage configuration: 512GB.
Other specs and features include a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, 5G support, stereo speakers, and Android 13 software, overlaid with the company’s MagicOS UI. The Honor Magic V2 supports a stylus on both of its screens, too, though in the UK and Europe, you won't get one included in the box (unlike in China).
And finally, in term's of the phone's software tricks, the Honor Magic V2 boasts some neat 'Parallel Space' functionality, which lets you use apps from the device's 'Main Space' and 'Parallel Space' on one screen at the same time.
Honor says that these two virtual spaces can run apps independently without affecting each other – the above video shows a YouTuber playing two versions of the same game on a single Magic V2 device – so we're excited to see what possibilities this feature affords the everyday user.
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