**Honor Magic V3 Review: A Folding Phone that Pushes Boundaries**

The Honor Magic V3 is one of the latest additions to the folding phone market, and it's making quite an impression with its impressive hardware and features. One of the standout features of this phone is its camera capabilities, which rival some of the best cameras in the industry.

**Camera Capabilities: A Surprising Delight**

When you think of a foldable phone, one thing that often comes to mind is the compromise on camera quality. However, with the Honor Magic V3, it's pushing that notion aside and producing some truly impressive photos. The phone features a 50MP wide-angle lens, a 50MP 3.5x telephoto lens, and a 40MP ultra-wide lens, all of which work together to produce bright, vibrant images with excellent detail. One feature that stands out is the color accuracy between the lenses, which is consistent across all three cameras. Whether you're using the ultra-wide, main, or telephoto lens, the resulting photos look identical in terms of color and saturation.

**Selfie Camera: A Triple Threat**

For selfie enthusiasts, the Honor Magic V3 offers a triple-camera setup, including an inner display camera, a cover display camera, and a main camera. Each of these cameras produces 20MP images, making it easy to choose which one you want to use for your selfies. You can also opt to use the phone's 50MP sensor for more detailed shots, especially when using the 3.5x optical zoom feature.

**Video Capabilities: A Disappointment**

While the Honor Magic V3's cameras are a highlight of the device, its video capabilities are somewhat disappointing. Despite being capable of recording at up to 4K60, the images lack sharpness and have a muted tone, making them less than ideal for capturing smooth footage.

**Battery Life: A Letdown**

One area where the Honor Magic V3 falls short is in battery life. With a 5,150mAh battery, it's clear that this phone is designed to be powerful. However, in our testing, we found that the battery drains quickly, especially when gaming or using resource-intensive apps like GenChan Impact. In fact, playing the game for just an hour and a half left us with less than 10% of the battery life remaining.

**Design and Features: A Magic Touch**

Despite its small size, the Honor Magic V3 boasts some impressive design features. With its IPX8 rating, you can rest assured that the phone is protected from dust and water ingress. Additionally, it features wireless charging and a sleek, thin design that makes it easy to carry around.

**Software: A Compromise**

While the Honor Magic V3's hardware is certainly one of its strong suits, the software experience leaves much to be desired. With only four years of OS updates promised, and five years of security updates, this phone may not be as future-proof as some users might like.

**Conclusion**

Overall, the Honor Magic V3 is a seriously impressive folding phone that pushes boundaries in terms of hardware and features. While it's not without its flaws – particularly when it comes to battery life – if you're looking for a premium folding phone with exceptional cameras, then this may be the device for you. However, with its high price tag and compromise on software, it's hard to fully recommend it without some caveats.

**Will It Tempt You Away from Folding Phones?**

One question that remains is whether the Honor Magic V3 will tempt users away from other folding phones, like Samsung or Motorola. While it's certainly a compelling device, its high price tag and software limitations may be deal-breakers for some potential buyers. Nevertheless, if you're in the market for a premium folding phone with exceptional cameras, then this is definitely worth considering.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is the honor magic V3 and despite the added competition this time around and much like its predecessor it can still claim that it is the thinnest foldable in the world and actually it's even thinner than last year's magic V2 and while this might be my favorite foldable in terms of Hardware there is something that's holding me back from using this phone every single day I used the magic V2 for a few months last year because I wanted to really get into that world of folding phones and when I saw that the V3 was around the corner I was really excited and while it's made some decent upgrades I feel the experience hasn't changed a whole lot from what I was used to from last year but that isn't a bad thing firstly when you unbox the phone you get the usual USBC cable a 66 W power brick and this really nice faux vegan leather case with a kickstand which actually has been a dream to use the kickstand makes using the phone when traveling so much easier just being able to pop it down and watch content so the fact that this comes in the box and feels premium this is a big bonus and talking of Premium when you look at the hardware of the honor magic V3 that is exactly what you get it has a 6.4 in ltp 120 HZ AMOLED cover display here and this is so nice to use and it also has a peak brightness of 5,000 nits and it supports Dolby Visions so if this was the only display on the phone then I think I'd be really happy just using this all day every day and when that phone is folded and you use the cover display it's impressively thin it's pretty much the same thickness as an s24 ultra or a pixel 9 Pro XL and if you take away that camera bump this is just 9.2 mm when you unfold the V3 to use that in display this is where you really see the magic the phone is just 4.35 mm thin and even the USBC Port looks like it struggles to fit in here if you compare this to the zold 6 being 5.6 mm or the pixel 9 Pro fold being 5.1 mm you can see how impressive it is and actually it's even thinner than my passport that screen when unfolded is also fantastic it's a 7.92 in OLED which again has 120 HZ and this has been so good to use when I've been using any folding phone I feel like where it comes into its own is watching content and just having that bigger size display especially when you're on the go it's just a little bit more convenient and like I mentioned with that kickstand watching any content on that 7.92 in screen has been a dream my only complaint when watching content on that folder display is that the sound just isn't that great and I can easily cover up the bottom speaker with my finger which can become a little bit annoying typing though when you get used to that split keyboard here again is really nice and easy it makes having to take notes so much easier and overall just having that bigger inner display is pretty convenient and both of these displays also support a stylus as well the only problem that I have with folding phones is that I forc myself to use that folding display because everything that I can do on here I can pretty much do on here the complaints that I had about the V2 have been fixed on the V3 there was no water resistance there now is you get an ipx8 rating and there was no wireless charging last year and now there is you can get up to 50 WS of wireless charging but to get that 50 WS you do need to buy a honor wireless charger another change this year is the design of that camera module and it's essentially taken the design of the magic 6 Pro and slapped it on the back of this here and it is Big there's no denying it but I actually don't mind it and I'm not going to say I'm in love with that octangle design but it is big it is bold and it stands out so I'm I'm okay with this I've said how much I love the design and as as the hardware is sadly the software just doesn't match up the phone ships with Android 14 and on top of that you get honor magic Osa and I feel that this does let down that next level Hardware magic OS out the box starts badly it turns off the app draw for a start which is just a bad move and it takes too much time to go through the settings to turn this on and it's just not a simple process it has a ton of bloatware that again you have to go through and delete I don't want an OS to ship with things like AliExpress booking.com and Amazon if I want these I'll download them but don't force them onto my phone and to top it off separate notification Shades and control sensor swipe downs from the top of the display you also have to manually turn on raise to wake and double tap to wake the screen and I just feel like there's a lot to do here to get it right when you take it out the box I also found the home screen and style settings just to change the wallpaper and lock screen a little over complicated having said that though I do actually really like the full wallpaper always on display and I feel like that every phone should have this then when we come to honors AI offerings it's not really pushing the boat out here you can now use the gallery app to use honor AI eraser but this is just Google's Magic Eraser built into the gallery app because it's actually powered by Google Cloud there's an AI privacy call feature which is meant to minimize the sound leakage on a call but I just haven't noticed any difference between having this on and off there's also a face-to-face translation service but this isn't even an app you have to go into settings and search face to- face translation to turn it on and then that adds a shortcut to your home screen and it's also a little bit confusing to use because the translation doesn't really appear on the cover display so for example if I'm translating something from English to French for example and I hit the send button you'll see that on here on the front cover display if you can see it it just actually actually gives you an English translation and I feel like that on this cover display here it should show you the French translation it just kind of doesn't make sense I'll give credit though where credit is due because honor new note app does a lot right and I like this you can record who speaking and have it transcribe and at the same time you're able to take notes yourself which I can see being really useful also if the speaker is speaking in one language you can have it translate to another right within the app which again is pretty cool magic portal is another really cool feature this allows you to drag and drop text or images into suggested apps without having to leave the app you're in and it now supports over 150 apps but I just need to remind myself that it's there because when I've used this it's actually really useful and while we're talking about software here honor will give you 4 years of OS updates and 5 years of security with the V3 which is one of the best update promises we've seen yet from honor okay let's talk about the cameras there's a 50 megap wide a 50 megap 3.5 time telephoto and a 40 megapix Ultra wide and I have to say I'm impressed with the photos that this can take when you pick up a folding phone cameras are usually the compromise you have to make but with the V3 it's pushing that mantle and it's producing some really impressive pictures one thing that I really like is the color accuracy between the lenses they all look pretty much identical so going from the ultra wide to the main to the telephoto the photos that it produces are bright vibrant and they capture some really nice detail especially when you end up using that 3.5 times optical zoom the saturation within the images for some people I know they might think it's a little much and I usually agree but when you have a look at these pictures on the device there's something about them that I really like and it might be that the dynamic range does a really good job here and the Shadows they look really good as well for the selfie camera you get three of them so the inner display the cover display and that main camera and both the display cutouts are both 20 megapixels so they produce pretty much the exact same image so just pick from either of these but you can open up the phone and use that 50 megapixel sensor for some super detailed 3.5 times optical zoom selfies and I mean if you need that sort of Zoom for a selfie then I'm sure the main camera probably the one that you need but also just using that main lens you'll get some really good selfies here sadly though video isn't great it does max out at 4K 60 which is fine but I feel like the image just isn't very sharp and it's a little bit muted stabilization also isn't amazing despite the iOS on each lens it kind of picks up every bit of movement when I was walking so this is a little bit disappointing the phone is powered by the Snapdragon 8 gen 3 which you expect so anything you throw with it it should be able to handle with ease and especially that it comes with 12 gigs of RAM it also comes at storage options of 256 512 and 1 tbte which is exactly what you need for a foldable phone especially when you plan on using this for probably a lot of downloaded content playing games on this like genchan impact is actually a really nice smooth experience until you get down to the battery the magic V3 has a 5,150 mAh battery and while on paper that sounds great it doesn't seem to really hold up 10% of that battery is made up of silicon which honor says is an industry first but it doesn't work as well as you'd expect it to if you're using this for nothing more than social media and taking a few pictures then sure it will get you to the end of the day and you shouldn't have many complaints however if you're pushing it a little bit more the battery just depletes so quickly for example I installed genjin impact and it swallowed almost 11% of battery life just for the download and then playing that game made the battery disappear pretty quickly as well and yes you'd expect battery drain when playing graphic intensive games but this was just a little bit more than I wanted to see overall the honor magic V3 is some seriously impressive Hardware it's thin it now has an IP rating it has wireless charging and you're not compromising on cameras this will come to Europe but the price is always something that I feel lets folding phones down as they're so expensive and again the V3 has the same problem here it's really hard to recommend any folding phone when you have to pay a premium and compromise on the software like you do here but if you want a folding phone that is probably some of the best hardware that you can get then the honor magic V3 is probably it but let me know what you think in the comments what do you think of Honor offering this time around could this tempt you over to a folding phone before you head off make sure you subscribe to the Android Authority YouTube channel and if you do that then I will see you in the next videothis is the honor magic V3 and despite the added competition this time around and much like its predecessor it can still claim that it is the thinnest foldable in the world and actually it's even thinner than last year's magic V2 and while this might be my favorite foldable in terms of Hardware there is something that's holding me back from using this phone every single day I used the magic V2 for a few months last year because I wanted to really get into that world of folding phones and when I saw that the V3 was around the corner I was really excited and while it's made some decent upgrades I feel the experience hasn't changed a whole lot from what I was used to from last year but that isn't a bad thing firstly when you unbox the phone you get the usual USBC cable a 66 W power brick and this really nice faux vegan leather case with a kickstand which actually has been a dream to use the kickstand makes using the phone when traveling so much easier just being able to pop it down and watch content so the fact that this comes in the box and feels premium this is a big bonus and talking of Premium when you look at the hardware of the honor magic V3 that is exactly what you get it has a 6.4 in ltp 120 HZ AMOLED cover display here and this is so nice to use and it also has a peak brightness of 5,000 nits and it supports Dolby Visions so if this was the only display on the phone then I think I'd be really happy just using this all day every day and when that phone is folded and you use the cover display it's impressively thin it's pretty much the same thickness as an s24 ultra or a pixel 9 Pro XL and if you take away that camera bump this is just 9.2 mm when you unfold the V3 to use that in display this is where you really see the magic the phone is just 4.35 mm thin and even the USBC Port looks like it struggles to fit in here if you compare this to the zold 6 being 5.6 mm or the pixel 9 Pro fold being 5.1 mm you can see how impressive it is and actually it's even thinner than my passport that screen when unfolded is also fantastic it's a 7.92 in OLED which again has 120 HZ and this has been so good to use when I've been using any folding phone I feel like where it comes into its own is watching content and just having that bigger size display especially when you're on the go it's just a little bit more convenient and like I mentioned with that kickstand watching any content on that 7.92 in screen has been a dream my only complaint when watching content on that folder display is that the sound just isn't that great and I can easily cover up the bottom speaker with my finger which can become a little bit annoying typing though when you get used to that split keyboard here again is really nice and easy it makes having to take notes so much easier and overall just having that bigger inner display is pretty convenient and both of these displays also support a stylus as well the only problem that I have with folding phones is that I forc myself to use that folding display because everything that I can do on here I can pretty much do on here the complaints that I had about the V2 have been fixed on the V3 there was no water resistance there now is you get an ipx8 rating and there was no wireless charging last year and now there is you can get up to 50 WS of wireless charging but to get that 50 WS you do need to buy a honor wireless charger another change this year is the design of that camera module and it's essentially taken the design of the magic 6 Pro and slapped it on the back of this here and it is Big there's no denying it but I actually don't mind it and I'm not going to say I'm in love with that octangle design but it is big it is bold and it stands out so I'm I'm okay with this I've said how much I love the design and as as the hardware is sadly the software just doesn't match up the phone ships with Android 14 and on top of that you get honor magic Osa and I feel that this does let down that next level Hardware magic OS out the box starts badly it turns off the app draw for a start which is just a bad move and it takes too much time to go through the settings to turn this on and it's just not a simple process it has a ton of bloatware that again you have to go through and delete I don't want an OS to ship with things like AliExpress booking.com and Amazon if I want these I'll download them but don't force them onto my phone and to top it off separate notification Shades and control sensor swipe downs from the top of the display you also have to manually turn on raise to wake and double tap to wake the screen and I just feel like there's a lot to do here to get it right when you take it out the box I also found the home screen and style settings just to change the wallpaper and lock screen a little over complicated having said that though I do actually really like the full wallpaper always on display and I feel like that every phone should have this then when we come to honors AI offerings it's not really pushing the boat out here you can now use the gallery app to use honor AI eraser but this is just Google's Magic Eraser built into the gallery app because it's actually powered by Google Cloud there's an AI privacy call feature which is meant to minimize the sound leakage on a call but I just haven't noticed any difference between having this on and off there's also a face-to-face translation service but this isn't even an app you have to go into settings and search face to- face translation to turn it on and then that adds a shortcut to your home screen and it's also a little bit confusing to use because the translation doesn't really appear on the cover display so for example if I'm translating something from English to French for example and I hit the send button you'll see that on here on the front cover display if you can see it it just actually actually gives you an English translation and I feel like that on this cover display here it should show you the French translation it just kind of doesn't make sense I'll give credit though where credit is due because honor new note app does a lot right and I like this you can record who speaking and have it transcribe and at the same time you're able to take notes yourself which I can see being really useful also if the speaker is speaking in one language you can have it translate to another right within the app which again is pretty cool magic portal is another really cool feature this allows you to drag and drop text or images into suggested apps without having to leave the app you're in and it now supports over 150 apps but I just need to remind myself that it's there because when I've used this it's actually really useful and while we're talking about software here honor will give you 4 years of OS updates and 5 years of security with the V3 which is one of the best update promises we've seen yet from honor okay let's talk about the cameras there's a 50 megap wide a 50 megap 3.5 time telephoto and a 40 megapix Ultra wide and I have to say I'm impressed with the photos that this can take when you pick up a folding phone cameras are usually the compromise you have to make but with the V3 it's pushing that mantle and it's producing some really impressive pictures one thing that I really like is the color accuracy between the lenses they all look pretty much identical so going from the ultra wide to the main to the telephoto the photos that it produces are bright vibrant and they capture some really nice detail especially when you end up using that 3.5 times optical zoom the saturation within the images for some people I know they might think it's a little much and I usually agree but when you have a look at these pictures on the device there's something about them that I really like and it might be that the dynamic range does a really good job here and the Shadows they look really good as well for the selfie camera you get three of them so the inner display the cover display and that main camera and both the display cutouts are both 20 megapixels so they produce pretty much the exact same image so just pick from either of these but you can open up the phone and use that 50 megapixel sensor for some super detailed 3.5 times optical zoom selfies and I mean if you need that sort of Zoom for a selfie then I'm sure the main camera probably the one that you need but also just using that main lens you'll get some really good selfies here sadly though video isn't great it does max out at 4K 60 which is fine but I feel like the image just isn't very sharp and it's a little bit muted stabilization also isn't amazing despite the iOS on each lens it kind of picks up every bit of movement when I was walking so this is a little bit disappointing the phone is powered by the Snapdragon 8 gen 3 which you expect so anything you throw with it it should be able to handle with ease and especially that it comes with 12 gigs of RAM it also comes at storage options of 256 512 and 1 tbte which is exactly what you need for a foldable phone especially when you plan on using this for probably a lot of downloaded content playing games on this like genchan impact is actually a really nice smooth experience until you get down to the battery the magic V3 has a 5,150 mAh battery and while on paper that sounds great it doesn't seem to really hold up 10% of that battery is made up of silicon which honor says is an industry first but it doesn't work as well as you'd expect it to if you're using this for nothing more than social media and taking a few pictures then sure it will get you to the end of the day and you shouldn't have many complaints however if you're pushing it a little bit more the battery just depletes so quickly for example I installed genjin impact and it swallowed almost 11% of battery life just for the download and then playing that game made the battery disappear pretty quickly as well and yes you'd expect battery drain when playing graphic intensive games but this was just a little bit more than I wanted to see overall the honor magic V3 is some seriously impressive Hardware it's thin it now has an IP rating it has wireless charging and you're not compromising on cameras this will come to Europe but the price is always something that I feel lets folding phones down as they're so expensive and again the V3 has the same problem here it's really hard to recommend any folding phone when you have to pay a premium and compromise on the software like you do here but if you want a folding phone that is probably some of the best hardware that you can get then the honor magic V3 is probably it but let me know what you think in the comments what do you think of Honor offering this time around could this tempt you over to a folding phone before you head off make sure you subscribe to the Android Authority YouTube channel and if you do that then I will see you in the next video\n"