Honor Magic V3 Challenges Samsung's Foldable Dominance

My demo of Honor's next-gen foldable shows how little Samsung moved on in 2024 | Stuff

They're still just a tiny sliver of the wider phone world, but I've never been more excited about foldables. We're now tantalisingly close to getting zero-compromise handsets with tablet-rivalling inner screens, yet which are as pocket-friendly as their candybar counterparts. It seems the only brand letting the side down is, bizarrely, the one with the biggest market share. This week I spent a little time with the Honor Magic V3, a currently China-only foldable that rewrites the rules on how slim these phones can be. It's just 9.2mm thick while closed, and opens up to a barely-there 4.35mm. Pick up version with a vegan leather rear panel and it weighs just 226g - that's almost as featherweight as the titanium-framed Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max. Yet there's been no skimping anywhere on the spec sheet, with the latest Qualcomm chipset, a trio of high pixel count cameras, and a huge battery with rapid charging. It makes the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 look like the definition of a safe bet sequel. A few mild design tweaks and a new chipset pale in comparison to the Honor's more significant style glow-up and new suite of camera sensors. It's not like Samsung has addressed long-running complaints, either: the outer screen is still super-skinny, charging speeds are still snail-like, and there's still nowhere to stash an S Pen stylus. It's not entirely fair to compare the Chinese market handset I tried to the Z Fold6, which is much more widely available - but Honor brought its predecessor to a global audience eventually, so the smart money is on it doing the same for 2024. If (or when) it does, the heroic hardware deserves to make a splash. A matte metal frame and subtly curved edges made this seriously slim handset somehow feel even thinner in my hand. The Samsung is almost a third thicker at 12.1mm when folded, which makes it far more noticeable in a pocket - though not uncomfortably so, admittedly. The outer screen is a generous 6.43in, with a sensible 20:9 aspect ratio that actually makes it usable as a phone full-time. The Galaxy Z Fold6 might've grown a millimetre, but I still constantly fumbled with typos on account of its slender dimensions. Opened up, you're getting a larger 7.92in screen to the Samsung's 7.6in square, and one with a much more subtle crease. A quick glance at the spec sheets shows other areas the Honor stands out - though keep in mind that if the Magic V3 does head to Europe, not all of these variants are expected to make the trip. Camera hardware is the obvious stand-out. The Honor's lead lens has a wider aperture for better low-light shooting; the ultrawide has a much higher pixel count, and autofocus for macro close-ups; the telephoto has stronger 3.5x magnification; the two selfie cams have much more resolution than Samsung's effort. How that'll translate for image quality remains to be seen, of course - but Honor is giving its foldable every chance to excel. There's a considerably bigger battery inside the Honor Magic V3, it gains wireless charging (missing from last year's Magic V2) and can refuel far faster than the Z Fold6 can. Samsung's bespoke tuning should give its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 a slight performance advantage, but the Honor has more RAM. The Galaxy is better protected against dust ingress, but both phones are as good as it gets for water resistance. For all Samsung talks a big game about Galaxy AI, Honor hasn't been slacking on the software side. If a European launch followed in the Honor 200 Pro's footsteps, I'd expect Google Gemini AI onboard as well. Even after just a brief spell with one in my hands, it seems like the Honor Magic V3 is the blueprint for the next generation of foldable phones. So why does Samsung seem content to coast against such stiff competition? A full review might reveal some shortcomings, but from a hardware standpoint it's hard to see how Honor could drop the ball. There's no official word on if the Honor Magic V3 will go global any time soon - but if you were in the market for a foldable phone, and expect top-tier hardware to match a top-tier price, it might be worth waiting a little while longer before reaching for that buy button.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6

Okay, let's get the obvious out of the way. This Samsung Galaxy Fold 6 review is going to be a little shorter. It's actually been that way for the past few years, and the reason is pretty easy for anyone who has followed Samsung's continuing innovative line-up of foldables. The truly transformative additions are few and far between, if there are any at all, and while a Fold is still among the most cutting-edge smartphones you can buy, it's impossible to ignore that Samsung is guilty of resting on its laurels. The new Samsung Galaxy Fold 6 is similar to the Fold 5, which was similar to the Fold 4, which was basically similar to the Fold 3. There are no changes in screen ratio, no different materials, no drastic battery increase. There are iterative, granular changes galore, which together only further solidify that the Fold remains a firm go-to for foldable fanatics. The Fold 6 only marginally changes the shape itself. The colours are subtle, the corners have been squared off to further match the Ultra line and the whole thing still feels sublime, although again it would have been exciting if Samsung had experimented with different materials. At the back we find the same three camera lenses, but with more aggressive lens rings, and the whole package is 14 grams lighter. The more square shape means the front display is more "regular", although it still utilises a thinner and taller screen ratio, and the edges have also shrunk slightly. It looks great, actually a lot better than the Fold 5, and if you're a connoisseur it's surprisingly easy to appreciate these small but collectively quite significant visual upgrades. All the basics are still there. There's IP48 certification (so now finally dust and water resistant), improved speakers, WIFI 6E, a 4400mAh battery that can be charged wirelessly up to 15W and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 front and back. The new Dual Rail hinge also makes it 10% thinner when closed than the Fold 5, an improvement that really feels in your pocket. It's perhaps easy to detect a little apathy at the start of this review, and that's intentional. Samsung isn't reinventing anything here, choosing, like Apple, to refine the same mould, the same template, while many are just screaming for something that marks the jump between generations. But while it's easy to write off all the things Samsung has actually improved here, it would be a shame, because taken together it's easy to be convinced that Samsung has come staggeringly close to the ultimate foldable. The software, for example, is still hugely optimised. Of course, that's how it should be when you deliver the sixth version of an Android OS designed specifically for the foldable form factor. Yes, most of these this year have to do with Galaxy AI, which we already covered in our review of the S25 Ultra earlier this year. But multitasking, app switching, the use of the S-Pen, it's all nice and smooth. However, it has to be said that OneUI is nothing like my favourite version of Android from a more expressive standpoint. By now it's clear that Samsung is draining the colour, personality and character from Google's stock edition, and it would behoove Samsung to allow a bit of the quirky look that has made Android on the Pixel Fold and OnePlus Open so enjoyable to use. The display is again a dynamic 968x2376 pixel LTPO AMOLED 2X front panel, running at 120Hz and this time delivering peaks of up to 2600 NITS. It's razor-sharp, bright and competitive in every way. Samsung is good at colour chemistry, at uniform light, at the whole shebang, and this expertise can be felt both outside on the aforementioned cover display, and inside too. The inside, by the way, retains exactly the same specifications. Samsung also says that the so-called "crease" in the centre should be smaller this year, and I don't see it. But they have also only further reinforced the foldable screen with so-called "Sheer Thickening Fluid" (or STF), which should make it much rarer to see displays that crack over time. Of course, you get the latest Snapdragon SoC, 8 Gen 3, which is combined with 12GB RAM and up to 1TB UFS 4.0 space. This is supposedly even better optimised, so even though the battery isn't bigger, Samsung claims it lasts a few hours longer than the Fold 5. I can't say for sure if I've experienced it myself, but a little longer is probably to be expected. And I'm afraid I'll have to refer to my Fold 5 review again here, as both the telephoto and main lens are directly reused from there. The new ultra wide is a 123 degree 12 megapixel 12 millimetre lens. This is drastically better at gathering light, and therefore in less-than-ideal lighting conditions, where the sharp contrast becomes apparent. It is significantly better, it is, and the Fold 6's camera system in general is capable, functional, and can easily compete against both the Pixel Fold and even the OnePlus Open, although the latter beats Samsung on several hardware parameters. The Fold 6 is primarily an iterative upgrade, where small things have been optimised to ensure a better overall impression. If you, like many others, want to see Samsung take more chances, walk the plank and push the boundaries of how you understand a modern smartphone, it won't happen this year. But at the same time, it's important not to write off all the improvements that add up to a rock solid foldable. A larger vapor chamber, better battery life, a beautiful and refined design, nice cameras, reliable software, great displays and an optimised SoC - it's all still here, which is why the Fold 6 remains easy to recommend, even if the competition is nipping at its heels in more ways than one.