Honor debuts Magic V, its first foldable phone, with 7.9" inner and 6.45" outer displays, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, and up to 12GB of RAM, coming to China for ~$1,570
Jon Porter / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
Honor had already returned to premium smartphones with the Magic 3 series, its first post-Huawei phones. The Magic V extends that reset into foldables, entering a China market where Oppo had just introduced the lower-priced Find N.
First-order effects
- Honor gains a premium foldable flagship alongside its conventional Magic phones, with a China launch positioned above Oppo's roughly $1,200 Find N.
- Chinese buyers weighing book-style foldables now have an Honor option built around a larger inner display and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 hardware.
Second-order effects
- Oppo's Find N and Honor's Magic V turn display dimensions, processor generation, and price into direct comparison points for China-focused foldable buyers.
- Honor's move gives its smartphone lineup a higher-end product tier, making foldables part of its competition for premium-device attention rather than a Samsung-only reference point.
Third-order effects
- Honor's subsequent thinner and lighter Magic V2 indicates that the Magic V was the start of a continuing foldable line, with hardware refinement becoming a central way to differentiate successive models.
- The later European launch and review of the Magic V2 suggest Honor's foldable strategy expanded beyond a China-only debut, while software quality remained a constraint on premium-market positioning.
The trend: Foldables are becoming a recurring premium-phone category for Chinese brands, with Honor using successive Magic V models to compete on hardware design and broaden geographic reach.