The Honor Magic V5 builds on the success of the V3, and the line between slab-style phones and foldables is getting blurred even further with a new silicon-carbon battery, Qualcomm’s latest 3nm processor, and a profile that might make you open your wallet – if you live outside of the US.

Here in the US, the Honor Magic V3 didn’t get much love, for obvious reasons, including general availability. But that phone proved that thinner foldables can be produced in a way that doesn’t mean hardware constraints. The 9.3mm thick body, while folded, ended up a game changer for the industry, and devices a mere two years old look ancient – looking at you, OnePlus Open.

The Magic V5 is no secret. The phone was announced last month with a record-breaking thickness of just 8.8mm. Of course, that measurement warrants some clarification. According to Honor, the Magic V5 measures that thin in the Ivory White variant, and only that variant. Every other colorway comes in at a thicker measurement, landing at 9mm.

Usually, that wouldn’t matter. The difference is, quite literally, a hair. However, with that technicality in mind, the Honor Magic V5, in every colorway except Ivory White, measures slightly thicker than the Galaxy Z Fold 7 folded, which launched just a few weeks ago.

With that being said, this is where the thickness of foldables begins to become less relevant than overall build quality, software, and performance. Having held the Galaxy Z Fold 7 next to Magic V5, the difference is irrelevant, and if Honor had sent the Ivory White variant, I couldn’t pick the thinner one out in a blind test.

The hardware itself is phenomenal. The Reddish Brown colorway I’ve been using looks great, and the gold-accented framing and hinge have that pop of color I didn’t expect to love. The hinge is of a new, upgraded design that the company brands “Super Steel.” The outer metal is etched with what I can only describe as an homage to Zelda.

Where the Magic V5 tricks your eyes is in the slightly rounded edge on either side of the rails that makes the phone look thinner than it is. The rear panel is bordered by that gold-accented metal and carries an attractive etched design throughout the gradient.

The USB Type-C port at the bottom is further proof that foldables can’t get much thinner without a standard change. The port cutout borders the extent of the material. It even appears off-center becuase of the tight constraints on components, though it’s hard to tell through images alone.

The outer OLED display looks as good as it did last year, with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 5,000 nits max brightness. The internal display doesn’t falter in comparison, with similar specs and resolution. Both displays feel good to use, and that dynamic refresh rate for inner and outer screens is welcome.

I would have loved to see thinner internal bezels as opposed to the Magic V3, but they look identical. Still, using the Magic V5 while open is a great experience. It’s essentially like using a notepad nearing the end of its paper supply.

Another win for Honor’s Magic V5 is in battery life. The company is using a battery with 15% silicon-carbon material, which is up from 10% last year. That means a more efficient transfer of energy, and it plays into the phone’s wild lifespan. The battery charges up to 100% in around 45 minutes. Just a 16-minute top-up will get you to 50%. In use, I could easily use the phone for a day and have plenty of battery to go without a charger for a significant amount of the following day. That’s with just a bit of use, and that’s assuming that the phone’s power management software hasn’t kicked in at full effect.

It’s hard to imagine a phone that thin can get the power it does, but Honor is seemingly pushing boundaries where other OEMs are currently unwilling.

Even with that thin profile in play, there’s one thing that’d really quite hard to get over.

Honor, in keeping with camera performance, has maintained the need to equip the phone with a capable array. That comes with a 50MP main sensor, 64MP periscope telephoto unit, and a 50MP ultrawide sensor. All that means is that there is a camera bump that adds around 60% of the phone’s foldable depth onto the back of the device. In other words, that camera bump comes out to be around 5mm, roughly. As nitpicky as that might be, context is everything.

That isn’t to say the camera loadout is worthless. Quite the opposite. The main sensor works phenomenally in testing, and telephoto images are great at most distances. Honor’s AI Falcon camera system works well, and the images I’ve been able to take are comparable to some of Google’s hardware.

Still, if you include the camera bumps on each device, that means the Honor Magic V5 is considerably thicker than the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. It’s not even close enough to fail the eye test. Both the bump and overall device thickness of the Magic V5 have increased from those of the Magic V3, if the entire phone is measured. But, of course, most willl simply pay attention to the 9mm thickness, which is impressive in its own right.

The camera bump doesn’t take away from the profile of the Magic V5 too much, and it becomes a natural resting point for your finger while holding it, whether open or closed. It’s hard to miss, though.

The Magic V5, as a whole, is a well-built phone. It takes a thin predecessor and makes it slightly thinner while equipping it with a better battery and what Honor says are more durable materials.

The Honor Magic V5 is set to launch later this month in European markets.

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