Honor Magic V6 – Best at most things

When this phone was introduced, my reaction was that it so clearly outperformed the competition on point after point. The presentation took place several months ago, but then all competitors seemed miles behind. It is the most durable and has the biggest battery but is still extremely thin, it is the first foldable with Qualcomm’s fastest chip and so on.

In Sweden, the phone goes on sale on July 6, and if we compare it to Honor’s predecessors Magic v5 and Magic v3, the concept has been the same. The phones are similar on the surface and provide roughly the same experience, but the improvements have been constant. Always a little, a little thinner, a little faster, a little better generation after generation.

The consistent and constant development yields results. If we look beyond pure hardware, Honor’s software, Magic OS as it is called, is also powerful and filled with mainly well-made extra functions. The most important thing about this type of phone is how well we can actually use the screen area and the performance. In the large foldable screen, I can have three apps open next to each other and easily change how much screen space each app should have. At first the phone complains that the Chrome browser cannot be used in split screen, but I get around that by unlocking that possibility in the phone’s developer settings. With three apps in width and the most space for the app in the middle, I can easily have a large screen area for the app I’m using with easy access to the other two. Some of the built-in shortcuts in the system I discover by chance. Touch and hold a link, for example, and I can drag it to the side to add that feature for AI memories, or share it via one of my favorite apps to a friend or colleague, thus saving a couple of clicks.

A lot of AI

The power button on the side can be customized to become an AI button. By quickly tapping it twice, I can add what’s on the screen to the AI ​​memory bank or tailor the command so that the two taps do something else instead, activate silent mode for example. If I press the button properly twice, the camera starts and this button is also a fingerprint reader, then I rest my finger there and the phone unlocks from sleep mode. In the image gallery, AI image editing does a good job of removing, for example, unwanted distracting objects in the image and filling in with content behind, but when I use Honor AI to summarize web page text in Chrome, it insists on summarizing Swedish pages in German.

That the AI ​​text tool is available regardless of the app, in the text selection tool, that’s good. But Honor still has some work to do when it comes to language in particular, so that it becomes useful.

Works with most iPhones as well

If you have several Honor devices, the Magic V6 offers several possibilities to share content, but actually not only that way, but also with Windows, other Android devices, Mac computers and with iPhones. Honor makes a special point of allowing me to share the screen and files wirelessly to a Mac computer.

The thin format is noticeable and this means that I can quite often use the external screen without feeling that it is a compromise. In practice, the Honor Magic v6 in its folded format is roughly the same format as many ordinary, foldable phones. The only downside I notice with the hardware is that the sound in the speakers could be better. Now, I’m guessing it’s the slim form factor that’s limiting, the speakers don’t get enough priority and the sound gets sharp and scratchy easily. The sound is okay, but not something you can really enjoy.

Better then is the Honor Magic v6 in almost everything else. The durability, battery capacity and performance are all the best you can get in a foldable phone today and that goes for the cameras as well. While the Honor Magic v6 does not make any major departures from how its predecessor was, it is a diligent refinement of almost every feature we witness. Honor challenges Samsung in this area, which only a year ago took the step and made its Fold 7 really thin, and since then the two have stood face to face in a duel. Samsung is of course the one with the biggest market share, but Honor surpasses the giant in most points when we compare. My test sample is in gold and with red suede-like material on the back, but the phone is also available in black.

Like Samsung, Honor offers seven years of Android system updates, so this is a phone with a long life, which the durability also speaks for. Honor’s ambitions globally cannot be doubted either, but in Sweden their presence is so far modest. The phones are sold at Elgiganten and Power and the recommended price tag for the Magic v6 is SEK 25,000. That’s less than Samsung charges for its nearly one-year-old Fold 7 today, even though the Honor Magic v6 outperforms Samsung on almost every point. The successor to the Fold 7 is expected soon but has not yet been presented at the time of writing. If you think that SEK 25,000 is too much for a phone, a perfectly reasonable opinion for most people, the predecessor Magic v5 is still available for a significantly lower price. Just like a new car, the depreciation is rapid immediately after purchase.

Competent cameras

During the test period, I have taken upwards of 200 test shots with the Honor Magic v6 cameras and they perform well both in daylight and in the dark and especially when it comes to zoom. The telephoto camera with 64 megapixels, 3 times optical zoom and periscope lens takes care of that. The sensors take in a lot of light and getting good pictures in the dark is never a problem. The Honor Magic v6 still doesn’t have as big sensors as the best camera phones, but it outperforms its closest foldable competitors.

In foldable phones, we have previously had to live with compromises, especially in terms of battery capacity and cameras, but we don’t notice any of that here. Honor Magic v6 is even more uncompromising than its own predecessor. In the image gallery app, after the image is taken, I can edit it with AI and here the software is able to, for example, remove disturbing objects, even when there are complicated patterns on the background to be generated.

Questions and answers

What does endurance mean?

The IP68 and IP69 protection means that the phone can not only be dipped but also flushed with pressure. That’s especially impressive for a foldable phone.

Cooperation across borders?

If you have several Honor devices, they can work together, but Honor has also included file and note sharing with the iPhone, and screen sharing with the Mac, so no matter what gadgets you (and the friends you want to share files with) have, those products can go hand in hand with the Honor Magic v6.

Support for pen?

It doesn’t come with a stylus, but the phone supports it on both the outer and inner screens. the pen is called the Honor Magic Pen and is sold separately for just over SEK 1,000.

An alternative

Samsung is maintaining its grip on the foldable phone market and at the time of writing will soon Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 make way for a potential Fold 8 which is not official at the time of writing, however.

Camera example