MWC 2023: Honor presents Magic5 series and foldable Honor Magic Vs

Honor has unveiled a whole range of new smartphones at the MWC 2023 currently taking place in Barcelona. Among them are the flagship series of the Magic5 series and the exciting foldable Honor Magic Vs.

Honor Magic5 series: What’s in the flagship phones

The Honor Magic5 Pro in particular is supposed to provide users with a whole new smartphone experience, the manufacturer promises. The flagship relies on numerous improvements in the areas of design, display, photography and performance.

It relies on a classy design that is encased in a symmetrical, dual-curved, ultra-slim frame. On the back, the “Star Wheel” triple camera design is particularly eye-catching.

The Pro model comes with a 6.81-inch LTPO display that resolves in 2,848 x 1,312 pixels. The OLED display takes up 92.33 percent of the casing. This is the industry’s first LTPO display with 2160 Hz Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) dimming technology, which minimizes screen flickering.

At the same time, the smartphone received the Low Blue Light certification from TÜV Rheinland. Thanks to a novel display luminance enhancement technology, the Honor Magic5 Pro achieves a brightness of up to 1,800 nits.

Besides the current Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 from Qualcomm, a second chip is also used, which is specifically intended for photos and videos and is supposed to further improve the image quality, also with the use of AI functions. The chipset provides a permanently active HDR (High Dynamic Range) effect for an even more beautiful presentation of photos and video content and delivers a higher frame rate with lower power consumption.

A 5,100 mAh battery is also offered, which can be charged with 66 watts via cable and 50 watts wirelessly. MagicOS 7.1 based on Android 13 is used as the operating system.

New camera and display king

Honor has obviously achieved great things with the cameras and the display of the Honor Magic5 Pro. Because DxOMark ranks the new smartphone number 1 in the best lists for display and camera. The camera setup in particular secured the best scores that have been awarded so far.

The smartphone relies on a powerful triple camera setup, consisting of a 50 MP wide-angle camera (f/1.6), a 50 MP ultra-wide-angle camera (f/2.0, 122° FOV) and a 50 MP periscope telephoto camera (f/3.0) with 3.5x optical zoom.

The main camera relies on a specially developed sensor in 1/1.12-inch format, which is supposed to be particularly light-intense and thus enable impressive photos even in low-light conditions.

“The camera system is complemented by the latest generation of Ultra Fusion photography from HONOR, a computer-aided algorithm that drastically improves image sharpness, especially at 3.5x to 100x zoom, setting the device apart from other smartphones on the market,” promises the manufacturer.

In addition, there are exciting AI features. The Falcon capture algorithm makes it possible to capture complex scenes within milliseconds with convincing ease and clarity. Thanks to the Super Night Capture features, snapshots can be clearly captured at high speed even in low-light conditions. In addition, the Honor Magic5 Pro is equipped with AI Motion Sensing Capture, an intelligent image recognition tool that selects the appropriate shot for subjects in motion.

Honor Magic5 Lite with impressive battery performance

Below that, the mid-range smartphone Honor Magic5 Lite is positioned. It comes with a 120 Hz OLED display and offers a powerful battery that is supposed to last for three days.

The 6.67-inch OLED curved display of the HONOR Magic5 Lite supports a resolution of 2400×1080 pixels and displays up to 1.07 billion colors – for vivid, true-color images with an incredible level of detail.

Although the HONOR Magic5 Lite is only 7.9 mm thin and weighs just 175 grams, it has a powerful 5100 mAh battery – making it #1 in DxOMark’s battery ranking.

Honor Magic Vs: Foldable launches worldwide

The third novelty of MWC 2023 from Honor is an old acquaintance. The manufacturer had already introduced the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 competitor Honor Magic Vs in November 2022 for the Chinese market – now the announcement was made that the smartphone will also be available globally.

The Magic Vs scores with a slim and lightweight design (for a foldable, of course). It is only 12.9 mm thin when folded and weighs 267 g. Despite its compactness, HONOR’s newcomer has a 5000 mAh battery – the largest battery capacity among currently available foldable smartphones.

This is also made possible by an innovative new hinge that has been carefully cast in one piece, reducing the number of structural components from 92 in the previous generation to just 4.

It’s also said to withstand 400,000 folds (twice as many as Samsung claims for its Foldable). At 100 folds per day, that would be a lifespan of more than 10 years. The design has also been designed with great care, since the Magic Vs can be folded without any gap and has an almost completely flat screen when unfolded.

The Honor Magix Vs relies on a 6.45-inch outer screen. When unfolded, the HONOR Magic Vs offers a comfortable tablet-like experience with its extra-wide 7.9-inch inner display.

Features such as Dynamic Dimming, Circadian Night Display and 1920Hz Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) dimming – the highest frequency yet achieved in foldable smartphones – effectively reduce the effects of digital eye strain and fatigue.

Powerful cameras and features in a foldable

The HONOR Magic Vs is equipped with a triple camera system on the back: a 54 MP IMX800 main camera, a 50 MP ultra-wide and macro main camera, and an 8 MP camera with 3x optical zoom.

The processor is the fast Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, whose already excellent energy efficiency is said to have been improved even more by the Honor Turbo X engine.

The Honor Magic Vs runs the latest Honor MagicOS 7.1, which is based on Android 13. In addition to Honor Connect for multi-device collaboration and Magic Text for intelligent text recognition, the foldable flagship smartphone features Smart Multi-Window and APP Extender, which support multitasking between different apps and within the same app on the large inner display, respectively.

Prices and availability

The novelties start with the Honor Magic5 Lite, which is expected to be available from 01 March 2023 at an RRP of 369.90 euros. The Honor Magic5 Pro will then follow in mid-April 2023 at an MSRP of 1,199.90 euros.

In the early summer of 2023, the Honor Magic Vs will be launched with a recommended retail price of 1,599.90 Euros.