Honor is as soon as once more placing its most trendy foot ahead with the discharge of the Magic V Flip 2. After every week with the corporate’s new foldable, I’m satisfied it must rethink giving this cellphone a global launch.
Regardless of turning into one of the vital outstanding names within the book-style foldable area, most lately with the fresh-faced Honor Magic V5, the corporate solely launched its first flip cellphone final 12 months: the Magic V Flip.
Each the V Flip and its 2025 successor are worthy gamers on Honor’s residence turf, arguably essentially the most mature foldable market; with scorching competitors from the likes of native rivals akin to Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi and ZTE. That’s to not point out the abroad strain of Samsung’s newest Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 muscling in too.
Even so, the brand new Honor Magic V Flip 2 is ready up as a compelling choice, besting even the Z Flip 7 in a couple of areas.
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
When you’ve seen the unique V Flip, the V Flip 2 doesn’t look all that completely different, with essentially the most outstanding change being the twin rear cameras, which now characteristic equally sized surrounds (the ultra-wide on 2024’s flip was considerably smaller, whereas the primary sensor’s housing was far bigger than this 12 months).
It makes for a cleaner, extra balanced look, and in addition echoes the cellphone’s improved sensor setup. Not like Motorola’s newest Razrs and the Galaxy Z Flip line, the cameras sit vertically, with the show wrapping all the best way round.
From an engineering standpoint, the V Flip 2 doesn’t look or really feel fairly as cutting-edge
Though Honor is displaying its engineering prowess within the book-style foldable area – with the brand new Magic V5 laying declare to the title of “world’s thinnest” in its class – from an engineering standpoint, the V Flip 2 doesn’t look or really feel fairly as cutting-edge.
That is primarily the Galaxy Z Flip 7’s fault, which itself served as a notable design enchancment in comparison with its predecessor, providing up a thinner design and narrower bezel than something seen within the clamshell foldable area thus far. Based mostly on the V Flip 2’s weight and dimensions, it’s nearer in look to the likes of the Galaxy Z Flip 6 or Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE (though it’s thinner).
To offset any perceived bulk, nevertheless, Honor has as soon as once more struck up a partnership with trend legend Professor Jimmy Choo. Like final 12 months’s Honor clamshell, the V Flip 2 is available in 4 colors: purple, white, gray and the restricted version Jimmy Choo variant (pictured), which additionally advantages from 16GB of RAM, as a substitute of 12GB.
I’ve been fortunate sufficient to get my palms on essentially the most extravagant colourway, which takes some larger aesthetics swings than the opposite finishes, and is due to this fact extra divisive (to not point out the potential points that come up on the subject of pairing it with the best outfit).
The sunshine blue steel body is accented by a glittering silver-to-blue ombre again, which in Honor’s phrases “evokes crushed stardust scattered throughout a deep blue sea, unfolding a glowing dream”. Make of that what you’ll.
There’s some good element work too, just like the Clous de Paris patterning surrounding the primary cameras, and the refractive geometric design set into the backbone of the hinge when the V Flip 2 is closed (which comes accompanied by phrases ‘Prof. Jimmy Choo’ in a mirror-polish shine on prime).
However for all of the glitz that the Flip 2 serves up, I can’t assist however really feel it’s nonetheless a tad on the cumbersome facet. It’s thicker than its predecessor when closed (15.5mm, up from 14.89mm), however thinner when open (6.9mm, down from 7.15mm); as long as you exclude the duvet show, which juts out on the higher half of the cellphone when open. Plus, the transfer from its predecessor’s rounded edges, to flatter, extra squared sides means it seems extra brick-like.
However, the V Flip 2 appears extremely well-made: a sturdy hinge that may be angled way back to 45-degrees from absolutely open, one of the vital unobtrusive show creases – by way of each feel and appear – to not point out IP58, in addition to IP59-certified safety in opposition to mud and water ingress. That’s leaps and bounds forward of the IP48-rated safety the Razr 60 Extremely and Z Flip 7 possess.
Among the greatest photographic versatility within the clamshell area
Very similar to the Magic V5, Honor was clearly eager to mitigate battery considerations; not one thing the unique Magic V Flip ever suffered from, however actually a problem amongst flip telephones usually.
How did it handle this? By granting the Magic V Flip 2 the largest-capacity cell in a clamshell cellphone ever (at a whopping 5,500mAh) – that’s bigger and extra superior than the battery contained in the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, and is probably going made attainable because of cutting-edge silicon-carbon (Si-C) battery tech.
To prime it off, the Flip 2 additionally boasts the quickest charging of any clamshell foldable on the market, at 80W (there’s additionally a suitable Honor SuperCharge adapter in-box and 50W wi-fi quick charging is supported too).
Foundry | Alex Walker-Todd
The digital camera system is one other of the Flip 2’s key strengths, with considerably bigger, higher-resolution sensors than earlier than, giving the V Flip 2 a few of the greatest photographic versatility amongst flip telephones.
Final 12 months’s 50Mp essential and 12Mp ultra-wide have been changed by an enormous new 200Mp essential (the 1/1.4-inch sensor measurement and ƒ/1.9 aperture lead me to suspect it’s the identical Samsung ISOCELL HP3 sensor discovered inside Honor’s Magic 7 Professional), and a 50Mp ultra-wide (the Flip 2 additionally seems to be to make use of the identical ƒ/2.0 50Mp in-display selfie snapper, as earlier than).
Inside the digital camera interface, you may transfer between 0.5x and sensor-cropped lossless 4x zoom pictures, whereas the cellphone’s most 30x zoom is supported by Honor’s ever-improving AI Tremendous Zoom upscaling, that means spectacular element in pictures taken all through the cellphone’s full seize vary.
Paired with that enormous, sharp 120Hz 4-inch outer cowl display (additionally among the many brightest on the market, with a peak 3,600-nit output), and also you’ve acquired probably the greatest selfie snappers round. And there’s as much as 4K 60fps video seize which, contemplating the methods you may prop the V Flip 2 half-folded at varied angles, makes it nice for content material creators who are likely to shoot solo.
With reference to interfaces, whereas the Magic V Flip 2 I examined got here with Chinese language firmware, I used to be nonetheless capable of obtain the Google Play Retailer on the MagicOS 9 consumer expertise, operating on prime of Android 15.
There are a couple of quirks to MagicOS (try our Honor Magic 7 Professional evaluation for extra perception there), however for essentially the most half, it’s a wealthy consumer expertise with highly effective instruments for all the pieces from gaming efficiency optimisation to deep aesthetic customisation.
In fact, good software program integration – particularly with the outer display – is crucial if you wish to reap the advantages of that clamshell type issue. Fortunately Honor’s put in loads of work right here too.
There are novel experiences, like a bunch of cute characters to select from, which may react at hand gestures (and even voice… if you happen to communicate Mandarin), plus helpful widgets to your calendar, climate and media controls. The corporate has additionally applied a UI that permits for nearly full app compatibility (it guarantees 99% compatibility with Chinese language apps), with out having to open the V Flip 2 up.
In testing, the cellphone didn’t have points with any worldwide app I threw at it both. Regardless of a warning once you transfer untested apps to the duvet display, neither Spotify, nor Netflix, nor even Name of Obligation: Cellular faltered on the outer show; that’s a stage of flexibility and ease of use that some clamshell telephones merely don’t supply.
On the time of writing, Honor hasn’t but revealed the worth of the Honor Magic V Flip 2 however, if it’s something like its predecessor, it’ll go some solution to undercutting its hottest competitors: the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7.
Final 12 months, the unique Magic V Flip began at CNY 4,999, nearly 40% cheaper than the equal Z Flip 6, and with Samsung maintaining its Chinese language pricing stage with the Flip 7, I think about Honor will do a lot the identical, serving as a rival to the Galaxy (and clamshells from Honor’s fellow aforementioned Chinese language rivals). The query now could be: when will the Honor Magic V Flip 2 launch internationally? As a result of I really feel it actually ought to.
For our prime suggestions for book-style and flip telephones, see our round-up of the most effective foldables we’ve examined.