Is it finally time for a foldable smartphone? With the Z Fold 6, Samsung makes a compelling case for joining the foldable bandwagon. At first glance, this device looks quite similar to its predecessor, but there are significant advancements under the hood. It’s hard to believe the Z Fold series is now six years old. My first impressions of this latest shape-shifting smartphone show how far the South Korean company has come—and how much more work is still needed before foldables reach mass acceptance.

Meanwhile, Honor has been on a mission with the Magic V2: to create a foldable that’s as large as a high-end phone in the traditional bar form factor but no bigger. With the V2 in hand, it’s clear they’ve succeeded. We’re excited to see a sequel that competes with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Google Pixel Fold and is also anticipated to rival foldables like the OnePlus Open. The Magic V2 manages to be larger than its predecessors while remaining lighter and smaller.

We still have questions about the Magic V2’s user experience outside the hardware, which we can only fully answer after trying the final version. For now, here are our initial impressions of the Honor Magic V2.

Price and Availability

The Z Fold 6 starts at $1,899 for a model with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM. That’s $100 more than the Z Fold 5’s starting price. However, if you pre-order the Z Fold 6 from Samsung, you can upgrade to the next storage tier at the same price, allowing you to get 512GB for the price of the 256GB variant.

On the other hand, Honor has kept the cost of the Magic V2 relatively lower. The Magic V2 is priced at $1,330, which is $569.99 less than the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Google Pixel Fold. This gives us hope that Honor will keep the Magic V2 reasonably priced for a foldable device. It’s already available in China, and an IFA presentation indicates it will be released globally soon. Unfortunately, the Magic V2 is unlikely to make it to the United States, disappointing those looking for another Samsung and Google challenger.

Design and Build

When folded, the Z Fold 6 measures 6.04 by 2.68 by 0.48 inches, making it shorter, narrower, and thinner than the Galaxy Z Fold 5’s dimensions of 6.1 by 2.64 by 0.53 inches. When unfolded, the Z Fold 6 measures 6.04 by 5.22 by 0.22 inches, compared to 6.1 by 5.11 by 0.24 inches for the previous Fold. This reduction in bulk makes the Z Fold 6 more pocket-friendly, and at 8.4 ounces, it’s lighter in your pocket. The straight-edge design appears sleek, though the corner was a little uncomfortable in my hand with the phone closed.

On the other hand, the Magic V2’s likely lower-than-average pricing doesn’t imply that you’re getting an unrefined product. The Magic V2 has some impressive engineering, allowing the phone to be just 4.7mm thick when open and 9.9mm when folded. It’s also lighter than the Z Fold 6, at only 231 grams. It’s even lighter than the non-folding Galaxy S23 Ultra and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Honor claims a novel hinge design composed of titanium and 3D-printed elements contributes to this success. Furthermore, the new hinge is more durable. Honor claims the Magic V2 can withstand 400,000 folds, twice as many as Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5. This doesn’t mean the Z Fold 5 can’t reach 400,000 folds, but it’s not guaranteed.

Display

Samsung increased the cover display size of the Z Fold 6 from 6.2 to 6.3 inches, while the Magic V2’s display is larger at 6.43 inches, also making the panel wider. It’s a minor adjustment, but it makes the screen easier to text on with two hands, and you can run apps on the cover display without everything feeling too crowded. The Pixel Fold’s front screen is significantly wider, however.

The Z Fold 6 features a 7.6-inch OLED display with a peak brightness of 2,600 nits. That’s the same size as before but a significant increase over the 2,500 nits on the Magic V2. Both panels are dynamic, with refresh rates ranging from 1 to 120Hz, ensuring fluid animations and smooth scrolling.

Honor hasn’t modified the internal display from the Honor Magic Vs; it still has a large 7.9-inch OLED panel. The exterior display measures 6.43 inches versus 7.6 inches on the Z Fold 6, but the difference isn’t significant. The Honor Magic V2 remains one of the largest foldables on the market today, with only the Z Fold 6 potentially matching or surpassing it.

Both of the Magic V2’s displays support 3,840Hz dimming, a feature also found on the Honor Magic5 Pro and Honor 90. Honor claims this helps protect your eyes from strain over long hours of use, but I couldn’t confirm this from my limited experience with the Magic V2.

Camera

You won’t be impressed by the Galaxy Z Fold 6’s camera setup. The only noteworthy difference from last year’s model is a new 12-megapixel ultrawide sensor designed to improve low-light performance. During our hands-on, it produced vibrant and sharp interior shots. You still get a 50-megapixel main wide camera and a 10-megapixel telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom. For $1,899, I’d like to see Samsung increase the zoom to at least 5x. However, the hybrid zoom can go up to 30x, and the clarity is good enough to read text on a book cover from across the room.

Even though it has the same 4-megapixel sensor as before, selfies taken from the under-display camera via the main screen produced nice-looking photos in good lighting. But you’ll probably want to use the 10-megapixel front-facing camera. As with previous Z Fold phones, the rear camera selfie mode allows you to use the back cameras to capture photos.

Honor added a new 50-megapixel main camera on the Magic V2, as well as a 20MP telephoto camera with 2.5x optical zoom to replace the Magic Vs’ 8-megapixel 3x sensor. The 50-megapixel ultrawide camera and the 16-megapixel selfie cameras on the front and inside are identical. Honor has never struggled with camera hardware on its phones, but its software processing can fall short of competitors. The sample images I took (but couldn’t take with me) looked good on the day, but I’ll need to perform a thorough comparison to know for certain if the Honor Magic V2 cameras can compete with the strong cameras on the competing Samsung and Google foldables.

Software and Performance

Samsung is determined to be the king of AI foldables, combining Galaxy AI features with Google Gemini. Some of the things I tested were useful, while others made me squirm. On the plus side, the interpretation software makes it quite simple to communicate with someone who speaks a different language. The interpreter uses both the main and cover displays simultaneously to enhance the translating experience. During a brief demonstration, I was amazed at how quickly the other speaker’s remarks were translated into Spanish on the cover screen. There’s also a listening mode, which is useful for things like lectures.

We’ll be doing complete benchmark tests on the Z Fold 6, but based on my brief hands-on experience, this phone is fast. In Asphalt 9, I experienced silky smooth performance while racing around the city. Even when I flipped off a ramp and sparks flew, the frame rates seemed good. I also tested running apps side by side, and the multitasking performance was solid. However, I prefer the OnePlus Open’s multitasking experience, which allows you to run more programs at once on screen and save more presets for your favorite apps.

The Magic V2 is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 CPU and 16GB of RAM, with storage options ranging from 256GB to 1TB. Honor has equipped the Magic V2 with the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 hardware as the Galaxy Z Fold 5, but the Magic V2 has more RAM than the Z Fold 5 or Pixel Fold. That should be good news for multitasking if Honor adds some additional features to the OS to take advantage of it. However, the phone maker didn’t mention this during its presentation, and I found no evidence of it when using the phone.

Battery Life

The Honor Magic V2 has a combined battery capacity of 5,000mAh and 66W charging, which should allow it to last longer and charge faster than the Z Fold 6 or Google Pixel Fold. Honor claims that with this powerful battery, the Magic V2 will last longer on a single charge than even the iPhone 14 Pro Max, whether folded or unfolded. Honor is also showcasing greater technological prowess by using a silicon-carbon battery instead of a typical lithium-ion one. Silicon-carbon batteries can provide higher energy density, meaning more milliamp-hours in less space. Honor let us test one of these batteries alongside the phone, and we found it genuinely as thin as a credit card. I would have tried to fit it in my wallet if I hadn’t been closely monitored by their staff during the briefing.

The bad news is that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 has the same 4,400mAh battery as the Z Fold 5. The