Honor has revealed that it will announce the Magic V5 foldable in China on 2 July – and it has the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 squarely in its sights.

Yes, that’s right. Honor just announced an announcement. That’s just how these manufacturers play things in these hype-fuelled times.

We’ll let it pass on this occasion, as we’re rather looking forward to the Honor Magic V5. In fact, we reckon it’ll be one of the five biggest phone launches of the summer.

The funny thing is that it seems Honor will launch the phone before the Z Fold 7 even officially exists; it should arrive at Samsung Unpacked, tipped for 9 July.

What’s so special about the Honor Magic V5?

The Honor Magic V5 is the direct follow-up to the Honor Magic V3 (Chinese manufacturers don’t like the number four), which offered the best foldable hardware we’d ever seen when it finally rocked up in the UK late last year.

That’s reason enough to be excited for the next chapter. All the noises we’re hearing about the V5 have added weight to that.

As Honor mentions in this pre-launch tease, the Honor Magic V5 will be the world’s thinnest foldable smartphone. Given how slim the V3 was, that’s no idle boast.

Honor

Also exciting is the fact that Honor is directly taking on Samsung, the biggest foldable player, with the V5. The company explicitly tells us that “The Honor Magic V5 is designed to directly challenge the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7”.

We always appreciate a good smartphone scrap, and it’s refreshing to see a company ditching the coyness and naming names.

Honor also promises that the V5 will be its “most powerful AI-powered foldable to date”, which stands to reason. They’re not exactly going to be rolling back on performance or AI facilities, are they?

More interesting, for our money, is the promise of “PC-level productivity”. Has Honor worked some proper desktop-level multitasking or even interoperability into MagicOS? It’s an emerging trend.

Honor Magic V5 rumours

Prior to this little teaser, we heard it from semi-official sources that the Honor Magic V5 would pack a 6100mAh battery. That’s significantly larger than the kind of battery we find in other foldables, and could rid the form factor of one of its biggest perpetual flaws.

Considering we’ve also heard that the V5 is going to drop below the 9mm thickness mark when closed, that would be an especially impressive feat. We smell silicon-carbon battery tech at play.

Roll on the Chinese launch on 2 July and – hopefully – a swift turn-around for the global model.



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