Honor’s svelte Android phone-tablet has been given a glow-up for its sixth version, offering a great alternative to Samsung for a fancy foldable with a red suede-like back framed in gold. The Magic V6 continues the Chinese challenger brand’s strategy of taking a razor-thin device and slapping a giant circular lump on the back to fit in top-class cameras. It costs £1,500 (€1,700/A$2,999) but only until August when the price jumps to £2,000 (€2,300) – £300 more than last year’s model.
Other than a new red-backed version, the Magic V6 is almost indistinguishable from the great V5 from last year. It is one of the thinnest and lightest foldable tablets on the market, has a great fingerprint scanner in the power button and has a proper IP68 water resistance rating. When closed it handles like a regular flagship Android phone with a great, crisp and smooth OLED display.
Specifications and Performance
The Magic V6 has a 7.95in internal screen and a 6.52in cover screen, both 120Hz OLED. It runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage. The phone has a very large battery that helps it last almost two full days between charges with over eight hours of screen-on time for general browsing, messaging, work and media consumption. Playing games drains faster but it should outlast even the heaviest usage days. A full charge takes 59 minutes using a standard 100W USB-C charger (not included) reaching 50% in 25 minutes.
However, by default the Magic V6 uses a “balanced” battery mode that inhibits top performance. Switching to “performance” mode improves things at the expense of heat and battery life.
Software Needs Work
The phone runs Honor’s version of Android 16, MagicOS 10, which isn’t as up to date as rivals on Android 17. Honor promises seven years of updates in Europe. MagicOS has improved but still has issues. It offers split-screen for up to three apps, various AI tools including Google’s Gemini, but the “AI button” doesn’t work properly. There is a bug preventing Chrome from opening in split-screen, and Honor’s App Market conflicts with Google Play by trying to update apps installed from the latter. The phone lacks different home screen layouts for inside and outside screens, and messaging apps like WhatsApp routinely open as small floating windows when tapping notifications.
These niggles could be overlooked on a cheaper phone but not on a £1,500-£2,000 device.
Cameras
The rear houses three cameras: a 50MP main, 50MP ultrawide, and 64MP 3x telephoto. There are two 20MP selfie cameras (one in each screen). The main camera shoots great photos at 12MP with good detail but can suffer from moiré. The ultrawide has improved since the V5. The telephoto captures excellent detail with 2x crop zoom for effective 6x magnification. Digital zoom remains good to 30x. Low-light performance is good across all lenses. Video up to 4K at 60fps.
Sustainability and Verdict
The battery maintains 80% capacity after 1,200 cycles. Honor publishes spare part prices: £609 for internal screen, £152 for external, plus labour. Free screen repair (Care+) for 24 months if bought before 2 August. Limited recycled materials.
The Magic V6 costs £1,499.99 (introductory) rising to £1,999.99 from August 2026. For comparison, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra costs £1,899, Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold costs £1,749.
The Magic V6 is attractive but fails to move on from last year. Great battery life, good outside screen, but inside screen has more visible crease than some rivals. The massive camera bump houses great cameras and prevents rocking. However, software lets it down. It lacks a compelling reason to buy over more complete rivals from Samsung, Google. Pros: slim, light, like normal phone when closed, great performance, very long battery life, good internal screen, decent camera, good fingerprint scanner, IP68/9. Cons: very expensive, software not refined, more fragile, costly to repair, not much upgrade.
