Honor Magic V Flip 2 Review: A sparkle from the Far East

Today we have a sparkly treat for you. It’s the new Honor Magic V Flip 2 Jimmy Choo edition. This clamshell foldable is here to steal the Galaxy Z Flip 7’s sparkle with a combination of powerful hardware, one of the best camera systems in a flip phone, and a glittery design.

The Magic V Flip 2 is the second iteration of Honor’s clamshell design, and it comes with a lot of bells and whistles. It has a powerful Qualcomm chipset (albeit not the latest one), a huge battery for a flip phone, a minimal crease, and a super-bright main screen. 

In the grand scheme of things, Honor aims to take rivals such as the aforementioned Galaxy Z Flip 7 and also the Motorola Razr Ultra (2025), but the big issue is that the phone is China-only at the moment with no firm date for a global launch yet. So, the battle is set to take place on Chinese ground, at least for now, but it will be interesting to see what this new flip phone brings to the table nonetheless.

Honor Magic V Flip 2 Design and Display

Crushed stardust scattered across a deep blue sea

The Honor Magic V Flip 2 Jimmy Choo edition is all about the sparkle. It is designed by Professor Jimmy Choo and inspired by the subtle shimmer of crystals. The back of the phone features a gradient silver-to-blue design. It has hundreds of tiny prisms that shine with all the colors of the rainbow under direct sunlight or, as Honor describes it, “crushed stardust scattered across a deep blue sea, unfolding a sparkling dream.” Very poetic.

The frame is light blue, and the hinge has a nice geometric pattern with Prof. Jimmy Choo Yeang Keat OBE written on it. The rings around the two main cameras are also very detailed with a serrated pattern and some additional sparkle. Size-wise the Honor Magic V Flip 2 is very comparable to the Galaxy Z Flip 7, but a tad bigger and also heavier.

The retail box is as lavish as they come. You get not one but two back covers in the package: a transparent two-part back with some sparkly gradient and a solid color one that mimics the actual design of the phone. The latter also features two strap mounting points so you can wear the phone fashionably over your shoulder like a bag or a purse. There’s also an 80W charger included and a USB-C cable.

The Honor Magic V Flip 2 comes with one 6.82-inch main screen and a 4-inch cover screen that wraps around the cameras and stretches side-to-side. Both displays use LTPO tech and support dynamic refresh rates up to 120 Hz. What’s impressive is the cited peak brightness of the main screen. According to Honor, this panel can go up to 5000 nits, and we’re going to test this right now.

In terms of resolution, both screens do a great job with pixel densities of 458 PPI for the main display and 405 PPI for the cover screen. The bezels around both displays are nicely thin, and the crease in the main display is very subtle.

Even though our 20% APL brightness test didn’t return 5000 nits (Honor probably measures this at a lower APL level, with a smaller part of the display lit), the Honor Magic V Flip 2 absolutely topped the flip phone brightness chart. The phone output almost 2500 nits at 20% APL and around 2000 nits at 100% APL (the whole display lit). Impressive.The minimum brightness, white balance, and color accuracy figures are also pretty decent, on par with what the competition has in store. Overall, both displays of the Magic V Flip 2 are bright, vibrant, and smooth. No complaints here.

Honor Magic V Flip 2 Camera

200MP on a flip phone

The composite camera score of 132 is pretty good, up there with the competition, even though we expected more from the powerful system on board the Magic V Flip 2. The Motorola Razr Ultra (2025) managed 134, and the Galaxy Z Flip 7 came on top of both with 139, but overall, these three are pretty comparable when it comes to camera prowess.

Honor boasts the best megapixel count for the main camera in the segment with the Magic V Flip 2 and its 200MP main sensor. However, megapixel count, as impressive as it might be, doesn’t tell the full story. In today’s day and age algorithms do some heavy lifting in mobile photography, so we need to see how real-life photos look before passing our final judgement.

Further down the specs sheet we find a 50MP ultrawide camera, and the front-facing snapper also uses a 50MP sensor. Time for some samples.

Photos look quite good, especially from the main camera. You can see a lot of detail, good dynamic range, and also popping colors. Actually, the color palette might not be everyone’s cup of tea, as it can be too vibrant and saturated, more so on a bright and sunny day. But overall, the quality is pretty good. The Magic V Flip 2 doesn’t have a dedicated telephoto camera, so 3X, 5X, and 10X samples use the main sensor plus some digital magic. At 3X things look decent, but when we move to bigger magnification, the digital nature of the photos starts to pop out. There’s aggressive edge smoothing and substantial loss of detail.

The ultrawide samples are pretty good too; the color tone remains consistent with the main camera, and the level of detail is also good. Portrait mode does a decent job of blurring the background without looking superficial, and selfies are also good, even though they have a certain softness to them.

Video Quality

Here’s a sample video comparison against the Galaxy Z Flip 7. Which one looks better to you? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

Honor Magic V Flip 2 Performance & Benchmarks

Snapgragon 8 Gen 3 still faster than Exynos 2500

CPU Performance Benchmarks:

The software situation is interesting, as the Magic V Flip 2 was launched in China only and currently doesn’t have an international version. The phone uses Honor’s MagicOS 9 on top of Androi 15, but you can enable Google Play Services from the settings menu, sign in and download your favorite apps.

Honor Magic V Flip 2 Battery

Silicon carbon for the win

Another bragging point for Honor is the battery capacity of the Magic V Flip 2. The phone features a massive 5,500 silicon-carbon battery, which is one of the biggest capacities in a flip phone. This has been made possible by the silicon imbued into the graphene anode of the battery, increasing the capacity per volume (check out our dedicated explainer article for more details).

PhoneArena Battery Test Results:

Unsurprisingly, the Honor Magic V Flip 2 performs astonishingly well in our battery benchmark. The overall score of 8h 19m ranks it 16th overall, beating conventional phones such as the Galaxy S25 Ultra and all foldables we’ve tested so far, clamshell and book-type.

Honor Magic V Flip 2 Audio Quality and Haptics

When it comes to smartphone audio, Honor has had some great hits, especially with the Magic Pro series. We’re happy to report that this audio expertise has found its way into the Magic V Flip 2. The stereo system produces loud and clear audio, with almost no distortion even at max volume. 

Flip phones can suffer from space restraints and form factor limitations when it comes to audio, but the Magic V Flip 2 is an exception to the rule. The haptic feedback also pleasantly surprised us; it’s strong, and you can feel it and hear it buzzing even when the phone is in your pocket or inside a bag.

Should you buy it?

The better question here is actually “Could you buy it?” at least at this point. No information on global release and no global pricing. If the Honor Magic V Flip 2 launches globally and if it’s priced competitively (let’s say around the price of the Chinese version after direct conversion), then the answer will definitely be “yes.”The phone comes with great screens (the brightest in the flip segment and with minimal crease), a powerful chipset, decent cameras, and the best battery life in the segment, coupled with very fast charging. If you don’t fancy the sparkly Jimmy Choo edition, the regular version is much more understated.

A global version of the Magic V Flip 2 could endanger Samsung’s flip phone hegemony, so fingers crossed Honor decides to launch the phone internationally.