REVIEW: A newbie’s first take on foldables with the HONOR Magic V6
MANILA, Philippines — There’s no denying the cool factor of a foldable phone.
While conventional smartphones have largely settled into the same familiar slab-shaped formula, foldables offer something different: a phone that can literally change shape. It’s futuristic, practical-looking and, at least from the outside, more interesting than another rectangular screen.
But as someone who had never actually used one, my fascination has always been tempered by curiosity and skepticism. Would that cool factor survive everyday use? Would the hinge hold up? Would the crease become annoying? Would the larger screen actually prove useful, or would I simply unfold it for the novelty?
As a first-time foldable user, the newly launched HONOR Magic V6 offered a chance to move past those assumptions and experience the format on its own terms.
Magical display, unfolded
For a foldable newbie, the initial adjustment was less dramatic than expected.
Closed, the Magic V6 works much like a regular smartphone, with a 6.52-inch outer display for everyday scrolling, messaging and quick tasks. Unfold it, however, and the experience changes considerably. Its 7.95-inch inner display offers a much roomier space for reading, watching and multitasking.
That simple transition is where the Magic V6 began to make more sense. Over a 12-hour bus ride to the province, the unfolded screen became my movie-watching companion, letting me finish films without feeling like I was settling for a phone-sized viewing experience. Taking notes also felt more natural, while multi-window made it easy to keep two apps open side by side when reading, researching or moving between tasks.
These are things I’ve grown accustomed to doing on a larger-screen tablet. The Magic V6 doesn’t quite replace that experience, but unfolded, it brings many of those habits into a device that still fits in a pocket when closed.
Both displays use LTPO OLED technology with adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz, keeping scrolling and animations smooth. More than the novelty of watching a phone fold in half, the extra screen real estate is where the format started to click for me.
All that screen, none of the bulk
Of course, some of the biggest reservations around foldables have always centered on the hinge and the crease.
The Magic V6’s hinge is noticeable when opening and closing the phone, but never distracting in use. The crease is similar: it’s there, but once the screen is filled with whatever you’re reading, watching or working on, it quickly fades into the background.
At 8.75mm when folded and 219 grams, the Magic V6 is remarkably slim and light for a foldable. I expected the extra engineering and second display to translate into a noticeably thicker, heavier phone. Holding it alongside the conventional smartphone I was used to, however, the difference wasn’t as dramatic as I imagined.
The White variant I used has a clean, understated finish that suits its slim profile. If I were to nitpick, though, the matte finish can be surprisingly slippery in the hand, particularly when used one-handed, while the camera bump keeps the phone from sitting completely flat on a table. Neither is a deal-breaker, but both are little details that become noticeable with everyday use.
A fold that holds
For a first-time foldable user, durability is naturally another concern. The Magic V6 comes with IP68 and IP69 ratings for dust and water resistance, while its Super Steel Hinge is rated for up to 500,000 folds.
Ahead of its launch, HONOR also put the phone through durability demonstrations, including being pulled by a plane and a truck, subjected to lateral pull-ups and thrown into a pool of water.
Seeing these firsthand offered some reassurance. There’s still an instinct to be careful with a foldable, but the Magic V6 feels less like something that needs constant babying. More importantly, it eased one of my biggest reservations going in: that a phone designed to fold would always feel more fragile than a conventional smartphone.
The rest of the hardware is firmly flagship, with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage in the Philippine model. Its 6,660mAh silicon-carbon battery supports 80W wired and 66W wireless charging, while its camera system pairs a 50MP main camera with a 50MP ultrawide and 64MP periscope telephoto with 3x optical zoom.
Another thing to like here is the integration of several AI capabilities, one of which is Honor Flex, which lets you quickly summon an AI agent by simply folding your device.
MagicOS 10’s foldable-focused features make multitasking useful, although some interactions take getting used to, and a few apps don’t always adapt neatly to the phone’s changing orientation. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 handles everyday use with ease, although sustained intensive workloads can bring some thermal throttling.
Now you see it, now you fold: HONOR Magic V6
For a foldable newbie, the larger display became one of the Magic V6’s biggest selling points. After years of using conventional smartphones, there’s something genuinely useful about having more screen when you need it — and the phone’s durability helped ease my initial assumption that foldables must also be fragile.
What began as curiosity about the cool factor eventually became an appreciation of how naturally a larger, flexible screen can fit into everyday life.
But just as much as this phone can flex, your budget may have to do some flexing of its own. At P119,999, this is a decidedly premium introduction to the foldable life.
The Magic V6 gave me something I wasn’t expecting from my first foldable: a reason to see the format as more than just cool-looking. The extra screen became genuinely useful for movies, notes, reading and multitasking, while the phone remained familiar enough to use when folded.
I came in skeptical of the foldable idea. I’m leaving with a much better understanding of its appeal, and a newfound appreciation for having the option to unfold. For a first baptism into the fold, the HONOR Magic V6 makes a pretty convincing case for taking the plunge.
Editor’s Note: This story is produced by Philstar BrandSpace which is independent from our Editorial Newsroom.
