Honor Magic V6 Review – Flagship foldable that redefines performance and toughness

Book-style foldables have become a mature form factor in the market though durability issues remain prevalent in many designs.

Rather than follow the crowd, Honor has taken great pains to address this issue, with every successive incarnation of their flagship Magic V series foldables enjoying greater durability than its predecessor. The new Honor Magic V6 is the culmination of their efforts and is one of the toughest, most durable flagship phones in the market.

How tough is Honor’s latest flagship foldable? In a live field test, the Honor Magic V6 was used to tow a plane and even a sports car. But how is it as a phone? Our Honor Magic V6 review goes into the weeds to find out if their flagship foldable is as powerful as it is tough.

Honor Magic V6 Review – Build and Differences to Honor Magic V5

The Honor Magic V6 retains the aesthetics of its predecessor – a book-style form factor with a front and main foldable display along with a prominent rear triple camera housing but offers a more refined design with hardware improvements all around. 

Even better, the Honor Magic V6 now has a more robust IP68 and IP69 dust and water resistance rating, allowing it to survive in up to 1.5 metres of water for up to 30 minutes while also shrugging off jets of water along with dustproofing to boot. 

While it is slightly heavier at 224g, the Magic V6 retains a similar 4.1mm thickness when unfolded and 9mm when folded down compared to the older Magic V5.

Where it sees improvement is that it has a slightly larger 6.52-inch LTPO 2.0 OLED front display that’s bigger by 0.11-inches than the Honor Magic V5 which had a smaller 6.43-inch LTPO 2.0 OLED panel. Of note is that the Honor Magic V6 white variant is slightly slimmer and thinner at 8.75mm when folded down and 4.0mm when unfolded and is slightly lighter at just 219g.

The main 7.95-inch LTPO 2.0 OLED folding display of our Honor Magic V6 review sample is the same size as the prior Magic V5 though it, along with the front cover display get an upgrade to LTPO 2.0 OLED panels which allow it to have refresh rates that can go low as 1Hz and effectively offers better battery efficiency. The folding display also has an improved anti-reflective coating and better Ultra Thin Glass (UTG) protective glass that minimises the crease.

@hitechcentury We have seen plenty of claims for smartphone durability but Honor’s new Magic V6 foldable proves it with live demonstrations of their flagship phone towing a Ferrari and a plane too! Check out what happened here! @HONOR Malaysia #honormagicv6 #hitechcentury ♬ original sound – Hitech Century

The key upgrade for the Honor Magic V6 is its improved hinge mechanism that is made of what they refer to as Super Steel that is tougher and more durable than its predecessor.

In live field tests, the hinge was able to tow a sports car 30 metres and also tow a small plane all around the tarmac. It was also able to bear the weight of an adult man doing pull-ups. The hinge is also rated to last for over 500,000 folds which works out to about 13 years of daily usage.

Honor Magic V6 Review – Build and Design

The rear of our Honor Magic V6 review sample comes with a textured faux leather finish that Honor has designated as Ferghana Red. Oddly enough, the term refers to a city in Uzbekistan though how it evokes a colourway remains a mystery. Creative copywriting aside, the upper rear quadrant of the backplate is dominated by a raised, large rear triple camera housing that comes with gold coloured trim. 

The hinge itself and the frame also come finished in gold coloured trim in contrast to the textured crimson finish of the backplate. Closer inspection also revealed no noticeable gap when the phone is folded down. The magnets that keep both halves together are also relatively strong, requiring a two-handed grip to unfold the phone.

In terms of ergonomics, Honor has kept things similar to its predecessor with the power button that doubles as a fingerprint reader and volume rocker on the right side of the phone and a speaker, USB-C port and SIM card tray at the base. The top of the phone has a grille for a speaker that forms a stereo pair with the one at the base.

The front 6.52-inch LTPO 2.0 OLED display hosts a slit for the earpiece and a single punchhole for a 20MP camera. For good measure, the front cover display also has what Honor refers to as a NanoCrystal Shield coating that offers resistance against nicks and scratches.

Flipping the Honor Magic V6 open reveals an almost-creaseless 7.95-inch LTPO 2.0 OLED display with a small punch hole in the upper right for an additional 20MP selfie camera. Both panels also offer 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut and also feature multiple TÜV Rheinland certifications for eye safety, low screen reflectivity and eye comfort that are also reflected on the front cover display.

Overall build quality for our Honor Magic V6 review sample is excellent, with the phone offering an even heft and a premium feel thanks to its metal frame and textured faux leather finish.

The faux leather finish on the Ferghana Red finish in our test sample also had the practical benefit of offering a better grip while resisting smudges and fingerprints nicely while the provision of IP68 and IP69 dust and water resistance meant that it could survive the interminable showers that hit at random in Malaysia as well as the odd dip in fresh water. 

While it does not seem obvious, the placement of the rear camera housing also minimises wobbling when folded down and placed face-up on a table or other flat surface.

It’s not all a bed of roses though. Flipping the Magic V6 open and placing it on a flat surface leads to a noticeable tilt but doesn’t affect its functionality for short texts or just watching a video. Perhaps the only quibble here is that the side buttons are a bit too flat which makes them a bit hard to feel by touch.

@hitechcentury We unbox the new HONOR Magic V6 in Ferghana Red that will be launching soon in Malaysia! @HONOR Malaysia #honormagicv6 ♬ PASASO FUNK（剪辑版） – VZEUS

In addition to the phone itself, our Honor Magic V6 review sample for the Malaysia market also hosts a protective polycarbonate case in matching colours that partially protects the hinge and which also has an integrated kickstand. It also has a USB-C cable and a charger which is rather generous in this day and age.

Honor Magic V6 Review – Performance and Benchmarks

In terms of hardware, our Honor Magic V6 review unit runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor which is currently one of the most powerful chipsets in the market for 2026. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy does exist and is clocked slightly faster but is currently specific to the Galaxy S26 Ultra for now in the Malaysia market. 

Also integrated into the Honor Magic V6 are two unique additions. The first is in the form of the Honor RF Enhanced Chip C1+ that is designed to improve mobile signal connectivity in areas with poor signal coverage. The second addition is their Power Enhanced Chip E2 that intelligently manages power consumption, battery health and optimises charging speeds to ensure better overall battery life.

Paired with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is a generous 16GB of fast LPDDR5X RAM across all variants in Malaysia. Honor sticks to the same amount of RAM but offers a variant with 512GB and a higher end version with 1TB capacity with both featuring fast UFS 4.1 storage. Our Honor Magic V6 review sample is the former. Here’s how it stacks up on paper:

Price	RM7,699 (16GB RAM/512GB) / RM8,899 (16GB RAM/1TB)
Display	6.52-inch LTPO 2.0 OLED, 1080 x 2,420 pixels, 120Hz, 6,000 nits peak brightness [cover display], 7.95-inch LTPO 2.0 OLED, 2,172 x 2,352 pixels, 120Hz, 5,000 nits peak brightness [main interior display]
Processor	Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
OS	Android 16 w/ Magic OS 10
Memory	16GBLPDDR5X RAM/ 512GB UFS 4.1 storage (review unit) or 1TB  UFS 4.1 storage
Camera	50MP f/1.6 w/ OIS + 50MP f/2.2 ultra wide camera + 64MP f/2.6 w/ OIS telephoto camera 3x optical zoom  [rear] / 20MP f/2.2 [front camera[ / 20MP f/2.2 [interior screen camera[
Battery	6,660mAh w/ 80W Honor SuperCharge, 66W wireless charging
Size/Weight	156.7 x 145.6 x 4.1mm (Unfolded), 156.7 x 74.5 x 9mm (Folded) / 224g [Non-white variants]

Running under the hood of the Honor Magic V6 is the latest Android 16 overlaid with Honor Magic OS 10. Of note with Magic OS 10 is an improved Honor Connect feature that offers seamless file transfer support for iPhones and MacBooks via the installation of the free Honor Connect app on the former and Honor WorkStation on the latter. Both the Magic V6 and the target Apple device also need to be signed into the same Honor account as well. 

This enhanced interactivity with Apple hardware also extends to other capabilities beyond file transfers with the ability to use the Honor Magic V6 as a secondary display via the Mac Screen Extension Feature and support for AirPod pairing including the elusive ability to track it if it gets misplaced. Magic OS 10 also supports notifications from the Apple Watch and iPhones.

For users already in the Apple ecosystem, this level of interactivity is welcome especially if they are looking for a foldable and exploring what Android has to offer. Magic OS 10 also offers the ability to run three apps simultaneously onscreen for easier multitasking on top of its existing array of AI-driven features to translate calls and texts as well as detect incoming scam calls and Deepfake detection.

Magic OS 10 also allows for 16GB of virtual RAM assigned off onboard storage. Unfortunately, you can’t reduce the amount of assigned virtual RAM but you can disable the option if you’re short on space.

 

 

According to Honor, the Magic V6 will have 4 years of OS and 5 years of security updates which isn’t the longest in the industry but is still respectable as foldables go.

When subjected to benchmarks with the default 16GB of Honor RAM Turbo virtual RAM and default settings, our Honor Magic V6 review sample scored the following benchmarks:

 

3D Mark Steel Nomad Light	2,670
3D Mark Steel Nomad Light Unlimited	2,198
3D Mark WildLife Extreme	6,703
3D Mark WildLife Extreme Unlimited	6,146
3D Mark Solar Bay	11,217
3D Mark Solar Bay Unlimited	11,597
3D Mark Solar Bay Extreme	1,411
3D Mark Solar Bay Extreme Unlimited	1,045
Geekbench 6 Single Core	1,532
Geekbench 6 Multi Core	5,144
Geekbench 6 OpenCL	16,700
Geekbench 6 Vulkan	19,112
Geekbench AI (CPU quanticised)	2,581
Geekbench AI (GPU quanticised)	3,968
PCMark Work 3.0 Performance	21,521
PCMark Battery Life	21 hours 12 mins

When compared to its immediate predecessor, our Honor Magic V6 review unit offered improvements across the board in single, multicore, graphics and in AI tasks. In the 3D Mark Steel Nomad Light stress test, the phone had a lowest loop score of 1,406 and best loop score of 2,386 with temperatures kept between 41°C and a rather warm 50°C.

In the stress test, the phone got rather warm to the touch though it’s still within acceptable parameters. While it does run hotter, it had better loop scores and a higher stability score at 58.9% compared to the Snapdragon 8 Elite in the prior Honor Magic V5.

When it comes to day to day use, the Magic V6 did not disappoint, offering smooth performance across the board whether it’s gaming in Wuthering Waves or tackling 4K video edits in CapCut.

Of more practical use especially for content creators is its AI Image to Video 2.0 feature that allows you a limited number of free AI image generations daily, allowing users to leverage reference images and use generative AI to create short videos. We tested this feature previously in the Honor 600 Pro with pleasing results.

The front LTPO 2.0 OLED offered excellent brightness and detail even under bright sunlight conditions and you can get most of your day-to-day tasks done without having to unfold the main folding display on account of its large size that matches a conventional candybar phone. 

The NanoCrystal Shield coating worked like a charm and even after several weeks of use and an eventful work trip to Computex 2026 in Taiwan which saw it tossed about quite a bit across the showroom floor and multiple work surfaces, it emerged without a nick on the display.

Honor has significantly improved the hinge mechanism not just from a durability standpoint but in smoothness as well and unlike its predecessors, is able to stay half-opened without issue much like Samsung’s Flex mode in its Fold and Flip series phones. 

When unfurled, the main LTPO 2.0 OLED display is gorgeous to behold and offers up equally crisp detail and colour rendition as the cover display. While it isn’t as bright as the cover display, it’s still plenty bright and more than sufficient for use outdoors though the difference is less apparent indoors with both displaying equally bright and vibrant image quality. Of note is that both the front and main display feature stylus support, which makes the Magic V6 very useful for artists and prolific note takers.

The top and bottom firing speakers offer good volume and detail and are more than sufficient for doomscrolling on TikTok, catching up on your Netflix backlog and generally running through your Spotify playlist. Bass isn’t particularly deep but that’s to be expected seeing the slim nature of the design.

Powering the phone is a 6,660mAh silicon-carbon battery with 80W wired charging and 66W wireless charging support. Battery life does vary somewhat depending on screen brightness, usage and whether you primarily use the cover, the main front display or a combination of both.

When used with a combination of data and WiFi with the majority of use primarily focused on the front display, with liberal use of social media, a few minutes of phone calls, emails, some light gaming and a few minutes of camera use, our Honor Magic V6 review sample was easily able to last a good day and a half off its 6,660mAh battery. When using the provided charger, it was able to get a full charge from dead zero in about an hour.

From a performance standpoint, the Honor Magic V6 offers excellent flagship performance even for demanding power users with both displays serving up lusciously vibrant and sharp imagery and text. The 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut on both displays will also endear it to content creators who require colour accuracy when editing videos and photos.

Honor Magic V6 Review – Cameras

On the camera front, our Honor Magic V6 review sample features a triple camera setup that consists of a 50MP f/1.6 main camera with OIS, a 64MP f/2.5 telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom as well as OIS and a 50MP f/2.0 ultra wide angle camera. This setup allows it to take snaps at up to 100x digital zoom and up to 4K@60fps video at up to 15X zoom. 

The Honor Magic V6 is also able to capture stills in RAW and videos in LOG format too for easier post production though this is only accessible in Pro mode. Even better, savvy users can also take advantage of 8 preset LUTS for photos though you unfortunately can’t install your own. 

To date, the Honor Magic V6 features one of the largest telephoto camera sensors among foldables, surpassing rivals such as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 (10MP 3x zoom) and the Oppo Find N6 (50MP 3x zoom). However, its main 50MP camera is comparatively more modest than those on the Find N6 and Galaxy Z Fold 7, both of which feature 200MP primary sensors though image processing and ISP improvements help narrow the gap in real-world output.  

The front 20MP f/2.2 camera on the cover display allows for stills and up to 4K@30fps video capture. The inner 20MP f/2.2 camera on the folding display has similar specifications.

Astute readers will note that this setup is physically similar to its predecessor the Honor Magic V5. We were not furnished with the exact sensors used but improvements here are more likely on improved computational photography to make the most of its proven hardware. 

Present and correct is Honor’s unique Studio Harcourt colour science which lends photos in Portrait mode a unique aesthetic specific to Studio Harcourt with a Harcourt Classic mono mode, a Harcourt Colour mode and a Harcourt Vibrant mode to choose from on top of several other film simulation modes.

In daylight conditions, the rear triple cameras on our Honor Magic V6 review sample were able to deliver excellent shots from all three cameras with consistent colour rendition among them. Colours are lifelike with good dynamic range and excellent detail out to 6X zoom. Shots beyond that start becoming soft but are still viewable and the computational photography of the Magic V6 is capable of some impressive feats when shooting architecture where details are more predictable and the subject doesn’t fidget or move about unlike human subjects or foliage.

When capturing shots in low light conditions in the urban sprawl of Taiwan, the rear triple cameras did not disappoint, offering up surprisingly good colours while salvaging a good amount of detail from the shadows while keeping noise relatively well controlled from the ultrawide, primary and telephoto cameras. Shots start getting soft beyond 6X zoom and get some out at maximum zoom.

Videos in 4K are solid, offering smooth and stable footage from primary and telephoto cameras on account of their built-in OIS and offer best results in brightly lit conditions. When compared to reference shots taken using its predecessor the Honor Magic V5, the Magic V6 does have minor improvements in low light scenarios with otherwise similar results in day light conditions. 

The Honor Magic V5 already set a high bar when it debuted last year for camera performance compared to competing flagships but the Honor Magic V6 manages to retain it and offer slight improvements too.

Should you buy the Honor Magic V6?

The Honor Magic V6 manages to improve on the impressive performance and durability of the Honor Magic V5 with improved IP68 and IP69 dust and water resistance, a tougher hinge design, a larger battery and a slightly larger front display as well as the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor. It also adds enhanced compatibility with Apple’s ecosystem while retaining excellent imaging capabilities.

While it isn’t as compelling an upgrade to those who already own the Honor Magic V5, it is easily in the running to be one of the best flagship foldables for 2026.

Honor Magic V6 review unit courtesy of Honor Malaysia. For more details and to purchase please visit https://www.honor.com/my/phones/honor-magic-v6/buy/