Excellent camera, durability and battery capacity

Review: Honor Magic V6 - Best at almost everything

In area after area, the Honor Magic V6 proves that it is best in its class, the result of long-term development spanning several years.

Erik Mörner Erik Mörner

Published 24 September 2026 - 14:26

When this phone was unveiled, I reacted to how clearly it outperformed the competition point after point. The presentation took place several months ago, but at the time all its rivals seemed miles behind. It is the most durable and has the largest battery, yet it is extremely thin; it is the first foldable with Qualcomm's fastest chip, and so on.

The phone goes on sale in Sweden on 6 July, and compared with Honor's predecessors, the Magic V5 and Magic V3, the concept has remained the same. The phones look similar on the surface and deliver roughly the same experience, but the improvements have been constant. Always a little thinner, a little faster, a little better, generation after generation.

This consistent, continual development delivers results. Looking beyond the hardware alone, Honor's software, known as MagicOS, is also powerful and filled with largely well-made additional features. The most important thing with this type of phone is how well we can actually make use of the screen space and performance. On the large foldable display, I can have three apps open side by side and easily adjust how much screen space each app gets. At first, the phone complains that the Chrome browser cannot be used in split-screen mode, but I get around this by enabling that option in the phone's developer settings. With three apps arranged across the screen and most of the space given to the app in the middle, I can easily have a large area for the app I am using while retaining easy access to the other two. I discover some of the system's built-in shortcuts by chance. For example, hold your finger on a link and you can drag it to the side to add it to the AI Memories feature, or share it with a friend or colleague via one of your favourite apps, saving a couple of taps.

A great deal of AI

The power button on the side can be customised to become an AI button. By quickly touching it twice, I can add what is visible on the screen to the AI memory bank, or customise the command so that the two taps do something else instead, such as activating silent mode. If I firmly press the button twice, the camera launches, and this button also serves as a fingerprint reader, so resting my finger there unlocks the phone from standby. In the photo gallery, AI image editing does a good job of removing unwanted distracting objects from an image, for example, and filling in the content behind them, but when I use Honor AI to summarise webpage text in Chrome, it stubbornly summarises Swedish pages in German.

It is good that the AI text tool is available regardless of the app, in the text selection tool. However, Honor still has some work to do when it comes to languages if it is to be useful.

Works with most devices, including iPhone

If you have several Honor devices, the Magic V6 offers several ways of sharing content, but not only with them: it also works with Windows, other Android devices, Mac computers and iPhone. Honor makes a particular point of the fact that I can share the screen and files wirelessly with a Mac computer.

The slim form factor is noticeable, and it means I can quite often use the outer screen without feeling that it is a compromise. In practice, when folded, the Honor Magic V6 is roughly the same size as many ordinary, non-folding phones. The only downside I notice with the hardware is that the speaker sound could be better. I assume it is the slim design that imposes the limitation: the speakers do not get enough priority, and the sound can easily become harsh and tinny. The sound is okay, but not really something you can enjoy.

The Honor Magic V6 is better at almost everything else. Its durability, battery capacity and performance are all the best you can get in a foldable phone today, and the same applies to the cameras. Although the Honor Magic V6 does not depart greatly from its predecessor, it is a diligent refinement of almost every characteristic that we are seeing. In this area, Honor is challenging Samsung, which only a year ago took the step of making its Fold 7 truly slim, and since then the two have been facing each other in a duel. Samsung naturally has the larger market share, but Honor surpasses the giant in most respects when we compare them. My test unit is gold with a red suede-like material on the back, but the phone is also available in black.

Like Samsung, Honor offers seven years of Android system updates, so this is a phone with a long lifespan, something its durability also suggests. There can be little doubt about Honor's global ambitions either, but its presence in Sweden is still modest. The phones are sold by Elgiganten and Power, and the recommended price of the Magic V6 is SEK 25,000. That is less than Samsung currently charges for its Fold 7, which is nearly a year old, despite the Honor Magic V6 outperforming Samsung in almost every respect. The successor to the Fold 7 is expected soon, but at the time of writing it has not yet been announced. If you think SEK 25,000 is too much for a phone, which is an entirely reasonable view for most people, the predecessor, the Magic V5, is still available at a considerably lower price. Just like a new car, it depreciates rapidly immediately after purchase.

Capable cameras

During the test period, I took around 200 test photos with the cameras in the Honor Magic V6, and they perform well both in daylight and in the dark, especially when it comes to zoom. This is handled by the telephoto camera with 64 megapixels, 3x optical zoom and a periscope lens. The sensors capture plenty of light, and getting good pictures in the dark is never a problem. The Honor Magic V6 still does not have sensors as large as those in the best camera phones, but it outperforms its closest foldable rivals.

With foldable phones, we have previously had to live with compromises, particularly in terms of battery capacity and cameras, but there is no sign of that here. The Honor Magic V6 is even less compromised than its predecessor. In the gallery app, after taking a photo, I can edit it with AI, and the software can, for example, remove distracting objects, even when complex patterns need to be generated in the background.

Questions and answers

What does the durability mean?

The IP68 and IP69 protection means that the phone can not only withstand being submerged, but also being sprayed with pressurised water. That is particularly impressive for a foldable phone.

Collaboration across boundaries?

If you have several Honor devices, they can work together, but Honor has also included file and notification sharing with iPhone, as well as screen sharing with Mac, so regardless of which devices you (and the friends you want to share files with) have, those products can work together with the Honor Magic V6.

Stylus support?

No pen is included, but the phone supports one on both the outer and inner screens. The pen is called the Honor Magic Pen and is sold separately for just over SEK 1,000.

An alternative

Samsung retains its grip on the foldable phone market and, at the time of writing, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is soon expected to make way for a potential Fold 8, although it is not official at the time of writing.