Return with a statement - Honor now in Sweden

Test: Honor Magic V3 - Class difference

As Honor returns to the Swedish market, the foldable Honor Magic V3 is a phone that shows competitors what is possible. Most notably, it is almost unbelievably thin yet has very few compromises.

Erik Mörner

Published 13 June 2025 - 15:06

It is easy to immediately find clear innovations that the Honor Magic V3 offers us. The slim design, for example, makes it hard for me to see how a USB-C charging port even fits. Special solutions have been required to fit it in, and despite this slim design, the phone has wireless charging, fast wired charging, good performance, and a clearly impressive set of cameras as well as generous battery capacity, all things we might otherwise have guessed they would compromise away to achieve the slim format.

Not just boasting

Honor Magic V3 is therefore not just a prestige product that wants to show how thin a mobile phone can become, but a truly complete creation, in appearance as well as in function. Besides the fact that the slim format is an impressive engineering feat, it has practical advantages. Honor Magic V3 is simply in folded format not larger or thicker than many completely ordinary, non-foldable phones. This means that it gets rid of the biggest disadvantage foldable phones have had. Honor Magic V3 is unbeatable to use in the folded state because it is still thin and handy.

Bildspel: Magic V3 jämförd med Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6

Honor has its origins in Huawei but has been absent from the Swedish market for a few years. They have continuously released phones and developed independently, but it is only now that the phones released are available here in Sweden. The phone I am testing now was released in Europe already in the autumn of 2024. As an independent manufacturer, Honor now has local service in Sweden for any warranty issues, they promise seven years of Android and security updates, and they have a range of different software solutions in the phone that make me think, well why don't more manufacturers do this.

Legacy from Huawei

When I start using the phone, I can confirm that Honor has most of what you can expect. The foundation is, of course, Android 15, and Honor has its own interface on top of it, Magic OS, with clear legacies from what we remember Huawei had in their phones. The Honor Health app, as well as the Photo Gallery and the home screen, have clear similarities with what Huawei offered. The home screen, by default, shows all apps directly, but in the settings, you can choose to have an app drawer with all apps collected instead and only show selected shortcuts on the home screen; it's a matter of taste. We should point out that Honor's phones have full Google access and all of Google's apps. I create my own Honor account when I start up, and it controls the unique services, including how your phone can interact with other devices. Just because Honor is so new in Sweden, the chance that you have several Honor devices is perhaps not overwhelming yet, but as I test several different ones right now, I quickly notice that one device, without me having to lift a finger, more than to say yes, can use the other's internet connection, that I can copy and paste between devices, keep track of calls, notifications, and more. The Honor account also allows me to sync, for example, notes between several different devices.

If we consider the reason for having a foldable phone at all, the ability to use the inner, foldable screen to the max for entertainment or productivity, multitasking is an important part of it. Here, Honor has a slightly unique solution that differs from the icon row at the bottom that Samsung Galaxy Z Fold and Google's Pixel 9 Pro Fold have. However, the result is practically similar. With Honor Magic V3, you can, with a combination of gestures, choices in each app window, and by pulling in a menu with icons from the side, start two apps in a split window and over these two pull out floating windows that you can resize to your liking.

Innovation and learned from the master

When we look at the cameras and especially the pictures they produce, the heritage from Huawei is also noticeable here. In the sense that the pictures turn out well, because Huawei was clearly leading in mobile photography during its heyday. Honor has carried that torch forward, and I notice it through natural depth of field, fine colour reproduction, and dynamic range, as well as precise autofocus that makes it easy to take good pictures as well as videos. Magic V3 doesn't beat the best camera phones, neither Honor's nor other manufacturers', but this is also a foldable phone that in that category is the best at most things. One of the prerequisites for being able to make the phone so thin is that the back, instead of being made of glass, is made of fibreglass; here, despite the slim design, there is support for fast charging many times faster than comparable competitors have, plus support for both wireless charging and reverse wireless charging when you want to charge a headset, a watch, or another phone.

Considering how innovative this phone is in many areas, it will be exciting when the product family takes the next step, probably at the end of the summer, and Sweden is expected to be a priority market from the start.

Questions and Answers:

How durable is it?

The back is supposed to be more durable than glass and with its fibreglass material, it is one of the secrets to why the phone is so thin. The IP rating is IPX8, which means moisture protection but not dirt, so it is a step behind Google and Samsung in that area.

How does it feel in the hand?

The back material gives the phone an expensive, sophisticated look and feel. And the thinness works wonders when you want to drop the phone in your pocket or use the outer screen.

Special solution for the USB-C port to even fit

Good value?

All foldables today are expensive, Honor included, and it is probably difficult to actually justify the added value in line with the price, but if you want to treat yourself to a foldable phone of this type, the Honor V3 is the most innovative you can find today.

An alternative

The foldable in this format that has convinced us the most so far is the Oneplus Open, but it is no longer sold and had only limited distribution when it was released. The obvious competitors are the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, with the Pixel being the clearly most expensive.