During MWC Shanghai, Honor announced that it’s launching its next foldable on July 12. Just a few days later, the company is giving us a first hint at what to expect, with a new teaser image showing some outlines and parts of what could be one of the best competitors to the upcomingSamsung Galaxy Z Fold 5and theGoogle Pixel Fold— even if it may never be released in the US.
Honor shared a Chinese teaser image of the upcoming foldable, with text on it saying “From Improvement to Evolution — Honor Magic V2 and full-scene new product launch conference.” The teaser image only shows the very corners of three handsets. The left-most render in the image could depict the outer screen of the V2 with the phone app turned on, exhibiting a slightly curved edge like theHonor Magic Vsbefore it. The right render fits this design, seemingly revealing how the handset will look like when unfolded.
The middle has us scratching our heads, though. The device depicted here has distinctly more refined and boxy edges, complete with a circular shape on the front or back that almost makes it look more like an older iPhone with a home button. It’s possible that this isn’t the foldable, but another device in Honor’s upcoming lineup — potentially a tablet with a small camera in the corner of the back.
It’s not yet clear if the July 12 launch date applies globally or only to China. Honor was also tight-lipped on pricing and specs. However, the reputable smartphone databaseGSM Arena has released some preliminaryinformation. These suggest the V2 will have a 7.9" foldable LTPO OLED display. This in itself doesn’t make the V2 stand out, as existing foldable smartphones like theSamsung Galaxy Z Fold 4have a similar sized OLED display (7.6") with a comparable resolution.
As with most bleeding edge smartphones, the devil will be in the details. For instance, the V2 is rumored to use LTPO with high-frequency dimming. This allows for a much better refresh rate (120 Hz) versus other OLED displays whilst being much kinder to your battery. Although Honor has yet to officially confirm this, the Magic V2 also reportedly uses the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, with either 8GB or 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB storage.
The V2’s main camera resolution has also been the subject of speculation. The previous Magic foldable used a 50MP rear camera with ultra-wide lens. There’s no official confirmation yet that this will be upgraded to a triple camera setup including a 108MP lens but it’s an exciting prospect. The smartphone is also widely believed to have a Li-Po 5000 mAh, non-removable battery with support for 50W wireless charging. If this turns out to be true, this will be a huge improvement on the previous ‘V’ models which had less powerful batteries and no wireless charging support.
Having trawled the internet for whispers and speculation, what remains certain is that our patience will be rewarded this July 12 when the Honor Magic V2 is finally unveiled. Based on previous models, a US release may be unlikely, but stay tuned for an in-depth review once the full specs are revealed.
