Honor Magic V5 is now the world's slimmest foldable phone, thanks to its silicon-carbon battery
Samsung and Oppo just can't take a break.
It’s only been four months since Oppo’s Find N5 became the world’s thinnest foldable phone, but Honor is already hitting back with the Magic V5, which is only 8.8mm thick when folded, beating the Find N5 by a mere 0.13mm. While the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is still days away from launch, Honor is confident that it won’t be slimmer than the Magic V5.
What’s more impressive is that Honor managed to stuff a battery capacity of 6,100mAh into this slim package — a clear win over the Find N5’s 5,600mAh. This is thanks to Honor’s latest breakthrough using silicon-carbon composite, with the silicon ratio bumped up to 25% — a jump from 5% on the Magic 5 candybar in 2023, and from 10% on last year's Magic V3 foldable. Honor also used a new type of super glue to stack these razor-thin blade cells more tightly.
As for weight, the Magic V5 matches the Vivo X Fold 5’s 217g, so they are both the lightest large foldable phones on the planet right now. But bear in mind that the Vivo is using the older Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset to keep costs down, so only the Magic V5 is the true flagship in this case.
Battery is just part of the equation for these physical breakthroughs. Honor also tapped into a new “space-grade” fibre composite material for the Magic V5’s body, in favour of carbon fibre which isn’t as flexible. Honor also used AI to refine the assembly tolerance of each component within its hinge. This was done by identifying 500 points of interest, with AI coming up with 125,000 combinations to boil this down to a tolerance of a mere 0.003mm. The result is apparently a 15% boost in hinge strength.
The new glass on the outer screen is apparently tougher — more shatterproof and scratchproof. But then again, glass is glass, so using the bundled case is always a safe bet. Overall, the Magic V5 offers ruggedness ratings of IP58 and IP59, beating that of the equally waterproof Oppo Find N5 when it comes to dust resistance.
Here’s a quick comparison for nerds like me (all Honor Magic V5 vs Oppo Find N5):
Thickness (folded): 8.8mm vs 8.93mm
Thickness (unfolded): 4.1mm vs 4.21mm
Weight: 217g vs 229g
Battery: 6,100mAh vs 5,600mAh
Charging (wired): 66W vs 80W
Charging (wireless): 50W vs 50W
Chipset: Snapdragon 8 Elite (8-core) vs Snapdragon 8 Elite (7-core)
Screen size (outer): 6.43-inch vs 6.62-inch
Screen size (inner): 7.95-inch vs 8.12-inch
Main camera: 50MP vs 50MP f/1.8
Ultra-wide camera: 50MP vs 8MP f/2.2 116°
Periscope telephoto camera: 64MP f/2.5 3x zoom vs 50MP f/2.7 3x zoom
Going back to the silicon-carbon battery, a higher silicon ratio leads to a further boost in energy density, as the material serves as a more effective negative electrode than graphite in a conventional lithium battery. The battery maker — in this case, Honor — gets to decide this ratio, though it isn’t straightforward.
“A pure silicon anode can deliver 10 times the power density of a graphite one, but it comes with challenges — it can expand up to 300% in volume and has a shorter lifespan,” according to Honor.
The fact that Honor went from a silicon ratio of 5% to 25% in just around 2.5 years suggests it’s been doing plenty of experimentation, in order to overcome the aforementioned obstacles. And that’s the whole point of this silicon-carbon composite — clients can cook up their very own battery concoction depending on their applications and know-hows. This is backed up by a conversation I had with Group14, the supplier of the “SCC55” silicon-carbon battery material to Honor and other companies — including makers of batteries and electric cars. (At the time of writing, Group14 couldn’t confirm whether it was also behind the Magic V5’s battery tech. I’ll update this note once I hear back.)
“Because it's a drop-in replacement for graphite, you can learn over time and you can decide: do I want full displacement of graphite? Do I want like a blend of silicon to a, you know, what's normally the graphite?” Grant Ray, Group14’s VP of Global Market Strategy, told me back in December. “So you can learn over time how you want to set up your best recipe for your batteries for your applications.”
The Magic V5 is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, with the surprise being that this has all eight CPU cores, unlike the Find N5’s with just seven. As Honor CEO James Li teased at MWC Shanghai, this foldable offers "PC-level productivity," with file transfer capabilities across "all brands" — including Apple’s Mac and iPhone devices. The latter is nothing new, though, as Oppo and Xiaomi have been offering such compatibility since earlier this year.
Photography should be solid on the Magic V5. This hexagonal camera island packs a 50MP main camera, along with an ultra-wide camera of the same resolution, and a 64MP periscope camera with 3x telephoto zoom. I’ll have to give this phone a test ride to comment further.
For now, the Honor Magic V5 will only be available in China, with prices ranging from 8,999 yuan (about $1,260; 12GB + 256GB) to 10,999 yuan (about $1,540; 16GB + 1TB), and it’s open for pre-ordering. As a bonus, Honor is offering free inner screen replacement within the first year, which may likely set a new benchmark for the foldable phone market in China. There’s no official word on an international version of the Magic V5, but given Honor’s track record, it’s probably just a matter of time — but not in time for IFA in September, according to what I heard.