Honor’s Magic V6 Is The First Foldable With An Ip69 Rating

For nan third twelvemonth running, Honor has announced what it says is nan world’s thinnest book-style folding phone. For nan second year, it’s mixed that pinch nan biggest artillery successful immoderate foldable too. This year, for its 3rd and last trick, nan institution went up and made judge it was nan first foldable pinch an IP69 standing too.

The Honor Magic V6 was announced astatine MWC successful Barcelona today, though Honor has played a spot accelerated and loose pinch timing to guarantee those 3 records: nan V6 won’t spell connected waste successful China until immoderate clip later this month, and nan world merchandise is still months away, successful nan 2nd half of nan year, truthful Honor isn’t saying thing yet astir pricing. Still, I’ve had a sample of nan telephone for a fewer weeks, truthful its large claims aren’t each hypothetical.

Last twelvemonth Google proved its hardware chops pinch nan Pixel 10 Pro Fold, nan first foldable pinch an IP68 rating, meaning nan maximum standing for particulate protection and a near-top standing for water. Honor has one-upped Google pinch nan Magic V6, which boasts some IP68 and IP69 ratings, meaning it’s rated for some immersion successful h2o and vulnerability to high-pressure and high-temperature h2o jets. So now you tin fold successful some nan bath and nan shower, not to mention nan wrong of an business carwash.

The V6 measures 4mm heavy erstwhile open, and 8.75mm erstwhile folded unopen (well, nan achromatic type does — different colors are fractionally thicker). That’s nan aforesaid arsenic an iPhone 17 Pro Max, and thinner than erstwhile foldables, but barely: it’s 0.15mm slimmer than Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7, and only 0.05mm thinner than past year’s Magic V5, though Honor has slimmed its bulky camera module down a touch too. We’re heavy into hair-splitting territory now, but it still remains delightful that a foldable tin consciousness arsenic bladed arsenic a modular slab smartphone.

More awesome is nan battery. The Magic V6 has a immense 6,660mAh battery, up from 5,820mAh successful nan V5, and a afloat 50 percent larger than nan Z Fold 7’s 4,400mAh. I haven’t spent capable clip testing nan telephone to person a bully consciousness of really agelong that artillery lasts successful practice, which I’ll prevention for a afloat reappraisal person to erstwhile it really goes connected sale, but moreover pinch 2 screens I’d expect it to breeze done nan time and past some. The large artillery was my favourite portion of nan Magic V5, and now Honor has pushed it moreover further.

You mightiness person guessed by now that Honor’s achieved nan instrumentality by utilizing a silicon-carbon battery. This twelvemonth it’s bumped nan silicon contented up from 15 to 25 percent, which has allowed it to make nan artillery moreover much energy-dense than before. The institution claims to person developed a 32 percent silicon artillery too, which will beryllium exclusively disposable successful nan 1TB type of nan V6 successful China — Honor won’t yet opportunity really large that artillery will be, but it’ll apparently break nan 7,000mAh line.

Other specs are typically high-end: a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, stylus support connected some screens, 80W wired charging, and wireless charging excessively — though not magnetic Qi2. The triple rear camera includes a 64-megapixel, 3x periscope that Honor claimed successful a property briefing is “the champion telephoto successful a foldable.” I can’t springiness that a adjacent trial yet since my sample telephone is still connected pre-release camera software, but I’d beryllium amazed if it tin hit nan telephotos connected Vivo’s caller foldables.

The Magic V6 has 1 much instrumentality up its sleeve: Honor has leaned further into its efforts to build cross-compatibility pinch Apple devices. The Magic V6 will apparently beryllium capable to support nan afloat package characteristic group of AirPods, moreover including Find My search (though, oddly, it will not support immoderate different Find My devices). That’s successful summation to nan expertise to sync notifications to an iPhone, nonstop them to an Apple Watch, and stock screens and files pinch iPhones aliases MacBooks. Honor didn’t corroborate to maine if it has plans to join Google successful supporting AirDrop, but you person to ideate it’s successful nan works.

The V6 whitethorn not beryllium rather arsenic outlandish arsenic Honor’s gimbal-equipped Robot Phone, besides shown disconnected astatine MWC. Each of its 3 records would consciousness rather insignificant successful isolation, but hopefully they adhd up to a meaningful upgrade. We’ll find retired for judge erstwhile nan telephone actually launches later this year.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge