The HONOR Magic V2 has set a new standard in the world of foldable smartphones
Foldable smartphones have been in the news for the past couple years and the latest entry in this league is Honor's Magic V2. Recently, we got the opportunity to be a part of their European launch at Leipzig, Germany. The coolest part of this launch was the collaboration with Porsche with the Honor Magic V2 RSR. Keep reading the blog to learn more about this benchmark in foldables.
In collaboration with Porsche, HONOR has released the Magic V2 Porsche RSR. The latest in foldable smartphone technology, it has set a new standard for smartphones everywhere.
Foldable phones and what they’re good for
Every once in a while, innovations happen in the tech industry that we haven’t seen before. Touch screens, megapixel cameras on smartphones, and foldable phones to name a few. Now, this in itself is nothing new. Foldable phones have been around since the 90s, back then they were called flip phones. Recently there has been a surge of interest in foldable touch screens. As one of the leaders of innovation in foldable smartphones, HONOR stands with the latest addition to their lineup of foldable smartphones, the HONOR Magic V2.
The Magic V2 is the 2.0 version of its predecessor, the HONOR Magic V. Let’s see how it compares.
The Magic V
6.7mm Unfolded Thickness
1920 Hz High-Frequency
PWM Dimming
4750mAh Dual Battery
The Magic V2
4.7mm Unfolded Thickness
3840 Hz High-Frequency PWM Dimming
5000mAh Dual Battery
Somehow, someway, HONOR managed to to improve upon the already impressive Magic V foldable phone. Some of the features have carried over into the Magic V2, like the 50-megapixel cameras, yeah…that’s right 50! Along with the 1.07 billion-color display it’s already pretty incredible when it comes to just the hard specs. By all intents and purposes, the Magic V2 is an improvement upon an already incredible foldable phone that was already in a league of its own.
You get all this with a larger display, longer battery life, and increased strength and durability from its predaccesor in a thinner, lighter smartphone. It’s hard to imagine improving something more than that. To put it simply, HONOR had invented the wheel with the Magic V and somehow figured out a way to improve the wheel with the HONOR Magic V2.
But still, why all the hype?
I mean, it’s cool and all, but what’s the real allure of the phone?
Well, I’m glad you asked, you inquisitive tech lover!
The thing that makes the HONOR Magic V2 revolutionary is that it’s designed in partnership with Porsche. Yeah…you read it right, Porsche, the German automotive giant that routinely rewrites the definition of the word “car.” Porsche has teamed up with HONOR and brought to life the first-ever foldable phone that’s inspired by sports car design. Its called the HONOR Magic V2 RSR, it’s essentially the same phone as a Magic V2 but with a Porsche design.
Naturally, this took us by quite a surprise with so many questions, like:
Why would a car company and a smartphone company go into a partnership together?
Is the car influencing the phone, or is the phone lending its tech to the car?
And most importantly…
What do we, the paying customers, get out of this deal?
So we took a little trip down to Germany to get some answers, and HONOR did us the courtesy of inviting us to their event at the Porsche Factory in Leipzig, Germany. We were able to get a first hand experience of what the phone is like, how people reacted to it, and how the partnership came about.
A car and a smartphone have come together, here’s what happened
From the moment I stepped off the bus leading to the Porsche Factory, there was an atmosphere of grandeur in the air. The name “HONOR ” splayed in front of the walkway leading into the building, the big “Porsche” sign illuminated in red under the face of a building that looked like a spaceship. In front of the main door a 9-11 was parked outside, that seemed to give off its own light, and in the lobby, hundreds of people, like myself, were trying to take a look at what was in store for them.
The phone itself is, at the very least, an incredible piece of new tech that is going to be mimicked by brands all over the world. At the most, the HONOR Magic V2 is going to kick off a technological revolution that will send shockwaves across the industry. I got this feeling from just holding the phone in my hand. I have to say my favorite part was folding and unfolding the screen, it was just…satisfying, pleasant and fun. The other big thing was the display, vibrant when you wanted it, relaxed when you needed it, the colors were emanated from the screen and gave you a feeling that it might pop off the screen, how they managed to do this on a foldable phone I have yet to understand but let me tell you, you have to see it at least once in your life.
It would have been so easy for the collaboration to have been a bust. It happens all the time, car companies will partner with clothing companies, and you’ll see a t-shirt with the car brand slapped on it, and people will buy that thing for $100, but you definitely won’t be getting $100 dollars worth of t-shirt. Porsche and HONOR could have just embossed “Powered By Porsche” on the back and sent it off to market, but they took it a step further than that…and then kept on taking steps…no, this was something different.
Even if I didn’t know that Porsche designers collaborated with HONOR to create the Magic V2 RSR, I would still have recognize something was different. The sleek edges of the glass housing for the cameras emulated the windows and mirrors of the car. The cameras themselves look like the headlights on the 9-11, the folding mechanism felt like the Porsche door opening and closing. In fact, the corners of the smartphone look like the panels and contours of the car. Even the buttons somehow gave you the satisfaction of turning on the radio in the car.
The more I looked at the phone the more I could recognize the imprints of the car. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. It didn’t just feel like a collaboration, it felt like the phone was a piece of the car that you could take with you, the only way it could look and feel more like a 9-11 is if it had wheels and windshield wipers.
I was curious from the get go of the outcome of this partnership, it’s not like we’ve seen too many examples, which is why the big question was, “why this partnership, and what benefit can the two offer each other?” It’s not as if Porsche is using HONOR’s tech in their cars (yet) and, up until seeing the phone, it was unclear how a phone designed alongside a car brand could be any good. Needless to say, halfway through the event the big question wasn’t “why would this partnership work” but rather “how has it taken this long for a partnership like this to happen, and why isn’t there more?”
The simple fact is this, the HONOR Magic V2 is undeniably beautiful, functional, sleek, and alluring. The foldable feature gives you a screen the size of a tablet when you need it, and a single straight screen when you need something compact. It has a front-facing camera with a front-facing display (which is an Instagram influencer’s dream). Yet somehow, they found a way to distribute the weight so you can use the folding phone with its massive display with one hand. More than that, the foldable feature does not, in any way, distort the display. You get the full 10-bit display with over a billion colors in its full radiance without noticing the slightest hint of a crease down the center as you do with most folding smartphones.
Here’s why it works
Porsche has made different cars over the decades, each with its own distinctive look, but the reality is that a lot of them follow the same foundational design. They integrate heritage with innovation so that those who like their form with their function don’t have to compromise but rather get an improvement. Simply put, it’s pretty cool to have a folding phone made alongside one of the greatest car companies on earth. Especially when that phone sets a new standard.
During the entirety of the event, it became clear that the goal was not to just design a new and improved smartphone, but that there was a lot of meticulous care poured into every aspect of it and that it was driven by the motivations and dispositions of those involved. Unlike most phone phone companies, there wasn’t the usual coldness to the HONOR Magic V2, and the partnership with Porsche seemed genuine compared to the money hungry partnerships car companies get into with clothing brands.
The atmosphere felt real, it felt human, giving you the feeling that the HONOR Magic V2 was the outcome of one of those rare moments in humanity when true human beings, with their hearts and souls alongside their brains, come together to create something that hadn’t been seen before. From the design to the functionality, it was clear that there is hardly anything you can find that hasn’t been given the utmost amount of attention…a lot like a Porsche 9-11.
Still, the phone remains a product with a loyal fan base and a following that is growing by the day. Looking around, the people who had HONOR smartphones were people who knew what they wanted and knew where to get it. They weren’t going to settle for just any smartphone, but they carried what they knew was the best for their needs. Which leads me to the price tag.
Now, we make expensive purchases all the time, and a lot of the time, the price we pay isn’t worth the product we get, (just go to any swap meet market anywhere on earth to get a first-hand experience). After learning about the features and the interesting new aspects of the foldable smartphone, the price was revealed at €1999, just over $2100. The reveal was met with applause and almost what was recognized as gratitude for offering so much at such a rate.
You got a sense that the phone was something that you would have for a while…not unlike a Porsche. It would be something that one would utilize in their every day for years and not be forced to replace it in a couple of years because of too many drops or overburdening the processors with new updates. You got the sense that you were aligning yourself to a partner…also not unlike a Porsche. Still, in spite of all this practicality, those most likely to purchase an HONOR Magic V2 and the RSR version are going to be people who enjoy the finer things in life.
While people from all walks of life can appreciate the HONOR Magic V2, my guess is that the same person who would drive a Porsche 911 would have the Magic V2. I see this phone taking pictures on private planes and off of yachts. I also see it being in the hands of business people who like the finer things in life, perhaps someone who would take a client out to lunch at a 5 star restaurant to discuss a multi-million dollar deal. In many respects the Magic V2 is a smartphone that one can truly love and brag about. Theres is a distinct class to the phone, it tells a story of its own and it tells that story from a place of elegance. It’s a conversation starter, it can be a staple of who you are, it can be an extension of your personality, but if someone wants to simply break away from the mold yet not lack anything but rather have something that’s an improvement on the status quo, the HONOR Magic V2 fits that niche perfectly well.
The sleek design alone is enough to get someone to want to hold it in their hand and just own, but it is every one of the million little things that really make you fall in love with the folding masterpiece. From the satisfaction you get from opening the screen to the satisfaction you get from closing it, you never stop appreciating how good it just…feels.
It’s only the beginning
Future outcomes of the partnership might involve some of HONOR’s features in Porsche; however, anything is possible. What we can definitely count on in the future, is to see more new and interesting products to come from these two. Neither company does anything halfway and neither company does anything without striving for perfection (and meeting it)…and that’s exactly what we have gotten from their collaboration dear smartphone lover, perfection.
The success of the HONOR Magic V2 RSR might very well send smartphone companies and car manufacturers in a race to find the best partners for collaborations, but they’ll have to do quite a bit to be able to measure up to the Magic V2. It’s times like these where it becomes clear that the ones that blaze the trail seem to know best, and HONOR and Porsche have certainly blazed a trail. In all this, there is one big takeaway from this entire experience; what was on the surface an unlikely partnership has led to a superior product being the outcome, and it’s just the beginning.
