Latest news with #MagicV4
CNBC
02-07-2025
- Business
- CNBC
China's Honor launches new challenge to Samsung with thin foldable smartphone and a big battery
Honor on Wednesday touted the slimness and battery capacity of its newly launched thin foldable phone, as it lays down a fresh challenge to market leader Samsung. The Honor Magic V5 goes will initially go on sale in China, but the Chinese tech firm will likely bring the device to international markets later this year. The company, which spun off from Chinese tech giant Huawei in 2020, is looking to stand out from rivals with key features of the Magic V5, like artificial intelligence, battery and size. Honor said the Magic V5 is 8.8 mm to 9mm when folded, depending on the color choice. The phone's predecessor, the Magic V3 — Honor skipped the Magic V4 name — was 9.2 mm when folded. Honor said the Magic V5 weighs 217 grams to 222 grams, again, depending on the color model. The previous version was 226 grams. In China, Honor will launch a special 1 terabyte storage size version of the Magic V5, which it says will have a battery capacity of more than 6000 milliampere-hour — among the highest for foldable phones. Honor has tried hard to tout these features, as competition in foldables ramps up, even as these types of devices have a very small share of the overall smartphone market. Foldables represented less than 2% of the overall smartphone market in 2024, according to International Data Corporation. Samsung was the biggest player with 34% market share followed by Huawei with just under 24%, IDC added. Honor took the fourth spot with a nearly 11% share. Honor is looking to get a head start on Samsung, which has its own foldable launch next week on July 9. Francisco Jeronimo, a vice president at the International Data Corporation, said the Magic V5 is a strong offering from Honor. "This is the dream foldable smartphone that any user who is interested in this category will think of," Jeronimo told CNBC, pointing to features such as the battery. "This phone continues to push the bar forward, and it will challenge Samsung as they are about to launch their seventh generation of foldable phones," he added. The thinness of a foldable phone has become a battleground for smartphone makers to appeal to consumers who want the large screen size the device has to offer without extra weight. At its event next week, Samsung is expected to release a foldable that is thinner than its predecessor and could come close to challenging Honor's offering by way of size, analysts said. If that happens, then Honor will be facing more competition, especially against Samsung, which has a bigger global footprint. "The biggest challenge for Honor is the brand equity and distribution reach vs Samsung, where the Korean vendor has the edge," Neil Shah, co-founder of Counterpoint Research, told CNBC. Honor's push into international markets beyond China is still fairly young, with the company looking to build up its brand. "Further, if Samsung catches up with a thinner form-factor in upcoming iterations, as it has been the real pioneer in foldables with its vertical integration expertise from displays to batteries, the differentiating factor might narrow for Honor," Shah added. Vertical integration refers to when a company owns several parts of a product's supply chain. Samsung has a display and battery business which provides the components for its foldables. Smartphone players, including Honor, have also looked to stand out via the AI features available on their device. In March, Honor pledged a $10 billion investment in AI over the next five years, with part of that going toward the development of next-generation agents that are seen as more advanced personal assistants. Honor said its AI assistant Yoyo can interact with other AI models, such as those created by DeepSeek and Alibaba in China, to create presentation decks. The company also flagged its AI agent can hail a taxi ride across multiple apps in China, automatically accepting the quickest ride to arrive? and cancelling the rest.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Yahoo
Honor Magic V4 camera leak hints at another benchmark-setting foldable
If this new leak is to be believed, the upcoming Honor Magic V4 might have one of the best cameras we've ever seen in a foldable phone. A follow-up to the Magic V3, the Magic V4 is still yet to get an official set of specs, but a leaker just pulled the curtain on what we might expect from the new phone, including a 200MP periscope telephoto camera. This could put it right on the top of the ranking of the best foldable phones. As revealed by Digital Chat Station on Weibo, the Honor Magic V4 might come with an impressive set of specs, but let's dig into the camera stuff first. The leaker teases that the phone will sport a 50MP 1/1.5″ primary sensor paired up with a 200MP periscope telephoto camera. That periscope camera will feature a 1/1.4″ type sensor and impressive 3x optical zoom. Such a camera in a foldable would let the Honor Magic V4 lead the charge among other foldables, including the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, which only sports a 10MP telephoto lens. The Oppo Find N5 would be left in the dust, too, as it has a 50MP periscope telephoto camera. The Honor Magic V3 was the thinnest foldable in the world upon launch, but the Oppo Find N5 stole that crown shortly after. However, despite the impressive camera setup, the new V4 might be even thinner, with the leaker claiming that it'll measure less than 9mm when folded. For comparison's sake, the V3 measured 9.2mm when folded. The above picture does a good job of illustrating just how thin the V3 was compared to some of its competitors. Aside from the size and the camera, the Honor Magic V4 is said to offer an 8-inch 2K 120Hz inner display paired with a 6.45″ 120Hz outer screen. Rumor has it that the new phone will run on the Snapdragon 8 Elite system-on-a-chip (SoC). Those specs sound exciting, implying that the foldable phone arena is about to start heating up. The Honor Magic V4 should make its debut this summer, with leakers pinning June as the likely release window.
