Foldable phones may well be the domain of Samsung and Google, but there’s a new player arriving in Australia, and it might be even slimmer than Samsung’s Fold 7.
In a world where your phone can do everything and even replace a computer, it’s intriguing to watch how the phone is growing, making shifts and strides to become bigger while also being smaller.
Consider the foldable phone that also works as a tablet. While there are tablets and there are phones, foldable phones designed to be both tablet and phone are made for a world where someone needs both in the one design.
Australians can already find two just like it this year from Samsung and Google, but a new player is on the way ready to offer a third option in foldable phones.
Originally owned by Huawei and now its own company (for the past few years), Honor is launching in Australia delivering another option for foldables, while also bringing a few other devices to Australia.
Much like the arrival of Xiaomi recently, it offers Australians another choice in a market that can feel like it has been fairly small for a few years. Australia saw the departure of Sony and LG (as did the world) a few years ago, and it seems these two brands look set to bring more to choose from,.
The first from Honor is the Magic V5, a super thin foldable bringing a 6.43 inch phone that unfolds into a 7.95 inch (roughly 8 inch) tablet, using OLED for both displays. The hardware aims to be fairly high-end, providing a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite just like the Samsung S25 Ultra, as well as 16GB RAM, 512GB storage, and. three cameras on the back, covering a 50 megapixel F1.6 main wide camera, a 50 megapixel F2.0 ultra-wide, and a 64 megapixel F2.5 3X telephoto.
On paper, all of this seems pretty high end, but the focus could be on the thickness, or lack thereof.
Since around August this year, Samsung’s excellent Galaxy Fold 7 has held the title for the Australia’s thinnest foldable, both opened and closed. Folded closed and looking like a regular phone, this handset delivered a thickness of 8.9mm, more or less the same thickness as this year’s iPhone 17 Pro Max, but when you opened the Fold 7 to become a foldable, the handset measured simply 4.2mm thin. Yikes.
Crazily, Honor’s first phone in Australia plans to one-up Samsung’s for a marginally thinner design.
The Honor Magic V5 will launch with an 8.8mm closed thickness, while it sits open at 4.1mm, edging out the Samsung equivalent by a millimetre. It’s probably a silly amount to win by, but Honor now gets to claim that trophy, crazy as it is.
There is, of course, more to a phone than simply a thin size, so Honor will need to back this up with the goods. Like a lot of other phones this year, the Magic V5 supports AI features complete with Android, even though it apparently runs Android 15 out of the box, missing out on Android 16 Google launched earlier this year.
Unsurprisingly, the price is fairly high, attracting a price tag of $2599, because, well, it’s a foldavle phone.
However the foldable Magic V5 won’t be the only Honor gadget to see launch locally.
A fairly slim 8.1mm phone with a 6.7 inch screen will be coming in the Honor 400, a phone sporting three cameras on the back and a more mid-range price point of $999, while Honor’s first Australian tablet competitor is also coming in the $599 Honor Pad 10 alongside the $249 Watch 4 wearable and a pair of clip-on earbuds for $199.
The range is expected to launch in early December.
