If you’re considering making the jump from phone to foldable, you might be wondering how some of the newest book-style foldables on the market compare.
Keep reading to learn how the Google Pixel Fold compares to the Honor Magic Vs.
The Honor Magic Vs has a less visible crease
One of the most divisive aspects across foldable phones is the crease that can develop where the inner display folds. Many companies have taken steps to reduce the size of this crease over the last couple of years, but none have quite cracked hiding it completely.
As a first-generation foldable, the Pixel Fold certainly isn’t there yet. In his review of the foldable, mobile editor Lewis Painter called the crease the most prominent one he’d come across in 2023, explaining that it was obvious even head-on. There’s also a noticeable dip when swiping across the screen that is less prominent in many of its competitors.
The Honor Magic Vs is also a first-gen foldable, but its crease is much more subtle. While still visible from an angle, the crease disappears completely when you look at the phone head-on and the hinge folds completely flat when folded, too.
Honor Magic Vs
The Google Pixel Fold has some of the best cameras on a foldable
The standout feature on the Pixel Fold is easily the triple camera. In fact, the camera is one overarching reason you might choose the Pixel over rival foldables despite some major drawbacks when it comes to the phone’s design and app support.
The Pixel has three cameras, including a 48-megapixel main sensor, a 10.8-megapixel ultra-wide sensor and a 10.8-megapixel telephoto lens. The phone is also capable of capturing 4K video at up to 60fps.
Colours are vibrant and details are pin-sharp, making it very easy to snap a great-quality photo. Skin tones appear natural and Night Sight helps to retain detail in low-light environments.
The Honor Magic Vs also has a triple camera, consisting of a 54-megapixel main sensor, a 50-megapixel ultra-wide and an 8-megapixel telephoto lens. The resulting images are vibrant and colourful in both daylight and low-light conditions, though the zoom lens doesn’t benefit from the same colour profile as the main shooter.
Like the Pixel, the Honor is capable of capturing 4K video at up to 60fps.
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The Honor Magic Vs has a bigger battery
Both the Honor Magic Vs and the Google Pixel Fold offer a full day’s use from their respective batteries, but the Honor foldable has a bigger battery which we found provided up to two days of use.
The Honor Magic Vs packs a large 5000 mAh battery that lasted from 8am to 11pm with 65% left in our tests. Under more strain, the battery made it from 9am to midnight with 40% battery life remaining, which is very impressive considering the device powers two screens and was put through several hours of streaming.
The Google Pixel Fold has a slightly smaller 4821 mAh battery that we found was able to make it through a full day of texting, photo-snapping, music streaming and email sending with 20% battery remaining, with more intensive activities such as HDR Netflix streaming having a more noticeable impact on the battery life.
Google Pixel Fold
The Google Pixel Fold is powered by the AI-focussed Tensor G2 chip
Both the Google Pixel Fold and the Honor Magic Vs are powered by chips that launched in 2022.
In Honor’s case, this is the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. The Pixel Fold, on the other hand, is powered by Google’s own Tensor G2 chipset, which has a stronger focus on AI and powers many of the AI photography and editing features present across the Pixel line.
The Honor Magic Vs has stronger app support
Our main complaint when it came to the Google Pixel Fold was the lack of app support.
Despite running perhaps the best version of Android, the Pixel Fold doesn’t allow you to force apps to run in full-screen mode to fit the phone’s wider aspect ratio the way that other foldables do.
Many Google apps and some third-party apps like Slack and TikTok do offer specific support for this aspect ratio, meaning these apps run perfectly on the fold-out screen. However, other apps that don’t already support the wider aspect ratio (including Facebook, Instagram and Reddit) are forced to be displayed in a smaller window on the Pixel Fold despite it’s larger screen.
That said, Google’s version of stock Android is still a huge pro for the Pixel Fold and otherwise has fewer issues than Honor’s MagicOS which doesn’t yet include an app tray.