Honor reveals the name of its 5G foldable flagship phone

A new foldable phone from Honor has reportedly been in the works for some time. Earlier this month we told you to expect the unveiling of the device to take place during the first quarter of 2022 under the name Honor Magic Fold. But today Honor has announced that the device will be called the Honor Magic V.

The foldable is inward folding and in the process of closing both sides of the internal tablet-sized display, the letter V is formed (which is how the device got its name). The company also included a press image that shows the device with its sides pushed in a little to form the letter "V." On the bottom of the image, it calls the phone "Honor's first foldable flaghship."

The latest rumored specs call for an 8-inch internal display when both sides are fully open. The display will sport a resolution of 2200 x 2480 and will be powered by an octa-core chipset. The Magic V will come with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. A108MP camera with 9:1 pixel binning could be on board delivering 12MP images when the environment is less than ideal for taking photographs.

The camera array should also include ultra-wide and telephoto cameras and the front-facing selfie snapper will reportedly weigh in at 16MP. A 4500mAh battery is expected to keep the lights on and Android 11 should be pre-installed.

In November of 2020, Huawei sold Honor, then a sub-brand of the larger company, to a consortium for over $15 billion. Once this deal closed, Honor was no longer owned by Huawei which meant that it no longer had to abide by the same restrictions and bans placed on Huawei by the U.S.

In other words, once officially divorced from Huawei, Honor has been allowed to use the Google Mobile Services version of Android and 5G supporting chipsets from Qualcomm. Both of those were unable to be used by Honor as long as it remained a Huawei sub-brand. Since splitting with Huawei, the Honor brand has been red hot in China and the company had the largest quarter-over-quarter gain (194%) in global shipments of 5G phones from the second quarter to the third quarter of this year.

Speaking of 5G, Honor's new foldable will supposedly support the latest generation of connectivity. Honor says that in the coming days it will share more information about its foldable phone including the date when the product will be unveiled and we might be given some of the Magic V's official specs.

Huawei has already released three separate variants of foldable devices with the Mate X, Mate XS, and the Mate X2. The latter uses a design quite similar to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3. The company has said that it plans to introduce a new foldable handset tomorrow that is similar in form factor to the Galaxy Z Flip 3. With a rumored moniker of the P50 Pocket, the device will be pocketable and will flip open to reveal a flagship-sized smartphone display.

Today's news about Honor naming its first foldable came directly from the manufacturer's press agency so barring a last-minute change, the Honor Magic V name is written in stone. We are looking forward to hearing the rest of the information that Honor is promising to release over the next few days.

Based on the wording of the press release, it would appear that the Magic V will be available only in China. The comment in the release reads, "It will be Honor's first foldable flagship for China." So if you were hoping to snag one in another country, you might want to keep your fingers crossed to see what the company says when it officially introduces the device.