My favorite Android phone of the year isn’t from Samsung or Google – and it sets a new standard

The best phones on sale today are not the same all over the world, which is why I like to take advantage of this time of year to look back at some amazing devices that go unrecognized due to their limited releases . Thanks to living in the UK, I get to try a wider variety of phones than the typical US customer has access to, and some of them are so good I wish they were sold more widely.

This includes devices like the Oppo Find X8 Pro for its ultra-grade specs at competitive prices. or the creative potential of the Sony Xperia 1 VI, or the cheap, cheerful, foldable Nubia Flip 5G. But all things considered, the phone I’ve missed having in my pocket the most is the Honor Magic V3, a foldable that combines a tablet and a regular phone better than any other.

What makes the Honor Magic V3 so good?

Since its launch and to this day, the Magic V3 holds the title of the world’s thinnest foldable phone, both folded and unfolded, and also stands as one of the lightest on the market. It’s an impressive design achievement, but also practical, since combined with the large exterior screen, the foldable remains fully usable once folded. The large 8-inch interior screen is also there to be used, but only when you want to go fully foldable, rather than as a requirement if you want to do anything serious.

Honor’s approach to AI is also quite clever. The focus is less on generating content and more on transforming or facilitating interaction with existing material. The MagicPortal system makes it easy to grab a screenshot or piece of text from one app and transmit it to another, while photo editing and AI-powered audio/text translation and transcription meet common creative and practical needs.

And the Magic V3 does all this while remaining cheap. It’s not as cheap as the OnePlus Open (which still sits at the top of the foldable phone pile), but it costs less than the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold or Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, two choices by elsewhere reliable.

There are, however, good reasons why the Honor Magic V3 didn’t quite earn a spot in our guide to the best foldable phones. There’s no easy way to buy it in the US, as is the case with all Honor products. Camera quality, despite the combination of 50MP main, 40MP ultra-wide and 50MP 3.5x telephoto lens on the back and 20MP selfie cameras inside and outside the phone, is not no longer up to par with its rivals.

Perhaps the most unfortunate factor is that Honor’s software update plan, comprising three years of comprehensive updates and five years of security updates, is much shorter than that offered by competing phones, which means you’ll run out of new software features faster than any other foldable you could buy. This year. Not great for a premium product.

Despite these flaws, I still really like what Honor has achieved here. The Magic V3 set the global standard for folding phone construction, and we hope other companies follow suit in the future. And maybe the Magic V4 planned for the coming year can push the limits again.

Honorable mention — A foldable for the future?

While the Honor Magic V3 is the phone I’ve tested and liked the most this year, there’s one I’ve spent more time thinking about, even though I haven’t tested it in its entirety. And it is the Huawei Mate XT.

This cutting-edge foldable really impressed me during a brief hands-on session I had a few months ago. It doesn’t look like the first generation, although it is the first production two-hinge foldable, or “triple foldable” as they are more commonly known. Whether you use the phone fully open, partially open, or fully folded, the interface easily adapts to the currently available screen size. You just have to adapt to the fact that the two hinges move in opposite directions.