Honor Magic V5 vs iPhone 17 Air

Honor Magic V5

Honor arguably offers the best foldable displays in the market. The 7.95-inch LTPO OLED inner display hits 5,000 nits peak brightness, and both panels support Dolby Vision with 4,320Hz PWM dimming for exceptional eye comfort. The crease is nearly imperceptible in daily use.

• 7.95-inch inner LTPO OLED with 5,000 nits peak brightness — among the brightest foldable displays ever
• 4,320Hz PWM dimming on both displays — best in class for eye comfort and reduced flicker
• Crease is nearly imperceptible in daily use — the display lays completely flat when opened
• Some third-party apps including Google YouTube display UI glitches on the inner folding display

iPhone 17 Air

The 6.6-inch OLED display with ProMotion 120Hz is excellent, though peak brightness does not match the Pro models.

• The 6.6-inch display is gorgeous with vivid colors, deep blacks, and smooth 120Hz scrolling
• Peak brightness of 2,000 nits is good but falls short of the Pro models 3,000-nit panels

Honor Magic V5

Snapdragon 8 Elite with up to 16GB RAM handles demanding games and multitasking across the large inner screen with ease. Two or three apps running simultaneously is smooth. The ultra-thin chassis does limit thermal dissipation, causing throttling after about 15 minutes of sustained heavy load.

• Snapdragon 8 Elite with up to 16GB RAM handles demanding games and split-screen multitasking effortlessly
• Excellent multitasking — two or three apps simultaneously on the inner screen works smoothly
• Thermal throttling after approximately 15 minutes of sustained load — thin chassis limits cooling

iPhone 17 Air

The A19 (non-Pro) chip handles daily tasks effortlessly but lacks the GPU horsepower and Neural Engine cores of the Pro variant.

• Day-to-day performance is indistinguishable from the Pro models — apps launch fast, multitasking is smooth
• Gaming performance falls behind the Pro models by about 15-20% in GPU-intensive titles
• Thermals are well managed given the thin chassis, though sustained workloads cause more noticeable warm spots

Honor Magic V5

A major step up from the Magic V4, delivering one of the best rear camera systems on any foldable. Natural portraits with accurate subject detection and good low-light performance. However, the 10MP selfie cameras (both inner and outer) are weak, and AI processing can over-sharpen and produce unnatural color boosting.

• Major improvement over the V4 — one of the best rear camera systems on any foldable phone
• Natural portraits with accurate subject detection and excellent background blur
• Weak 10MP selfie cameras on both inner and outer displays — "lacking in almost every situation"
• AI processing can over-sharpen images and amplify reds, producing unnatural-looking results

iPhone 17 Air

A single 48MP main camera delivers good photos but severely limits versatility compared to the dual and triple camera systems on other iPhone 17 models.

• The 48MP main camera produces excellent photos with great color accuracy and solid dynamic range in good lighting
• No ultrawide or telephoto means you are stuck with digital zoom and no wide-angle shots — a significant limitation for $899
• Night mode and low-light performance are decent but cannot match the Pro models computational multi-frame processing