Honor Magic V5 vs Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra | TechTalkTown
Honor Magic V5 vs Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Honor Magic V5
Honor
8.6
The best book foldable of 2025
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Samsung
8.6
The Ultra that aged best
Honor Magic V5
What Reviewers Agree On
The best book-style foldable of 2025 — top creators independently call it the best folding phone on the market.
World's thinnest book foldable (8.8mm folded / 4.1mm open) that feels like a normal flagship when closed.
Class-leading foldable battery — the ~5,820mAh silicon-carbon cell out-endures the Z Fold 7 and Oppo Find N5.
Dual 5,000-nit OLED LTPO 120Hz displays — a huge brightness jump over the Magic V3.
An industry-leading 7-year OS and security update commitment.
Deal Breakers
Pros & Cons
Honor Magic V5
Pros
The best book-style foldable of 2025 — top creators independently call it the best folding phone on the market.
World's thinnest book foldable (8.8mm folded / 4.1mm open) that feels like a normal flagship when closed.
Class-leading foldable battery — the ~5,820mAh silicon-carbon cell out-endures the Z Fold 7 and Oppo Find N5.
Dual 5,000-nit OLED LTPO 120Hz displays — a huge brightness jump over the Magic V3.
An industry-leading 7-year OS and security update commitment.
Detailed Comparison
Design & Build
Honor Magic V5
The headline: the world's thinnest book foldable that feels like a normal flagship when closed — though the camera bump it excludes from the measurement is hefty.
It's the thinnest inward-folding phone on the market — 8.8mm folded and 4.1mm open (ivory white), taking the crown from the Oppo Find N5.
It's the thinnest only if you ignore the rather hefty camera bump, which isn't included in the measurements.
The frame uses Honor's Resource 7-series aluminium and aerospace fibres for strength without bulk, with a signature rectangular camera module.
It feels like a normal flagship when closed, then delivers a genuinely useful big-screen upgrade when opened.
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A hefty camera bump that the thinness claim conveniently excludes, making it considerably thicker than a Pixel 9 Pro Fold with bumps included.
The telephoto's reach was shortened to ~70mm, and the camera isn't quite flagship-tier for a $1,600+ phone.
MagicOS pushes AI heavily with bare-minimum customization, plus patchy (China-first) global availability.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
What Reviewers Agree On
The flat 6.8-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X with 2,600-nit peak (measured ~2,400 nits at 20% window) is one of the best, most usable outdoor displays ever put on a phone.
The 200MP main plus 5x periscope and 3x telephoto is a genuinely versatile, top-tier camera system, with excellent portraits and zoom flexibility.
The built-in S Pen remains a unique productivity advantage no other mainstream flagship matches.
Seven years of OS updates (announced first with the S24 series) is the longest support on Android and the single biggest reason it still holds up in 2026.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy with 12GB RAM is still fast and stutter-free two years later, comfortably handling heavy gaming.
Gorilla Armor glass is exceptionally scratch resistant — multiple long-term owners report micro-scratch-free screens after 1–2 years.
It holds its value and is now a standout used/refurbished buy at roughly half its launch price.
Deal Breakers
The $1,300 launch price was the highest ever for an Ultra and a recurring complaint at retail.
Galaxy AI features are hit-or-miss and, by reviewers' own admission, not used as often as expected day to day.
Samsung's camera image processing still trails the Pixel for moving subjects and natural rendering, per both reviewers and Reddit owners.
Cons
A hefty camera bump that the thinness claim conveniently excludes, making it considerably thicker than a Pixel 9 Pro Fold with bumps included.
The telephoto's reach was shortened to ~70mm, and the camera isn't quite flagship-tier for a $1,600+ phone.
MagicOS pushes AI heavily with bare-minimum customization, plus patchy (China-first) global availability.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Pros
The flat 6.8-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X with 2,600-nit peak (measured ~2,400 nits at 20% window) is one of the best, most usable outdoor displays ever put on a phone.
The 200MP main plus 5x periscope and 3x telephoto is a genuinely versatile, top-tier camera system, with excellent portraits and zoom flexibility.
The built-in S Pen remains a unique productivity advantage no other mainstream flagship matches.
Seven years of OS updates (announced first with the S24 series) is the longest support on Android and the single biggest reason it still holds up in 2026.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy with 12GB RAM is still fast and stutter-free two years later, comfortably handling heavy gaming.
Gorilla Armor glass is exceptionally scratch resistant — multiple long-term owners report micro-scratch-free screens after 1–2 years.
It holds its value and is now a standout used/refurbished buy at roughly half its launch price.
Cons
The $1,300 launch price was the highest ever for an Ultra and a recurring complaint at retail.
Galaxy AI features are hit-or-miss and, by reviewers' own admission, not used as often as expected day to day.
Samsung's camera image processing still trails the Pixel for moving subjects and natural rendering, per both reviewers and Reddit owners.
Including each device's camera bump, the Magic V5 is considerably thicker than the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and slightly thicker than the Z Fold 7 in non-white colourways.
Honor still includes extra goodies in the box, a nice touch at this price.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Samsung swapped the S23 Ultra's curved screen for a flat one and added a titanium frame. Reviewers welcomed the flat display but noted the titanium brings little weight saving, and the iPhone-like flat sides drew comparisons.
The display is now completely flat corner to corner, a change reviewers broadly preferred over the S23 Ultra's curve.
Going to a flat display was 'the best move forward,' even though it was initially polarising.
The titanium frame brings little of the weight saving Apple achieved on the iPhone 15 Pro — it stays heavy.
It uses grade-2 titanium, so it is not quite as premium-feeling as the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
The flat sides and flat screen look very iPhone-like all the way around.
IP68 dust and water resistance and a fast USB 3.x port remain, and the build still feels fantastic after two years of caseless use.
Cameras
Honor Magic V5
A genuinely improved system over the Magic V3 — strong main and excellent subject separation — but the shortened telephoto reach and a high price keep it short of true flagship-camera status.
It's a triple 50MP main + 50MP ultrawide + 64MP periscope telephoto, with dual 20MP selfie cameras.
Cameras were a Magic V3 weakness, but on the V5 the camera is brilliant in 90% of situations with subject separation better than even Samsung and iPhone.
The main camera is the same as last year and the telephoto now has a shorter ~70mm reach.
At $1,500–$2,000 for a folding phone it should have the best camera sensors — there's a real sacrifice in the other two cameras here.
Video tops out at solid 4K60 (no 8K) with consistent colours and smooth lens switching while recording.
The large camera dish buys optical versatility rather than crop zoom — a deliberate trade for the thin body.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
A 200MP main, 12MP ultrawide, 10MP 3x telephoto and new 50MP 5x periscope (replacing the old 10MP 10x). Reviewers rate it among the best, with standout zoom and portraits, but image processing remains the polarising point.
The camera system is 'one of the best in the game' and comes with a fantastic portrait mode.
One of the best all-around camera packages out there after months of shooting, including an excellent and often-overlooked selfie camera.
The new 50MP 5x periscope fixes the S23 Ultra's weak 5–10x range; 5x portraits look really good and edge detection is among the best.
Main camera is a 200MP f/1.7 (HP2) with a 50MP f/3.4 5x periscope, 10MP 3x tele and 12MP ultrawide.
The Pixel 8 Pro's ultrawide is preferred for sharper detail and more natural white balance than the S24 series ultrawide.
Battery & Charging
Honor Magic V5
The Magic V5's defining strength: a thin-but-dense ~5,820mAh silicon-carbon cell that wins extreme drain tests against the Z Fold 7 and Oppo Find N5, with fast 66W wired and 50W wireless.
In an extreme multi-task drain test it finished first at 7h31m, beating the Oppo Find N5 (7h27m) and the Galaxy Z Fold 7 (5h57m).
It's the first foldable that consistently delivered over 10 hours of screen-on time — all-day heavy usage mixing inner and outer screens.
It beat the Galaxy Z Fold 7 by almost 1h35m of battery and even defeated the Oppo Find N5 in a super-extreme test.
The ~5,820mAh silicon-carbon cell charges at 66W wired (full in roughly an hour, >90% in ~40 minutes) plus 50W wireless.
One content reviewer never got it close to dropping below 5% in a heavy day's usage — exceptional for a foldable.
Wireless and wired charging both require Honor's proprietary chargers to hit peak speeds.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
5,000mAh with 45W wired and 15W wireless. All-day battery is consistent praise; charging speed versus Chinese rivals is the recurring criticism, and there is a noted One UI update battery-drain bug.
In a head-to-head battery test it lasted 12h31m, over an hour longer than the iPhone 16 Pro Max's 11h22m.
5,000mAh battery with 45W wired (65% in 30 min), 15W wireless and 4.5W reverse wireless.
Charging is on par with Apple and Google but 'leagues behind rivals out of China' that charge far faster.
After two years, moderate use still delivers a full day with 25–30% left by bedtime; light use can stretch toward two days.
Measured battery health was 93% after two years (one heavy year, one moderate), per Samsung's hidden diagnostics.
