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.
Vivo X200 Ultra
What Reviewers Agree On
The best camera phone of 2025 by repeated consensus — Forbes, Notebookcheck, Android Authority and multiple creators independently crown it, with the 200MP HP9 periscope rated the best telephoto on any smartphone.
Distinctive imaging hardware: a 35mm-equivalent main camera (vs the usual 23–24mm) plus the largest ultrawide sensor in the Ultra class, both on 1/1.28-inch Sony LYT sensors, driven by dedicated V3+ and VS1 imaging chips.
The optional Zeiss 2.35x teleconverter turns the 85mm periscope into a ~200mm optical lens (digital to 400/800mm) — an excellent, relatively affordable modular photography system.
Premium hardware all round: a 6.82-inch 2K 144Hz LTPO AMOLED with 4,500-nit peak (measured ~1,941 nits full-screen auto), an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor among the best in the game, and durable scratch-resistant glass.
Strong, efficient core performance — Snapdragon 8 Elite with ~9,500 Geekbench multi-core and long benchmark-run endurance, staying relatively cool versus rivals.
Deal Breakers
No official global release — it's a China-launch phone you must import (~$900 base, ~$1,120–1,200 with the kit), with no Western warranty and a ~20-minute debloat to make it usable internationally.
Funtouch/OriginOS is the recurring weak point: rough around the edges, AI features gated behind a Chinese Vivo account/SIM, and weaker than Honor/Oppo software for many reviewers.
It will not work with a WearOS/Pixel/Samsung smartwatch, and the camera app can crash and lock you out for a minute or two between shots for some users.
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.
Vivo X200 Ultra
Pros
The best camera phone of 2025 by repeated consensus — Forbes, Notebookcheck, Android Authority and multiple creators independently crown it, with the 200MP HP9 periscope rated the best telephoto on any smartphone.
Distinctive imaging hardware: a 35mm-equivalent main camera (vs the usual 23–24mm) plus the largest ultrawide sensor in the Ultra class, both on 1/1.28-inch Sony LYT sensors, driven by dedicated V3+ and VS1 imaging chips.
The optional Zeiss 2.35x teleconverter turns the 85mm periscope into a ~200mm optical lens (digital to 400/800mm) — an excellent, relatively affordable modular photography system.
Premium hardware all round: a 6.82-inch 2K 144Hz LTPO AMOLED with 4,500-nit peak (measured ~1,941 nits full-screen auto), an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor among the best in the game, and durable scratch-resistant glass.
Strong, efficient core performance — Snapdragon 8 Elite with ~9,500 Geekbench multi-core and long benchmark-run endurance, staying relatively cool versus rivals.
Cons
No official global release — it's a China-launch phone you must import (~$900 base, ~$1,120–1,200 with the kit), with no Western warranty and a ~20-minute debloat to make it usable internationally.
Funtouch/OriginOS is the recurring weak point: rough around the edges, AI features gated behind a Chinese Vivo account/SIM, and weaker than Honor/Oppo software for many reviewers.
It will not work with a WearOS/Pixel/Samsung smartwatch, and the camera app can crash and lock you out for a minute or two between shots for some users.
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.
Vivo X200 Ultra
A camera-forward design with the largest central camera bump reviewers had ever seen, paired with durable, scratch-resistant glass and a slight-curve display.
Digital Trends called the camera module one of the best-designed, most visually interesting and classiest it has seen on a phone — though it's the largest central bump a reviewer had ever used.
Over two weeks of caseless use the body picked up no scratches at all — and 100-day testing confirmed it resists scratches better than some Gorilla Glass 7 phones.
The 6.82-inch display has subtle micro-curves on the edges with an otherwise near-flat front, and the build feels premium in hand.
MKBHD noted the plain plastic exterior of the bundled photography kit lacks premium finishing and feels cheaper than Xiaomi's equivalent grip.
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.
Vivo X200 Ultra
The reason this phone exists — a 35mm main, the largest ultrawide sensor in its class, and a 200MP HP9 periscope widely called the best telephoto on any smartphone.
MKBHD called the 14mm shooter the best ultrawide in recent Ultra models and the periscope arguably the best telephoto lens on any smartphone.
Uses a distinctive 35mm-equivalent main camera (Sony LYT-818, 1/1.28") instead of the usual 23–24mm — excellent for street and portrait framing, with improved edge sharpness over the old 1-inch 23mm setup.
The 200MP f/2.3 85mm HP9 periscope (3.7x, 1/1.4") delivers excellent pixel-level detail, and the Zeiss teleconverter cleanly extends it to ~200mm optical with strong natural bokeh.
Notebookcheck found the sensor sizes so balanced it's hard to pick a single 'main' camera — and that anyone who takes portrait photos will love it.
Records 8K 30fps on the main and 4K 120fps Dolby Vision across all rear lenses, with portrait video mode now available on the ultrawide — a first for the line.
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.
Vivo X200 Ultra
A 6,000mAh silicon-carbon cell with 90W FlashCharge — lab-best in some tests, merely-okay on the imported global build in others.
PhoneArena named it the best battery life of 2025 'and it's not even close' — 9h37m total screen-time estimate, 13h41m YouTube streaming, beating the iPhone 16 Pro Max and S25 Ultra by wide margins.
Stayed alive 17h52m of screen-on-time with a benchmark running — on par with the OnePlus 13 and ~2 hours more than the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
On the imported global build, one reviewer struggled to reach the end of the day at only ~4–5 hours screen-on-time, saying the Chinese build lasts substantially longer.
90W FlashCharge (charger in box, Chinese plug) hits ~48% in 20 minutes and a full charge in ~46 minutes — though real measured draw peaks ~54W, with most charge delivered in the first 40 minutes.
Also supports 40W wireless plus reverse wired/wireless charging, and an hour of Crunchyroll drained only 1% — excellent for long flights.
Value vs Competition
Honor Magic V5
Repeatedly named the best foldable of 2025 and a more appealing spec than the Z Fold 7 — but a high import price and China-first availability temper the value.
It's the best foldable in the world right now — as close to perfect as a folding device currently exists.
It's literally the best folding phone on the market.
It continues to be one of the best foldables on the market with a much more appealing specification than the Galaxy Z Fold 7.
Import pricing currently ranges between $1,600 and $1,700, placing it against the Z Fold 7 and Vivo X Fold 5.
Its one clear loss to competitors is availability — initially limited to China before a wider rollout.
It's cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold while arguably being the better phone.
Vivo X200 Ultra
An import-only camera specialist that out-shoots the global flagships — its rivals are the Xiaomi 15 Ultra and the photographer's reason to skip a Pixel.
Forbes: by itself it has a high chance of claiming the 'best smartphone camera' throne of 2025 — a top-notch flagship with the best processor, camera hardware and screen around, starting ~$900.
Android Authority used it for several weeks and concluded 'I wish Samsung would copy its amazing cameras.'
Pixel 10 Pro XL owners comparing the two found the Vivo's telephoto far stronger and the Pixel noisier — enough that one returned the Pixel, frustrated only by Vivo's software as a US user.
Against the Xiaomi 15 Ultra it's the more reliable daily phone with substantially better battery, though some prefer Xiaomi's camera 'soul'; with the teleconverter attached the Vivo clearly beats it.
At heavy zoom the processing applies strong noise reduction that some find less natural than the grainier output of the S25 Ultra or iPhone — though it still beats most competition in the category.
r/Android import owners: 'the camera is amazing and the battery lasts forever' — a recurring sentiment from the enthusiasts who track it down.
