Honor’s new foldable might be ultra thin, but does it have the specs for gaming?

The Android foldable phone market has been ramping up for the past several years, with Samsung firing the starting pistol with its Galaxy Fold in 2019. Just this week, we saw the big reveal of another, the Honor Magic V5, with the brand behind the device touting it as the thinnest foldable yet. At 8.8mm, it’s not wrong, and despite a significant camera bump on the back, there are plenty of specs here that could make the V5 a great phone for gamers.

Alongside announcing the Honor Magic V5 on July 2, the company also released its full spec sheet, which includes a 7.95-inch display when folded out, as well as a 6.43-inch screen when folded in, and both are OLED with a 120Hz refresh rate, so they should offer vibrant colors, smooth scrolling, and great brightness when used outside. The three-camera setup consists of a 50MP wide lens, a 64MP periscope telephoto lens, and a 50MP ultra-wide camera, as well as dual 20MP wide cameras at the front.

But it’s the hardware packed inside that could make an even bigger impression. A Snapdragon 8 Elite chip powers the Magic V5, along with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage. Those are the sort of specs we’d expect from the best gaming phones and should equate to top-tier performance. To round this off, a 5820mAh battery means that you’ll likely get a good day’s worth of use out of the Magic V5.

Now available in China in colorways including Black, Ivory White, Dawn Gold, and Reddish Brown, Honor says that an international launch is coming soon, alongside pricing for individual countries.

At first glance, the foldable looks like it could easily fare well against the best gaming tablets and Android gaming handhelds like the Ayaneo Pocket S2. As the Magic V5 sports the same Snapdragon chip as the RedMagic 10S Pro, you can take a look at our review, where we tested some of the best mobile games, such as Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves, and the results were impressive.

When you consider how big and vibrant the Magic V5’s displays are, especially when folded out, and combine the device with one of the best controllers, you could have a very powerful gaming handheld that suits plenty of games from the past as well as the present. But powerful specs and a great design often come at a price, so we’re going to wait until Honor announces its international pricing for the Magic V5 and see how it fares in our testing.

In the meantime, check out our guides to the best retro handhelds and the best handheld consoles. Or, if you’re still debating picking up this year’s hottest new hardware release, take a look at our Nintendo Switch 2 review to see if we can help inform your decision.