Technologies
Honor Magic Vs Review: An Impressive First Try That Almost Rivals Samsung
The Magic Vs foldable phone still needs to improve before it can surpass the Galaxy Z Fold series. But it’s a commendable start.

Samsung finally has a new rival in the foldable phone ring: The Magic Vs foldable from Honor, formerly owned by Huawei. Honor revealed in September that it would bring its Honor Vs to international markets after a China release. This week, it showed off its book-style foldable flagship designed for a global audience at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
I had the chance to test the Honor Magic Vs a few days before its launch. I was impressed with the device’s slick hardware, which is lightweight but also allowed the two halves of the phone to fold flat against each other without a gap. The Galaxy Z Fold 4, its biggest rival, still has a wedge-shaped gap when closed even in its newest iteration.
Beyond the standout features, the Honor Magic Vs packs all the specs you’d expect from a 2023 flagship phone into a slick package. That includes a large battery (5,000 mAh), fast charging (66 watts), a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen Plus 1 processor, and three years of OS upgrades as well as five years of security patches. The only knock I could give in terms of specs is that it lacks the newer Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip found in the Galaxy S23 line and OnePlus 11.
Like
- Lightweight for a foldable
- Fantastic battery life
- Fast charging
Don’t Like
- Software doesn’t take nearly enough advantage of the fold
- No official IP rating
- Crease could be less obvious
- Less software updates than Galaxy Z Fold 4
However, it’s not perfect. The crease is more visible and discernible to the touch than other book-style foldables I’ve tested, such as the Oppo Find N and the Huawei Mate XS 2. The phone also lacks wireless charging and an official IP rating for water- and dust-resistance. By comparison, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 has an IPX8 rating for water-resistance.
That said, the Magic Vs starting price undercuts the Galaxy Z Fold 4 by 200 euros, and you also get more storage for that lower price. The Magic Vs starts at 1,599 euros for 12GB RAM and 512GB storage. By comparison, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 starts at 1,799 euros for 12GB RAM and 256GB of storage. There are no current plans for a US release, although the company said a UK launch is expected in June.


Honor wants the Vs to be a first-class phone first, and a tablet second. The inner screen has a 90Hz display, while the cover screen has a 120Hz display.
Sareena Dayaram/CNETHonor Magic Vs outer display is the focus
The Magic Vs’ headline feature is its bendable display. Like the Galaxy Z Fold 4, it has a cover screen and an interior screen. The outer screen measures 6.45 inches diagonally, while the inner display is 7.9 inches. I found both crisp, responsive and bright, and each screen also folds into the other with no discernible gap.
Unlike Samsung, Honor chose to equip the cover screen of its book-style foldable with superior specs. For example, it has better brightness (1,200 nits vs. 800 nits) and a higher refresh rate (120Hz vs. the inner screen’s 90Hz). For reference, the Magic Vs’ inner screen is a step below the 120Hz capability of the Galaxy Z Fold 4.
Considering this is a foldable phone, I found Honor’s choice to be counterintuitive at first. However, it seems Honor wants this device to be a phone first, and a tablet second. I think this decision helped prolong the battery life of the Honor Magic Vs — which, by the way, was fantastic. (More on that below.)
Honor Magic Vs inner display has an obvious crease
Honor says the Magic Vs has a creaseless display, but that didn’t turn out to be true. You can see and feel the inner display’s crease from various angles. It was immediately noticeable as soon as I opened the phone. I didn’t have to search for it as I have with other foldable phones, such as the Oppo Find N or the Huawei Mate XS 2.
Despite the crease, watching movies and flipping through pictures is fun and immersive. While it didn’t bother me much, such a large crease may be a deal-breaker for some. But it’s a compromise that fans of foldables may just have to learn to live with for now. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4 still has a crease, though it’s less noticeable than in the past. But Huawei’s Mate XS 2, which has a wraparound-style foldable phone design with one screen, is basically creaseless.
Key to the folding nature of this phone is the hinge. The company said the hinge is crafted with an aerospace grade polymeric material and has fewer components in its supporting structure (just four compared to 94). This helps make the hinge lighter and potentially more durable. Honor claims the hinge can withstand up to 400,000 folds, which means you can expect maybe 10 years of use out of it if you assume 100 folds per day. CNET hasn’t been able to independently verify that claim.
Honor Magic Vs camera
The Honor Magic Vs has three rear cameras, consisting of a 54-megapixel main camera, 50-megapixel ultrawide camera, and an 8-megapixel telephoto camera capable of 3x optical zoom. There’s also a 16-megapixel selfie camera, which is one less front-facing camera than the pricier Galaxy Z Fold 4.
Overall, I was happy with photo clarity, dynamic range, shutter speed and the versatility of the camera. Whether I was in bright, dim or even dark lighting environments, the camera captured crisp, vibrant and accurate photos in a variety of lighting scenarios. That said, this isn’t the best camera. It doesn’t measure up to the iPhone 14 Pro Max for instance, which tends to offer better low light photography. But I guess that’s OK (sort of) since you’re really paying for that fancy display, not the camera module.


This photo was taken through a window. The Honor Vs managed to capture a color accurate image with solid dynamic range.
Sareena Dayaram/CNET

10x zoom example.
Sareena Dayaram/CNET

30x zoom example. This image is relatively lacking in image noise considering how far the camera was zoomed in.
Sareena Dayaram/CNET

This setting was a tricky one to capture since the indoor environment was dim and there was bright light pouring through the windows. Despite this challenge, the camera captured a sharp image with crisp details indoors. Notice the detailing on the wooden floor and the bar seats.
Sareena Dayaram/CNET

The camera does a good job capturing the environment inside the window as well as outside.
Sareena Dayaram/CNET

Notice the sharp detailing of the plate and the contrasts in this photo. It was taken indoors.
Sareena Dayaram/CNET

I took this photo in a moving taxi and think it did a good job capturing motion.
Sareena Dayaram/CNETHonor Magic Vs battery performance
With a 5,000-mAh battery, the Honor Magic Vs has the largest battery of any commercially sold foldable phone. Non-foldable phones, such as the Galaxy S22 Ultra and the Galaxy S23 Ultra, have the same battery capacity.
The Magic Vs made it through most days of testing on a single charge with medium use. I didn’t need to bother charging at the end of the day since I usually had more than 20% remaining. But I charged overnight anyway out of habit.
When I ran a battery endurance test where I watched YouTube videos, scrolled through my Instagram feed, played Genshin Impact and took a 5-minute WhatAapp video call on the cover screen. The battery went from 100% to 86% in those 45 minutes.
The Magic Vs comes with a bundled 66-watt charger, which Honor says will completely replenish a dead battery within 46 minutes. Based on my experience, that claim was true, which means the Magic Vs outshines the Galaxy Z Fold 4 in this department.
The Magic Vs runs on 2022’s Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1. In my short time with this phone, the device performed without a hitch whether it was powering multiple apps, running games, streaming YouTube videos or even just switching between apps.


The Magic Vs propped up in a laptop-like position.
Sareena Dayaram/CNETHonor Magic Vs software
The Magic Vs runs Android 13 and Honor’s MagicOS. I’m a fan of MagicOS’ split-screen multi-tasking system, which includes a slide-over menu that you trigger by swiping and holding from the sides. You can multitask with up to four applications, and there’s a split screen mode as well as floating windows. You can also move apps around and resize their windows.
It’s a shame the software doesn’t take enough advantage of the phone’s folding design. I would have loved to see something like Samsung’s Flex mode on the Magic Vs. Even though I could use the phone when it was half-folded and prop it up like a laptop, none of the apps I used, even native ones, that were tailored for that experience. The Galaxy Z Fold 4’s Flex Mode software capabilities let you use the screen when it’s folded at a 90-degree angle.
With the Magic Vs’ slender hardware, solid cameras, fabulous battery life and intuitive multitasking features, Honor has created a solid rival to the Galaxy Z Fold 4. But it’s still tough to recommend the Magic Vs over the Galaxy Z Fold 4 for several reasons: There’s no IP rating, the crease is more visible, its software doesn’t really take advantage of the folding screen and Honor provides fewer software updates than Samsung. Honor made a solid first effort overall, though, and I’m so glad Samsung has more competition.
For more details on how the Magic Vs and the Galaxy Z Fold 4 compare, take a look at CNET’s specs chart below.
Honor Magic Vs specs vs. Galaxy Z Fold 4
Honor Magic Vs | Galaxy Z Fold 4 5G | |
---|---|---|
Display size, resolution, refresh rate | Internal: 7.9 inches, 90Hz (2,272×1,984 pixels) External: 6.45 inches, 120Hz (2,560×1,080 pixels) | Internal: 7.6 inches (2,176×1,812 pixels) External: 6.2 inches HD+ (2,316×904 pixels) |
Pixel density | Internal: 381 ppi External: 431 ppi | TBC |
Dimensions (Millimeters) | Folded: 160.3×72.6×12. 9 mm; Unfolded: 160.3×141.5×6.1 mm | Folded: 67.1×155.1×15.8 mm (Hinge) ~ 14.2mm (Sagging); Unfolded: 130.1×155.1×6.3 mm |
Weight (Ounces, Grams) | 9.23 oz, 261g (orange); 9.42 oz, 267g (black & cyan) | 9.27 oz; 263g |
Mobile software | Android 13 | Android 13 |
Camera | 54-megapixel (main), 50-megapixel (ultrawide), 8-megapixel (telephoto with 3x optical zoom) | 50-megapixel (main), 12-megapixel (ultrawide), 10-megapixel (telephoto) |
Front-facing camera | 16-megapixels | 4-megapixel (under display), 10-megapixel (front cover) |
Video capture | 4K | 4K |
Processor | Snapdragon 8 Gen Plus 1 | Snapdragon 8 Gen Plus 1 |
Storage/RAM | 12GB + 512GB | 12GB +256GB/512GB/1TB |
Expandable storage | None | None |
Battery/Charger | 5,000 mAh | 4,400mAh |
Fingerprint sensor | Side | Side |
Connector | USB-C | USB-C |
Headphone jack | None | None |
Special features | Foldable phone, 3x optical zoom, 66-watt bundled fast-charger | Foldable phone, 30x optical, 30x space zoom, IPX8, 25-watt fast-charging (no in-box charger) |
Price(USD) | $1,695 (coverted) | $1,800 (256 GB) |
Price (GBP) | £1,420 (converted) | £1,649 (256GB) |
Price (Euros) | 1,599 euros (12GB RAM + 512GB) | 1,799 euros (256GB) |
Technologies
iOS 26: AI Summaries Come Back to iPhone News Apps, but With a Warning
Apple initially disabled these summaries in January.

Apple released iOS 26 on Monday, a few months after the company announced it at the June Worldwide Developers Conference. The update brings a new Liquid Glass redesign, call screening and hidden features to your iPhone. The update also brings AI notification summaries for news and entertainment apps back to Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone.
Apple disabled AI notification summaries for news and entertainment apps in January. That came a few weeks after the BBC pointed out in December that the feature twisted the media organization’s notifications and displayed inaccurate information.
Here’s what to know about those AI summaries and the new warning.
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iOS 26 warns about summary inaccuracies
When I updated to iOS 26, I was greeted by some splash screens asking for various permissions. One splash screen was for the AI notification summaries. When you see this screen, you have two options: Choose Notifications to Summarize or Not Now. If you tap Not Now, the splash screen goes away.
If you tap Choose Notifications to Summarize, you’re taken to a new page where you’ll see three categories: News & Entertainment, Communication & Social and All Other Apps. Tapping one of these categories allows notification summaries for apps in that category. Beneath the News & Entertainment category, there’s a warning that gets outlined in red if you tap it.
«Summarization may change the meaning of the original headline,» the warning reads, adding, «Verify information.»
There’s also a warning across the bottom of the screen that reads, «This is a beta feature. Summaries may contain errors.»
After tapping the categories you want, tap Summarize Selected Notifications across the bottom of your screen. If you selected all the categories, this button will read Summarize All Notifications.
And if you don’t want these summaries, you can tap Do Not Summarize Notifications. If you allow these summaries and don’t like them, you can easily turn them off. Here’s how.
How to turn off AI notification summaries
1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap Notifications.
3. Tap Summarize Notifications.
4. Tap the Summarize Notifications toggle in the new menu.
You can also follow the above steps to turn AI notification summaries back on. You’ll have to select which categories you want these summaries for again, too.
For more on iOS 26, here’s my review of the OS, how to reduce the Liquid Glass effects in the update and how to enable call screening on your iPhone. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet.
Technologies
Amazon Prime Is Ending Shared Free Shipping. What to Know and When It Happens
How Prime Invitee program’s end could affect your free deliveries.

If you’ve been using someone else’s Amazon Prime membership for free shipping, but you don’t live in the same house, you may need to pay another subscription fee soon. According to Amazon’s updated customer service page, the online retail giant is ending its Prime Invitee benefit-sharing program Oct. 1.
Amazon’s Prime Invitee program is being replaced by Amazon Family, as reported earlier by The Verge. It includes many of the same benefits, but Amazon Family only works for up to two adults and four children living in the same «primary residential address» — a shared home.
You’ll still be able to use free shipping to send gifts elsewhere, but your Prime Invitees will no longer be able to use the perk.
Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.
Amazon isn’t the first company to prevent membership sharing between family and friends. The e-commerce giant is just the latest to follow Netflix’s account-sharing crackdown. While it’s unclear whether this change will work for Amazon, Netflix gained over 200,000 subscribers following its policy change. We also saw a similar account-sharing crackdown with Disney Plus and YouTube Premium.
Read more: More Than Just Free Shipping: Here Are 19 Underrated Amazon Prime Perks
What the Amazon Prime shipping crackdown means for you
If you’re the beneficiary of someone else’s Prime Invitee benefits, you have one more month to take advantage of the current program before the changes take effect.
Starting in October, you’ll have to get your own Amazon Prime subscription to benefit from the company’s free shipping program. First-time subscribers get a year of Prime membership for $15, but you’ll be stuck shelling out $15 a month to maintain your subscription thereafter.
Read more: Your Free Pass to Prime Day Deals (No Membership Required)
Why is Amazon ending the Prime Invitee program?
This move follows shortly after Reuters reported that Amazon’s Prime account signups slowed down recently despite an extended July Prime Day event. While the company reported blowout sales numbers, new Prime subscriptions didn’t meet internal expectations. In the US, they fell short of last year’s signup metrics.
According to Reuters, Amazon registered 5.4 million US signups over the 21-day run-up to the Prime Day event, around 116,000 fewer than during the same period in 2024, and 106,000 below the company’s own goal, a roughly 2% decline in both metrics.
By forcing separate households to have their own subscriptions, Amazon could be looking to attract more Prime accounts after previously failing to do so.
The new Amazon Family program (previously known as Amazon Household) offers Prime benefits to up to two adults and four children in a single home, including free shipping, Prime Video, Prime Reading and Amazon Music. The subscription also includes benefits for certain third-party companies, such as GrubHub.
Technologies
Pokemon TCG Pocket’s Pack Points System Needs an Overhaul Yesterday
The pack-opening pity points system is pitiful. There’s a very easy way to improve it.

Pokemon TCG Pocket is more than a mobile game: It’s a money-making machine. The virtual trading card app raked in more than $900 million in its first six months, eclipsing even Pokemon Go’s revenue in the same post-release time span. As it turns out, fake Pokemon cards are just as much of a hot commodity as the real thing.
People love ripping open card packs, hunting down ones with their favorite illustrations of fan-favorite Pokemon. It feels great to beat the odds by pulling an elaborately-inked full art or a shiny secret rare. But it really starts to irk me when I’m missing only one or two cards from a set and I can’t get lucky enough to pull them out of a pack.
Pokemon TCG Pocket has a «pity points» system that’s supposed to make this feel less terrible: Every time you open a pack, you earn five pack points, which you can directly trade in for a card of your choosing.
You can trade in 35 points for a common card, but if you want to get the rarest cards from a set, they could eat up 500 points, 1,250 points or even a whopping 2,500 points each. That means you’d have to rip open 500 card packs in order to earn a single copy of one of Pokemon TCG Pocket’s rarest cards.
It sounds absurd (and it is), but that’s to be expected for a free-to-play game, especially one where the developer makes money by encouraging players to pay for extra card pulls. My real big issue with pack points is that they’re restricted to the expansion set you earned them in.
For example, I have 210 pack points for the latest card set, Secluded Springs, and I’ve been exclusively pulling those packs since it was released. I also have 700 pack points for the game’s first-ever expansion Genetic Apex — but those points are locked to Genetic Apex, and can’t be used for any other set. I’ve accrued hundreds of pack points, but they’re essentially useless to me because they won’t help me complete the sets I’m still missing cards in.
Pokemon TCG Pocket expansion sets are released on a monthly basis, which means no one really has time to earn enough pack points for a rare card before the next shiny slate of cards is dangled in front of your eyes. It propagates a desperate sense of FOMO that I’ve criticized in the past, but there’s a simple solution that would make the problem disappear overnight.
Instead of locking pack points to any one set, they should be an account-wide currency instead. Every time you earn pack points, they should be added to one large pool that you can use on any of the in-game card sets. That way, players wouldn’t have to feel a manufactured sense of guilt for ripping open packs from older sets.
While it’s customary for gacha games to have a pity system that guarantees a certain reward after a certain amount of pulls, it’s by no means a requirement for these games to have these systems. In a sense, I’m grateful that the pack points exist in Pokemon TCG Pocket in the first place.
I think we should always argue for a more consumer-friendly experience in modern gaming. Overhauling the pity system so that pack points can be used universally across all of the in-game card sets will make the game fairer and give more players a real chance to get the rarest cards.
It creates a greater sense of parity between free-to-play and paying players, and it might even cause some people to spend more money on pack openings to boot. Universal pack points are a win-win for players and DeNA alike.
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