What Display Daily thinks: There are a lot of issues with Chinese smartphone brands. One major one is that they are spread thing globally which means you can find them in many markets where others fear to thread, but they also lack the infrastructure to support those markets which often means frustrations for consumers. The Honor Magic Vs is a great example of the contrasting success and failures of Chinese brands, with a great display, and then some missing attention to details, the kind of thing that Apple and Samsung do really well.
The US may be in the bag for Apple, and iPhones may be gaining traction in China and India, but whatever the quality and support issues are around foldables, they represent a distinct opportunity for the smartphone market to move away from the traditional. Consumers will forgive a lot of the problems with foldables, the very faults that hold Apple back from adopting the format.
All display manufacturers should be asking their customers, their staff, their partners, and of their engineering teams: how close are we to the post-iPhone era in smartphones? It’s probably the most important question to ask if you want to set up your mobile strategy for the next five years.
The Honor Magic Vs
The Honor Magic Vs impresses with its lightweight structure and foldable design, reminiscent of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold series. Featuring a 7.9-inch internal screen and a 6.45-inch external screen, the Magic Vs’ external screen’s 21:9 aspect ratio has a nice form factor. It’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 mobile platform and a 4nm 5G SoC processor running the proprietary MagicOS 7.1, based on the Honor OS Turbo X. it also comes with a 4900 mAh battery, and supports 66W wired charging.
But, the phone has its fair share of issues including its MagicOS lacking some of the basic functionality of Android, and while it is Honor’s flagship phone, it doesn’t quite come up the standards of a Samsung foldable in many areas of detail. It’s still on the old Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 platform, and there has been disappointment among online reviewers of its secondary camera.
At around $1,700, you’d expect a bigger backlash, but that’s the thing with foldables, they get a lot of leeway. It gets middling reviews, but it still stands out as a flagship for Honor, and generates brand awareness. With the exception of Apple, no other smartphone vendor seems eager to get left behind on foldables for those reasons. That speaks volumes about how important the display is to the smartphone market because, frankly, nothing much else is compelling upgrades or replacements. Maybe the camera but premium priced phones are predominantly acquired by older consumers who are less likely to be as driven by selfies and social media posting. In other words, cameras have become good enough.
