HONOR has revealed its latest smartphone, the Magic V5.

The company claims it is the world’s thinnest foldable smartphone at just under 9mm thick when folded.

In one video, a person compares the thickness of the unfolded sides of the phone to a coin.

At MWC Shanghai 2025, Chinese mobile manufacturer HONOR has debuted the HONOR Magic V5, its latest foldable and like Samsung with the Galaxy S25 Edge and soon Apple, the company is going for ultra-thin, this time in the foldable form factor.

HONOR revealed the phone floating on a water bath in Shanghai, where viewers were able to see the device and measure just how thin it is. One person compared the thinness to a Yuan coin. We can also see the rumoured “silk gold” colourway in the video.

See the video of the reveal below:

HONOR teased the device just yesterday with a marketing image, in Chinese, that described the Magic V5 as the “most powerful AI smart phone” and promised “PC-level productivity.”

Translated image from HONOR marketing.

It also claims the smartphone will be the “thinnest and lighest foldable” and we have a Chinese release date of 2nd July 2025. If HONOR’s claims of the foldable being only 8.9mm thick folded, it would be one of the thinnest foldables available, matching the OPPO Find N5.

It also has a 8″ main screen and a 6.45″ cover display, alongside a 6 100mAh battery, and 66W fast charging. Camera wise we can expect a 200MP periscope main snapper and Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset under the hood, all together making a very thin, and likely very expensive flagship foldable.

Will the HONOR Magic V5 come out in South Africa?

The big question is local availability, and there was a time when we would have said that it was likely that the South African market would not see this smartphone. However that time has long past us by.

While OPPO confirmed to us that the Find N5 would not come to South Africa, previous HONOR foldables like the Magic V2 have landed in local shelves. Chinese manufacturers are being more risky with their catalogues of devices in South Africa and have been looking to bring more new foldables to the country.

Leading the charge is Huawei, which launched the Huawei Mate XT in South Africa earlier this year which by our reckoning is the priciest smartphone South Africans can buy locally at R70 000.

Despite this, companies like vivo are still hesitant to bring their foldables to South Africa because of how competitive the segment has become in recent years.

While we can’t say for sure that HONOR will bring the Magic V5 to South Africa, we can say that the odds have never been better.