I reviewed the Honor Magic V Flip 2 Jimmy Choo flip phone. It’s flipping fantastic but needs a global release

By Nirave Gondhia Published August 24, 2025

If you had told me that I would like a Jimmy Choo-inspired flip phone over the Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 or the Galaxy Z Flip 7, I would have laughed in disbelief. Having spent a week with Honor’s new Magic V Flip 2 flip phone, complete with its gorgeous Jimmy Choo branding, I’m glad that I was completely wrong.

It would be easy to judge the Magic V Flip 2 just by its celebrity branding, but this is just the icing on the proverbial cake. Honor’s second-generation Flip phone addresses many of the challenges with flip phones, and it proves that flip phones don’t require compromises. The 200MP main camera, 50MP ultrawide camera, large 5,500 mAh battery, and 80W charging all prove this to be true.

There’s just one key issue: it’s not launching outside of China, at least not right now. It’s rumored to launch globally later, and that’s a good thing: Honor’s new flip phone is so good that it deserves a global launch. It almost certainly won’t launch in the US, but if it launches in other Honor global markets like the UK, it will pose a big challenge to the best from Samsung and Motorola.

For now, it’s the best flip phone that you can’t buy, which is a shame: aside from a few small areas, it’s the best flip phone you can’t buy right now.

Here’s a quick look at the full Honor Magic V Flip 2 specs sheet, and how it compares to the key competition.

There are two main reasons to buy the Honor Magic V Flip 2, and it excels in both of these areas: the camera and the battery life.

As you’ll see from my video capturing my best friend’s wedding, the camera system is incredibly versatile, and it is the closest we’ve come to a flagship camera system on a flip phone. The Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 boasts an excellent 50MP shooter setup, but the 200MP main camera on the Honor Magic V Flip 2 surpasses it. 

The ultrawide lens is a particular highlight, with the saturation hues that we’ve come to associate with Samsung cameras. Images are color-rich, detailed, and vibrant, although there can be a delay in processing images when you capture multiple photos in a row. 

One particularly interesting feature on the Honor Magic V Flip 2 is the new super zoom feature, which offers up to 30X zoom despite the lack of a telephoto lens. Using the same AI tricks as other phones, the Honor Magic V Flip 2 delivers the best zoom performance on a flip phone to date. It won’t compete against the best camera phones like the Pixel 10 Pro and Galaxy S25 Ultra, but it proves that flip phones can have an effective telephoto setup without needing a third lens.

Like every other flip phone, you can easily take selfies using the front display and the main cameras, and given the camera is second-to-none, this is my favorite flip phone for taking selfies. Video recording could be improved when using the rear cameras and the front display, and there’s occasional blur where the phone took too long to process the image, but these are some gripes with an otherwise fantastic smartphone camera. If I had another wedding to attend, I would take the Honor Magic V Flip 2 with me.

The 5,500 mAh battery in the Honor Magic V Flip 2 is larger than many of the best phones, and the battery life shows. Over the past two weeks with the Honor’s new flip phone, one thing has become clear: the Honor Magic V Flip 2 sets new benchmarks in battery life and charging for flip phones.

During my friend’s wedding, it lasted almost 40 hours on a single charge with between five and six hours of screen time. Honor’s battery graph resets at midnight, making it challenging to collect exact data. However, battery life has proven to be better than my experiences with the Galaxy Z Flip 7. The Razr Ultra 2025 is much closer, but Honor has a slight upper hand, which is further extended when you use the main display over the cover display.

Then there’s the charging, and Honor has also set a new benchmark here. The Honor Magic V Flip 2 supports 80W wired charging, which Honor claims can charge the phone to full in just 42 minutes. In my testing, it takes a few minutes longer, but it’s still easily the fastest charging flip phone on the market.

If you want a flip phone with battery life equal to the best phones, look no further than the Honor Magic V Flip 2.

This isn’t just limited to the wired charging, as the Honor Magic V Flip 2 also features 50W wireless charging, which is much faster than the 30W charging offered by the Razr Ultra 2025 and the 15W wireless charging in the Galaxy Z Flip 7. If you’re looking for a flip phone with battery life comparable to the best phones, the Honor Magic V Flip 2 is the perfect choice.

There are two areas in which the Honor Magic V Flip 2 could be better, but even in these areas, Honor deserves commendation for what the Magic V Flip 2 offers out of the box. 

First, there are Google services, and as you may have guessed, the Honor Magic V Flip 2 doesn’t ship with Google services enabled out of the box. Yet, despite this being a Chinese device with a Chinese ROM, you can easily enable Google services with one tap in the settings menu. The only impact is that it’s harder to transfer from another phone during the setup, although again, Honor has a solution in its Honor Clone app. 

Where this does start to be frustrating is if you use Gemini or other Google apps and services. They all work, except for some apps like eBay, which aren’t supported and can’t be installed. However, there’s no easy way to launch Gemini. By default, the YOYO assistant launches when you press and hold the power button, and there’s no way to set this to Gemini, nor does the voice command work to launch Google’s next-generation assistant. This is likely because the software is designed for the Chinese market, where Google services aren’t available, and any global launch would likely have Gemini and Google apps working as with any other Android phone.

Then there is the front display, and the Honor Magic V Flip 2 takes a different approach. Despite a full-screen 4-inch display, it’s designed to be split and display menus or apps on the right-hand side, with a smaller banner featuring a clock on the left. This makes apps and menus appear vertical, like they would on a regular phone, although the scaled-down size can make it challenging to read text in an app.

There’s also the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, which is now two years old, and the lack of guaranteed future Android updates. The processor is somewhat of a disappointment, but I’ve yet to experience any noticeable lag. However, its age does mean it won’t run on-device AI as well as the competition, nor will it be as good for gaming. These downsides aside, there are a ton of reasons to like the Honor Magic V Flip 2.

On paper, the Honor Magic V Flip 2 has the upper hand compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Moto Razr Ultra 2025, although both of those phones have a couple of key advantages. 

Honor’s folding phone boasts a superior camera compared to its competitors, along with better battery life and faster charging. The front display isn’t as functional as Motorola’s, but it is better out of the box than the Galaxy Z Flip 7. In the box, the  Honor Magic V Flip 2 comes with an 80W charging brick and a matching protective case, while neither of the competition includes either of these.

Where the Razr Ultra 2025 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 excel is their global availability; the Honor Magic V Flip 2 is exclusive to China right now, and its CNY 5,499 price tag makes it far cheaper than the competition when converted, although any eventual global price will be much higher. That said, if you can easily buy any of these three, I’d have no hesitation in recommending the Honor Magic V Flip 2

Aside from a few areas of improvement, the Honor Magic V Flip 2 is everything I want in a folding phone. The Jimmy Choo Dreamwaver edition is particularly unique, and the rest of the specs sheet is absolutely fantastic. In fact, the entire Honor Magic V Flip 2 experience is excellent.

Yes, it’s a challenge to acquire, and it won’t be as accessible or affordable as the competition, thanks to the Best Razr Ultra deals and the best Galaxy Flip 7 deals. Yet, it works fairly well on US-carriers — although it is missing mmWave and some choice bands — and despite some software areas, it works just as well as a global phone. 

I didn’t expect to, but it turns out that I love the Honor Magic V Flip 2. I hope that Honor brings this to as many global markets as possible.