Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 vs. Honor Magic Vs [Comparison]

As a fan of foldables, I couldn’t resist the wish not to try the new Hunor Magic Vs, and compare it with my own Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 which I’ve been using for almost 10 months. The Honor is with me for a week now for a test, and I’m quite satisfied with most that I’ve seen so far. So, if you’re considering getting a foldable phone, read our Honor Magic Vs Comparison with Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4.

Honor Magic Vs Comparison with Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 – The packages

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 comes in a notably smaller box than Honor Magic Vs. The reason for this is that the latter brings a charger inside, as well as a protective case. Samsung, on the other hand, comes only with a cable.

Honor Magic Vs Comparison with Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 – Casing

There’s not much to say here. Honor Magic Vs wins this battle at a large scale. It’s due to its symmetrical form factor, wideness in a folded state, and usability of the cover display. Unlike in the case of Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4, there’s no gap between the panels. Also, Honor is wider, so it can be used as a regular smartphone in a folded state. Samsung doesn’t have this advantage due to its narrowness.

The second big thing is the hinge. Honor made great progress in constructing this key part of the foldable phone, with a completely new approach. Instead of 92 parts in its predecessor, Honor Magic VS now managed to reduce them to only 4. Also, They used new materials like magnesium and titan alloys, which helped make the hinge more reliable and lighter. In the end, this has a notable impact on the overall weight of the phone.

The Hinge

In the Long term review of Huawei Mate Xs 2, I already mentioned that the casing oc my own Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 had to be replaced after a few months of use, due to some kind of failure in the hinge itself. Something got broken for no obvious reason, and the phone stuck in half- folded state. Of course, Samsung replaced it as a part of the warranty deal, but this situation left a bad taste in my mouth. Mostly because I had to wait a whole month for needed parts to arrive to the local service.

Handling

Folding Honor feels a little bit different compared to Samsung. The latter is a little bit tougher to unfold, and the reason for that might be the size of its panels, which are notably narrower. Both phones can be put ih a semi-folded state, and you can pick the angle for yourself if you want to leave it on the table to, for example, take a selfie or watch something on YouTube.

Major Honor’s shortcoming, when it comes to hardware, is the lack of a waterproof certificate. Samsung’s Fold4 is fully water-resistant, with IPX8 certification. Thich means that it’s still not dust-resistant, though. So, if you intend to buy Honor Magic Vs, you should be more careful where you place it, so as not to be spilled on by the water or drinks.

Honor Magic Vs Comparison with Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 needs a few words about that protective case in Honor’s box too. Well, it is nice that Honor put it inside the selling package, but the case itself cannot be of much use. It protects only the back side of the phone, while the cover display and its surroundings remain unprotected.

Honor Magic Vs Comparison with Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 – Displays

The cover displays are quite similar, except the Honor’s one is larger, and what is more important – wider. It measures 6,45 inches, and it can be used just like any other regular phone. Samsung brings a 6,2“ cover display, with a weird aspect ratio of 23,1:9. This makes it very narrow and quite difficult to use. Both displays sport adaptive refresh rates with a max of 120 Hz, but Samsung brought more advanced technology – Dynamic AMOLED 2X, which is slightly better than Honor’s OLED. Surely, the difference on paper is obvious, but in real life, there are not many people who can notice it.

When it comes to main displays, that is foldable ones, we have a similar situation. Honor’s display is larger. It measures 7,9 inches in diagonal, and Samsung’s one is 7,6“. The difference is notable, and I personally prefer the larger one.

However, Samsung made a better job here in general, because it brings Dynamic AMOLED 2X just like in the cover display. It has a 120 Hz adaptive refresh rate and 1200 nits of brightness. On the other hand, Honor brings OLED with a 90 Hz refresh rate and notably weaker brightness with 800 nits. Even if you can’t spot the difference between 90 and 120 Hz refresh rates, you will definitely notice that Samsung’s brightness under the sunlight makes content more readable.

In normal circumstances, the difference is visible too, but not to that extent. It can be described as a different color rendering because Samsung’s black is deeper than Honor’s. The same applies to white, which is rather a little bit yellowish on Honor. The gray has different shades on each of them.

The crease

The crease in the middle of both phones’ displays is visible equally. No doubt about that. If you chose either Samsung or Honor, you will get used to it in approximately the same period of time. It usually takes a few days, and you simply forget about it. When the displays are on, the crease is still visible, but not that much. When watching videos or playing games, the crease is hardly visible on both phones.

Honor Magic Vs Comparison with Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 here results in Samsung winning the overall inner display battle. The only advantage of Honor’s display is its size, which some of us prefer, but not over brightness and refresh rate. Still, this drawback shouldn’t be your deal breaker for Honor, if you decide to get one. When it comes to cover display, I undoubtedly prefer Honor’s.

Honor Magic Vs Comparison with Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 – Hardware and performance

Both Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 and Honor Magic Vs are equipped with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, which is last year’s Qualcomm flagship processor. They both behave approximately the same way, and there should not be any major differences in their use. Both of them also come with 12 GB of RAM, and start with 256 GB of internal memory, while Samsung tops it with an 1TB variant.

However, the Geekbech 6 results are surprisingly different. Samsung achieved 1765 points in single-core mode, and 4173 in multi-core. Honor, on the other hand, managed to reach 1415 and 2017 respectively. As I already said, in real life, you’ll hardly notice the difference, except in case you are a hard-core gamer.

Honor Magic Vs Comparison with Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 – Software and interface

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 is now upgraded to Android 13 and One UI 5.1. Honor Magic Vs comes with Android 13 out of the box and MagicOS 7 over it. Each manufacturer keeps their guidelines in the design of the interface, so many details may differ. For example, Honor changed the name of widgets, and it now calls them „Cards“. This may be confusing for some, but it’s not a big deal.

In this Honor Magic Vs Comparison with Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4, I have to say that one of Samsung’s One UI advantages is the possibility of having different contents on the cover display and the foldable one. This can be useful due to the very nature of Samsung’s phone, which is quite narrow, as you can’t put that many icons and widgets on it. When you unfold the phone, the layout can be completely different. Since I got used to it on Samsung, now I miss similar functionality on Honor. On the bright side, Honor’s cover display is wide enough, so my sorrow slowly faded.

The overall software experience is, once again, better on Samsung. Honor’s Magic OS does not offer as many large-display functionalities as Samsung’s one. Surely, Honor is still struggling with Huawei’s legacy, and hasn’t gotten rid of it yet completely.

Additional features

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 has a neat feature called a taskbar. Just like that one on Windows, but of course, with significantly smaller keys. This taskbar can often be helpful in terms of acting as an alternative dock, which you can find interesting if you don’t like scrolling between homescreens.

Multitasking is very well done on both phones. Split screen and multi-windows functions do their jobs, as well as floating apps that can be fixed anywhere over the desktop area.

Yet again, Honor lacks many tricks that Samsung managed to introduce in its foldables even before, but It’s reasonable to expect improvement in coming software updates.

Honor Magic Vs Comparison with Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 – Cameras

Foldable phones have never packed top-notch cameras, due to their nature. The precious room in the casing couldn’t be used for fancy sensors and periscope lenses. The result is very good cameras, that serve their purpose. Of course, nobody wants a bad camera on their $2000 phone, and you don’t have to worry about that. The cameras on both phones take very good photos. There’s no doubt about it.

Honor Magiv Vc packs a triple camera. Setup, with 54 MP main sensor. It has 27mm equivalent lenses with f/1.9 aperture and PDAF. The obvious drawback here is lack of the optical stabilization. Still, if you’re worried about that, you shouldn’t be, cause software does it job pretty well. There will be no shaky videos.

The second camera on the Honor Magic Vs is an 8 MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom. This one does have optical stabilization, so you can easily take spy photos of your neighbors. The third is a 50 MP ultrawide camera with a 13 mm equivalent for taking photos at 122 degrees angle.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4, on the other hand, has a 50 MP f/1.8, 23mm main camera with Dual Pixel PDAF, and optical stabilization. The latter is an obvious advantage over Honor’s main camera, but it should not be a deal breaker for Honor.

The second one brings a 10 MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom, with OIS as well. The third is 12 MP ultrawide with 12 mm equivalent, and It covers 123 degrees angle.

Video recording

There’s one more main difference between these two cameras. Samsung is able to take 8K videos, while Honor has stuck at 4K. You might consider this like drawback for Honor too, but to be honest, neither Samsung“s nor any other 8K video recorder on any phone still doesn’t meet expectable criteria. This means that any 8K video shot by Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 probably won’t meet your expectations, even if you play it on your brand new expensive TV set with 8K resolution.

For the time being, 4K video is standard, and both Samsung and Honod do a great job here. You don’t have to worry about video quality, because in the last decade, since 4K recording took place on the phones, it’s finally matured enough.

Camera software

When it comes to camera software, Samsung did a better job again. There are many tricks packed into folding states, which are non-existent on the Honor Magic Vs. For example, on Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 you can semi-fold the phone and put it into some form of laptop. Then, place it on the table and take selfies or photos with the main camera. So, in this case, the phone can be used as a tripod by itself. Unfortunately, you can’t do this on Honor Magic Vs.

Battery life and charging

Honor Magic Vs comes with a 5000 mAh battery, while Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 packs 4400 mAh. The difference here is obvious, but you also have to take into account that Honor has a larger screen, which is also a bigger energy consumer. In the battery test, I compared how phones behave in different situations like watching videos, surfing the web, and using social media. Surprisingly, Samsung achieved better overall results despite its smaller battery.

I’ve tried to behave the same way with both phones during the day, and none of them could actually make it through the evening. In general, when Honor’s battery percentage falls to 15%, Samsung still has 27% of juice. Disclaimer: this may vary from time to time, and from user to user, depending of how you use your phone. Honor obviously has more job to do here, especially when it comes to optimizing software.

And yes, I almost forgot. Honor Magic Vs doesn’t support wireless charging. It’s not a big deal for me, but it’s still weird.

Camera samples

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4

Honor Magic Vs

Charging speed

But wait. The battle is not over yet. Honor Magic Vs wins when it comes to charging speed. The box packs a 66W charger, which charges your phone from 0 to 100% within 50 minutes. Samsung needs 1 hour and 20 minutes for the same job, which makes a huge difference when you’re in a hurry.

Conclusion

Both Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 and Honor Vs are great phones for those who prefer foldables, or have any kind of need for large displays. Personally, I admit that I’m a fan of foldables, but I also find my daily work done better since I’ve started using them.

Emails are easier to read and easier to write too. The same applies when opening and working with Office documents. Of course, foldable phones still can’t replace your laptop, but they surely can make your everyday work on the phone easier in general.

Now we come to the moment of choice in this Honor Magic Vs Comparison with Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4. Which foldable do you buy? Well, in this comparison, we’ve seen pros and cons for both Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 and Honor Magic Vs, so everyone should consider all these details to make their own decision.

For example, a larger display on Honor might be the key point over Samsung for those who prefer larger working areas. Furthermore, those who want to use a foldable like a regular phone too, without the need for a long period of time to adapt to Samsung’s narrow cover display, should also definitely choose Honor. Last, but not least reason for such a decision is the gap. Not that much in the sense of the gap itself, but more because of the device’s richness. Also, the asymmetrical shape in the folded state might also be an issue for some. So, Honor did a better job with the new hinge, which is undoubtedly a big advantage over Samsung.

Which one should I chose?

When we take a look at other details, we can see that Samsung wins many other battles. The software department is doing quite better, and the only hope for Honor is a quick response with a new software update. Samsung also did a slightly better job optimizing software overall. The same hardware shows slightly better results in Samsung, which will not be noticeable in real life, but the benchmark results are still there. What has been seen, cannot be unseen.

Honor Magic Vs Comparison with Samsung’s foldable suggests that camera results are slightly better in Samsung. They should not be taken into account when making the decision. 8K video recording in Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 isn’t a significant advantage over 4K in Honor Magic Vs. Other stuff in the camera department can be discussable. As I mentioned before when buying this kind of device, photography shouldn’t be your priority.

The choice should be based on your needs and preferences

The same applies to display. Samsung’s one is visibly better, but it shouldn’t be a deal breaker for Honor. The reason is that difference between these displays in real-life conditions is not that big. Except maybe under direct sunlight. In that case, you simply fold back and use the cover display, which is actually great, which, unlike Samsung’s one, can be actually usable.

Another Samsung victory in this Honor Magic Vs Comparison is water resistant IP certificate, which Honor doesn’t have, but we will leave it to you to decide if you really need it. We can say the same for the battery life but shouldn’t be a deal breaker either. Even though Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 achieves better battery performance, you can charge your Honor Magic Vs twice faster as Samsung. And don’t forget that you have to buy Samsung’s charger separately.