What you need to know
- Honor Magic Vs receives its first teardown ahead of global release.
- YouTuber JerryRigEverything showcases the new hinge mechanism in the latest teardown video.
- The new mechanism uses very few components and is 62% lighter.
Honor is gearing up to launch its latest foldable flagship smartphone, the Magic Vs, globally through MWC 2023 later this month. The device debuted earlier in China back in November.
While we wait for its launch at an international level, YouTuber JerryRigEverything got his hands on the device, which he tore down and revealed the hinge mechanism on which the foldable device sits.
We already published our first hands-on with the device, and Android Central's Harish Jonnalagadda believed it to be the perfect alternative to the current foldable smartphones that Samsung and Xiaomi make.
One of the primary takeaways of the Magic Vs is its hinge design, which Honor proudly claims to be groundbreaking. According to Honor, it translates to a lightweight, gearless hinge design made through a single-piece casting process technology. It also claims to reduce the number of components to four from 92 while maintaining durability and sturdiness. This is unlike Samsung's Galaxy Fold 4 or Fold 3's hinge design, which involves a lot of tiny gears to move the hinge effortlessly.
The new hinge design reduces the number of components used. It allows the foldable screen to fold entirely flat, which its competitors, like Galaxy foldables, have yet to be able to accomplish.
In his latest teardown video, Jerry opens up the Honor Magic Vs, a pre-production unit he received from Honor ahead of the international debut. He further shows and explains how Honor has been able to achieve the gearless design with the new hinge.
The foldable device is believed to fold easily since the hinge joined the metal components with black aerospace-grade plastic rather than using gears equipped with 92 separate structural components. This makes the hinge 62% lighter than the predecessor model. This casting has apparently reduced the small pieces that help in folding the device to four main components, which the casting structure holds through springs, like a suspension system seen in vehicles.
Alongside the intriguing hinge mechanism, Jerry's teardown video further showcases what to expect from the internals of the upcoming Honor Magic Vs. It showcases the large 7.9-inch foldable screen and the 54MP primary camera module, amongst four other cameras with which the foldable device ships. The device will be powered by Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and a 5000mAh battery — the largest on a foldable yet — with 66W fast charging.
The Honor Magic Vs is expected to launch globally later this month at MWC 2023.
