I was a loyal iPhone user but switched to a foldable smartphone not yet available in the US. It was worth it — even at double the price.

Author Shubham Agarwal bought an Honor Magic V3 foldable smartphone instead of upgrading his iPhone.

I switched to an iPhone over half a decade ago. It was an easy decision: Apple’s iPhone excelled at all the phone jobs I needed, from good pictures to running dozens of apps to lasting a busy workday.

The $999 iPhone X I bought also felt groundbreaking at the time: The nearly edge-to-edge screen was a joy to use, and Face ID made it easy to log in and authenticate digital payments.

In the years since, my screen time has shot up. I do everything on my phone: reading books, catching up on TV shows, doing the daily crossword.

I was spending more time on my handheld than on my computer. And it was all giving me a headache, possibly worsening my myopia. The iPhone’s screen size was too limiting for the smartphone’s evolving role in my life.

Apple upgrades were uninspiring

My iPhone’s cameras and performance improved with upgrades. I appreciate the iPhone 13’s better photography system and the iPhone 15’s universal USB-C port. But the model I own today is fundamentally the same device I used years ago. Such a lack of differentiation made me less inclined to invest another $1,000 to upgrade my iPhone, which I tend to do every two years.

I had a Kindle and an iPad but couldn’t carry them everywhere. Switching back and forth between devices was a chore, and I often ended up doing what I’d reserved the iPad for on my iPhone.

I also considered the “max” iPhone, but it just seemed like an uncomfortably large screen without offering much in return. Apple’s mobile software didn’t have any special features for larger displays.

I was intrigued by foldable smartphones

Agarwal’s most recent iPhone compared to his new Honor Magic V3 folded.

Unsurprisingly, I was tempted by phone makers’ advancements with folding displays. A typical handheld folds out to reveal a tablet-sized screen.

As someone who writes about phones for a living, I got to try a few, but the tech a couple of years ago wasn’t convincing enough to replace my iPhone. Their designs were too thick, fragile, and heavy.

That is until earlier this year, when Apple decided it wouldn’t bring its latest AI features to its one-year-old iPhone 15 models, forcing me to look for alternatives.

Honor, a China-based phone brand, released its Magic V3, the thinnest and lightest foldable phone on the market. Here’s why I bought it, despite its astronomical £1,699 price tag, around $2,205 — more than double what I paid for my iPhone 15 in 2023.

The thinness of the model sold me

While it was over £500 more than what I had paid for a new phone in the past, the amount of time I now spend on my phone justified the investment.

This phone is “book-style,” unfolding horizontally like a book. It’s not officially available in the US yet, but in Europe and the UK, it’s sold in Three and Vodafone stores, in addition to the official Honor website. Honor has doubled its market share in Europe this year.

The thinness of the model sold me. I could take advantage of its folding form factor without compromising on ergonomics.

Even with its two screen halves folded, it’s 9.3mm thick — far slimmer than other foldables like the Samsung Galaxy Fold 6 at 12.1mm, and nearly the same as a traditional top-of-the-line phone, on average 8.4mm. Unfolded, the Magic V3 is 4.4mm thin, half the width of the latest iPhone 16.

iPhone 13 Pro side on with the Honor Magic V3 folded.

As with any other smartphone, the Honor Magic V3 has a tall 6.43-inch screen that dominates the front. This screen suffices for most tasks, like calling someone or responding to texts.

But when I want extra room for reading an article or streaming Netflix, I can fold it out like a book to a wide 8-inch inner display. Whatever app or content I was browsing on the outer screen automatically expands to fill the extended space.

The folding panel is crease-less. The company’s Android-based software makes it possible to leverage the larger screen. If I’m researching for a vacation, I can stick my notes on one side and a web browser on another and work on them side-by-side.

I can multitask like I would on my desktop computer or iPad. It even turns into a mini laptop, with the bottom screen working as a large touch keyboard.

It’s eliminated my need for multiple devices

It wasn’t difficult to migrate my data onto an Android, and now iMessage is supported, I wasn’t missing out on messaging capabilities. I was already using Google Photos to back up my media

After a couple of weeks, the Magic V3 even replaced my Kindle. The phone has an e-book mode with eye-friendly tools, and a Do Not Disturb mode so I can disconnect from notifications while reading. Its inner screen is better for reading books, and the dedicated e-book mode applies a monochrome filter throughout the software. It even minimizes flickers, mitigating headaches caused by prolonged blue-light consumption.

The Honor Magic V3 is the first of many folding phones that challenge the smartphone status quo and could win.

It’s not free of flaws yet. I’m concerned about the phone’s long-term durability, given it packs far more moving parts than an average phone. While it is the slimmest foldable, it’s still slightly more cumbersome than a typical smartphone for most users and their pockets. But since it replaces three devices, I’ve found the effort worth the trouble.

As someone who struggled to justify carrying multiple screens for different purposes, I recommend consolidating them into one.