Honor’s New Foldable And Tablet Show Off Apple-Like Software Synergy

One of the reasons some people prefer to use Apple products over competing ones is because Apple products have excellent software synergy. Record a voice memo on your Apple Watch, for example, and that same memo will be on your iPhone within seconds. Files saved on your MacBook home screen can be accessed from your iPad and iPhone, provided you are paying for iCloud storage.

This is one area Android and Microsoft products have lagged Apple, but that’s slowly changing. Honor just announced a slew of new products at the IFA tradeshow in Berlin, including a new laptop, smartwatch, foldable phones and tablet. I have been testing the latter two products for the past month, and while each other product has impressive hardware in its own right (particularly the foldable phones), it’s been the seamless software connectivity between the two that have really impressed me.

Let’s take a quick look at the two pieces of hardware: the foldable phone is the Magic V3, which as of right now is the thinnest and lightest foldable phone in the world, measuring only 9.4mm thick when folded (compared to the 12.1mm of Samsung’s latest) and weighing just 226g.

These dimensions make the Magic V3 feel just like a normal flagships phone. In fact, it feels more compact in the hand than all the recent top flagships from Apple, Google, and Samsung. For a foldable phone with two screens to achieve this is extremely impressive craftsmanship.

The phone’s powered by the latest components too, from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 to the LTPO OLED panels to the presence of a very capable triple camera system including a periscope zoom.

I think the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro’s cameras are still slightly ahead, but the Magic V3 being quite a bit thinner and lighter gives it wider mainstream appeal. If you want to know more about the phone, I have a video below.

Moving onto the tablet, the Honor MagicPad 2 is a 12.3-inch tablet with a 144Hz OLED screen. The latter is probably the star of the show, since most tablets in the world have not made the jump to premium OLED panels yet (even Apple’s iPad just recently made the switch few months ago, and that’s only the highest tier Pro model).

Paired with eight speakers with IMAX Enhanced, the MagicPad 2 is one of the best portable screens one can have for media consumption right now.

The tablet, weighing 555g and measuring 5.3mm, is also one of the lighter and thinner tablets on the market, though not as class leading as its foldable counterpart.

Powering the MagicPad 2 is the Snapdragon 8S Gen 3, which is slightly lower in the pecking order than the standard 8 Gen 3. It’s still plenty capable. Paired with a keyboard and stylus, I’ve been doing work off the tablet (including writing this review now) with the MagicPad 2.

MagicOS 8’s synergy

These devices are pretty great on their own, but when used together, that’s when Honor’s software synergy kicks in and makes the experience more enjoyable than previous Android devices.

The Magic V3 and MagicPad 2 can connect together via “Magic Ring,” which is Honor’s name for its version of the NearLink technology (pioneered by Huawei). Magic Ring (or, rather, NearLink) connects via a combination of WiFi and Bluetooth signals for a much faster connection than just Bluetooth.

You only have to do the Magic Ring connection once. After that, anytime you turn on the MagicPad 2, if your Magic V3 is also nearby, the two devices are connected. This allows things like two-way screen mirroring and sharing: I can broadcast the foldable phone screen on the tablet, or vice versa. I can control the device remotely this way too.

I can also share files between devices via drag and drop. Or if I snap a photo with the phone, it shows up on the tablet’s photo gallery immediately.

But my favorite use case is that the MagicPad 2 can automatically use the phone’s cellular data if the there is no WiFi available. I often take my devices out to coffee shops to work, and some coffee shops do not offer WiFi. Several times, I’ve pulled out the MagicPad 2, turned it on, and it immediately asked if I wanted to use my Magic V3’s data connection since the tablet was not connected to WiFi. I just have to tap “yes” and my tablet is connected.

With most other devices, in this same situation, I would have to manually go into my phone’s settings to turn on mobile hotspot, and then go into the tablet’s settings to connect to that hotspot. Is this the most troublesome process in the world? Of course not, but it’s still nice to be able to skip this step.

Finally, another quality of life improvement is that when my phone gets incoming text messages, it shows up on the tablet too. This has been very helpful for me as I am someone who is prone to missing phone messages when I am busy writing or editing videos on a laptop or tablet. In the past, girlfriends have gotten upset with me for not responding to texts for over an hour because I was too concentrated on the laptop/tablet screen. This likely would not happen if I am using the Magic V3 and MagicPad 2.

It’s great to see Honor put more emphasis on having a connected eco-system that works so smoothly. It helps that these devices bring tremendous hardware too.