2028 Mercedes-Benz VLE first drive: Your 8K living room on wheels has arrived
With 416 horsepower, a 31-inch 8K screen and Dolby Atmos, Benz's electric "Grand Limousine" might just make minivans cool.
Tag Archives: Reviews
Sunseeker Elite X7 Gen 2 Review: 24/7 Cutting with iToF Night Vision
PROS:
- Wire-free RTK and VSLAM 2.0 navigation holds its line under tree canopy
- True 24/7 cutting via binocular daylight and iToF night-vision cameras
- Floating dual-disc deck delivers clean, even stripes on uneven terrain
- 70 percent slope rating clears embankments that defeat wheeled rivals
- Quiet 60 dB(A) operation and hose-down IPX5 cleaning ease ownership
CONS:
- Premium price keeps it out of reach for budget buyers
- Anti-theft and RTK extras add subscription costs over time
EDITOR'S QUOTE:
The X7 Gen 2 takes the flagship's brain and cutting hardware down to the model that fits most yards, and after a week on my worst terrain it earned the trust to run unwatched.
I’ve spent the past week running the Sunseeker Elite X7 Gen 2 across a property that breaks every rule in the robot mower playbook: mature oaks that block GPS, side slopes that send wheeled mowers sliding, and a front lawn that looks serene but hides enough root systems to trip a goat.
The X7 isn’t a stripped-down machine and it isn’t an overbuilt one. It’s the model that hands most yards the full Gen 2 toolkit without charging for acreage they’ll never touch, and that’s exactly why it matters.
Most buyers don’t need coverage they’ll never use or a cellular module that adds a subscription to the ownership cost. They need a machine that can handle real terrain, cut at night, and not turn a weekend into a wire-burial project. The Elite X7 Gen 2 delivers the Gen 2 platform’s best navigation, vision, and cutting hardware in the model built for the yard most people actually have.
My yard is the kind of place reviewers quietly avoid. It’s 6,777 square feet in central Texas, carved up by 32 mature oaks that throw GPS shadows across half the lawn, threaded with surface roots, and planted in St. Augustine that grows thick and clumps when it’s wet.
The tank-tread mower I tested earlier this year got through it on raw torque and rubber grip. The X7 Gen 2 takes the opposite approach, and watching a wheeled mower solve the same yard with vision and steering geometry instead of brute force is the real story here.
How I’m Testing
This is a hands-on review, not a spec readout. I ran the X7 Gen 2 as my only mower for a full week, cutting the whole property on a normal schedule rather than staging one clean demo pass.
Over those seven days I mapped the yard wire-free, set no-go zones around the beds, and ran both day and night cycles so I could watch the binocular and iToF cameras work in each. I aimed it at the parts of my lawn that punish robot mowers: the GPS-shadowed back half under the oaks, the side slopes and the back embankment, the narrow run between the house and the fence, and the thick St. Augustine on damp Texas mornings. Everything below comes from that week of real cutting.
Design + Ergonomics
Set the X7 Gen 2 next to a first-generation X7 and the family resemblance is obvious, but the details have moved. The deck carries dual 14-inch cutting discs instead of a single narrow rotor, which widens the body and gives the machine a planted, low stance rather than the toy-like silhouette most robot mowers settle for.
The 8.7-inch all-terrain wheels sit at the corners in a tread pattern gentle enough on turf to spare my softer St. Augustine patches the scarring a heavier wheel would leave. A front independent suspension system lets the chassis articulate over my exposed oak roots without lifting a drive wheel off the ground, and a floating cut disc rides the contour underneath, so the blades hold a consistent height even when the body is pitching over uneven soil.
Setup is where the design philosophy shows. There’s no perimeter wire to bury, which on my property would’ve meant a weekend trenching around flower beds and tree rings. Instead I drove the mower along the boundary like an RC car through the app, dropped no-go zones around the planting islands of trees and shrubs, plus the soft mulch beds, and let AONavi commit the map to memory.
The new smart LCD screen on top reads battery, connection, and mode at a glance, a practical step up from the simple LED indicator on the Gen 1 series. Cleaning is a hose-down job thanks to the IPX5 rating, and a small wheel brush sweeps clippings and grit out of the treads as it drives, the kind of quiet maintenance fix that only earns its keep after a few weeks of real use.
At 60 dB(A) it’s quiet enough to run a pre-dawn cycle without a neighbor noticing, and the 28-inch narrow-passage clearance let it thread the gap between my house and the fence line that a wider deck would’ve refused.
Tech + Performance
The hardest thing you can ask a robot mower to do on my property is hold its position under the oaks, and this is where the Gen 2 navigation earns its place. AONavi fuses RTK satellite positioning with VSLAM 2.0 vision, so when the canopy swallows the satellite signal across the back half of the yard, the mower leans on its cameras instead of stalling or drifting. Sunseeker rates VSLAM 2.0 for up to an hour of signal-denied operation, and in practice that’s the difference between a machine that finishes the shaded zone and one that parks itself waiting for satellites.
A 10 TOPS compute chip, double the 5 TOPS silicon in the Gen 1, runs the perception in real time, and the responsiveness shows in how early the mower reacts to an obstacle rather than nosing into it first.
Vision AI 2.0 splits the work between a binocular camera for daylight and an iToF camera for night, adding up to a 24/7 perception system that recognizes more than 200 obstacle categories, from garden hoses and sprinkler heads to the squirrels that treat my yard as a thoroughfare, and cliff sensing keeps it from walking off my retaining-wall edge.
That mix is what lets me leave it running unattended. It holds the virtual boundary and reads its own drop-offs, so I’m not stuck watching for it to roll off the curb or wander off into the street while I’m inside. Lift, tilt, and collision sensors back that up, cutting the blades the moment the machine is raised or knocked off level.
The night camera is the rare piece here. Running a cut after dark and watching it track edges and step around a coiled hose in near-total darkness is something most mowers in this class can’t do at all, and it changes when you schedule the yard, not only how.
Cutting runs on twin 14-inch discs spinning at 2,600 to 2,800 RPM with six blades per disc, and the electronic height adjustment spans 0.8 to 4.0 inches without any manual shimming. Target Height Management lets you set a goal height on overgrown stretches and have the mower step down across several passes instead of scalping the lawn in one aggressive cut.
On the thick St. Augustine near my oaks, that metered approach keeps the finish even instead of scalping it, the trade a single high-torque cyclone pass tends to make on dense growth. Two engineering answers to the same problem: power through the grass, or step down to it.
The cut-before-turn geometry is the design choice that does the most quiet work. The rear active steering motor lets the X7 mow through a line first and then pivot, where rear-wheel-steer competitors crush a strip of grass flat during the turn and leave uncut patches behind.
On my lawn that means straighter lines and fewer missed seams between passes, helped by a hill-hold system that holds a straight track across my side slopes instead of sliding downhill the way wheeled mowers usually do. All of it rides on the ATC all-wheel-drive system rated for 70 percent grades and 35 degrees, which cleared the embankment along my back fence that I’d written off as a hand-trimming chore.
The finish is the part that matters most on a mower like this, and after a full week the lawn reads as clean parallel stripes instead of the random scribble of a typical robot pattern. The straight passes come from the RTK lines, but the even tone across the whole yard comes from the floating discs tracking the ground. Where the lawn dips near the oaks and rolls along the side slopes, the cut stays level rather than gouging the high spots or leaving shaggy tufts in the dips.
My St. Augustine clumps the moment it gets damp, and the floating deck keeps the blades cutting clean through it instead of matting it down or leaving windrows. Changing height is an app slider, so I drop it for the spring flush and raise it through the Texas summer without touching the machine. It also rides close enough to my bed edges and the driveway to keep one wheel on the hard surface, which means far less cleanup with the string trimmer afterward, and because it docks itself at the first sign of rain, I’m not fighting the torn, clumpy finish wet grass usually leaves.
On my setup, RTK initialization settled within a couple of minutes per session and the map held its shape across the full week of testing. The Elite X7 Gen 2 cleans its boundaries with a dedicated Edge-Following mode and a separate Ride-On cutting mode, and Spot Cutting picks up any patch it routes around an obstacle without re-running the whole yard. The edges stayed crisp and the map never drifted, exactly what you want from a wire-free system you’re trusting to run on its own.
On connectivity the Elite X7 Gen 2 leans on 3rd Super Wi-Fi, to stay tied to its RTK base, so 4G rides along as an optional anti-theft add-on rather than a requirement, which is one less subscription-shaped worry.
Multi-zone and multi-angle scheduling let me run the front and back on different patterns and cutting heights, the return modes range from a tidy edge-hugging path to a straight-line rapid return below 30 percent battery, with an intelligent route option that varies the path home to spare the turf, and auto rain detection pulls it back to the dock in wet weather.
Alexa and Google Assistant cover voice control, and OTA updates keep the feature set moving. Sunseeker’s Lawn Art pattern printing is live and delivered via OTA update, so it’s ready to use once your mower pulls the latest firmware.
Sustainability
Longevity is the part of a robot mower a single week can’t fully judge, so here I’m reading the design intent as much as the early results. The Elite X7 Gen 2 runs a 10 Ah battery off a 5A charger, and Sunseeker Elite positions the blade modules as consumables you swap without tearing down the deck, which matches the maintenance rhythm I’ve lived with on other premium mowers: inspect and replace blades, hose down the deck, check the RTK base and the charging contacts.
The self-cleaning wheel brush and the IPX5 rating cut the routine work, and OTA updates keep the software side maintaining itself.
The wire-free design has a quieter sustainability angle that’s easy to miss: there’s no several-hundred-foot run of buried boundary wire to install, damage, and eventually send to a landfill, and reshaping a zone is a software edit rather than a dig.
Paired with 60 dB(A) operation that keeps odd-hour cutting neighborly, it makes a reasonable case on the ownership math, provided Sunseeker Elite confirms the battery holds up across the years the rest of the machine clearly will.
Value
Price is where the sweet-spot argument either holds or falls apart. The Elite X7 Gen 2 is priced at $2,499 for the 0.75-acre model, and the value question isn’t really about the number; it’s about what the number buys. Wire-free setup, night cutting, dual-disc cutting hardware, electronic height adjustment, a 70 percent slope rating, and navigation that holds its line under a tree canopy are what that number buys, and for a yard under three-quarters of an acre, you’re paying for capability you’ll actually use.
Unless your lawn pushes past 0.75 acres, none of those step-ups change how the grass gets cut, which is the whole argument for the Elite X7 Gen 2 landing where it does.
Against the broader category, the Elite X7 Gen 2’s case is about what you give up to get wheels and vision. Tank-tread rivals answer difficult terrain with raw grip and bigger batteries, the better tool for a torn-up acre but more than a tidy three-quarter-acre lawn needs. Other wheeled RTK mowers match the navigation approach but tend to run larger decks at higher prices, and the established wire-based systems still ask you to bury a perimeter loop, the exact friction the Elite X7 Gen 2 erases.
For a design-literate buyer who wants wire-free setup, night cutting, and slope confidence without paying for headroom they don’t need, the Elite X7 Gen 2 is the one I’d point to. If your yard runs past 0.75 acres, the X7 Plus scales up without changing the formula; if the terrain turns brutal, look to a tank-tread machine built for it.
FAQ
Does the X7 Gen 2 need a perimeter wire?
No. It maps your lawn with AONavi, fusing RTK satellite positioning and VSLAM 2.0 vision, so you set virtual boundaries in the app instead of burying a wire.
Can it mow at night?
Yes. A binocular camera handles daylight and an iToF camera handles darkness, giving a 24/7 perception system that tracks edges and steps around obstacles after dark.
How steep a slope can it handle?
It’s rated for 70 percent grades and 35 degrees, and the hill-hold system keeps it tracking straight across side slopes rather than sliding downhill.
Will it work under trees where GPS drops out?
Yes. When the canopy blocks the satellite signal, VSLAM 2.0 keeps the mower running on vision for up to an hour, against 10 minutes on the previous version.
What’s the difference between the X7 and the X7 Plus?
They share the same cutting and navigation hardware. The Elite X7 Gen 2 covers 0.75 acres with the 4G anti-theft module optional, while the Plus covers 1.5 acres and bundles that module as standard.
Is the 4G anti-theft module worth adding?
It adds real-time tracking, geofencing, and boundary alerts, so it earns its place if theft is a worry. Otherwise the third-generation LoRa link, branded Super Wi-Fi, keeps the mower tied to its base without a cellular plan.
After a week of handing this machine the worst my yard could throw at it, the verdict comes down to one thing: the X7 Gen 2 takes the navigation, vision, and cutting hardware that used to sit at the top of the range and puts it in the model most people will actually buy. It mapped a tree-choked, root-laced, sloped lot with no buried wire, held its line under the oaks, cut clean stripes by day and after dark, and stayed inside its own boundaries without me hovering. If your lawn fits inside three-quarters of an acre, this is the one I’d live with, and the rest of the lineup only matters once the grass runs past where the Elite X7 Gen 2 stops.
The post Sunseeker Elite X7 Gen 2 Review: 24/7 Cutting with iToF Night Vision first appeared on Yanko Design.
Infinix GT 50 Pro Review: Gaming Greatness With a Catch
PROS:
- Distinctive design with LED accents and visible liquid-cooling
- Strong gaming performance
- Useful GT triggers and bundled MagCharge cooler
CONS:
- Stereo speakers can sound slightly muffled at times
- Price has gone up noticeably from the GT 30 Pro
The Infinix GT 50 Pro continues a formula the GT series has followed since its debut with the GT 10 Pro in 2023. This has always been a gaming-focused smartphone line, both in how it performs and how it looks. With the GT 50 Pro, Infinix stays true to that identity while adding stronger hardware, a few thoughtful extras, and a more refined overall package.
There is plenty here that stands out immediately, from the Dimensity 8400 Ultimate and 144Hz AMOLED display to the GT triggers and bundled MagCharge cooler. At the same time, the GT 50 Pro arrives in a more competitive market and at a higher price than its predecessor. That makes it a more interesting phone to evaluate, because the question is no longer just whether it performs well, but whether it still does enough to stand out.
Designer: Infinix
Aesthetics
Ever since the GT 10 Pro debuted in 2023, Infinix has kept the GT series firmly anchored to one identity. This has always been a gaming phone line, and importantly, it has always looked the part. The GT 50 Pro continues that tradition with complete confidence, and the consistency gives the series a stronger sense of character.
Flip the phone over, and there is no mistaking what it is. The rear panel embraces an aerodynamic, almost mechanical aesthetic, combining angular detailing, a carbon-fiber-like pattern, customizable LED accents, and a transparent section that showcases the liquid-cooling system underneath. There is a lot happening visually, but it feels controlled. Rather than coming across as excessive, the design feels cohesive and deliberately built around the phone’s gaming-first identity.
The camera module follows the same approach. Its two rear cameras are placed on a raised platform in the top-left corner, with each lens individually framed within a square border. It certainly adds to the industrial, structured look of the back, though I have never been particularly fond of this kind of layout since the separate frames tend to collect dust more easily and make the area slightly more annoying to wipe clean.
There are three color options, and each one changes the mood of the design. Black Abyss unit I received, paired with green liquid-cooling accents, looks the most understated while still retaining that gaming edge. Silver Glacier, with blue liquid cooling, comes across as the most futuristic of the lot. Red Blaze is easily the boldest finish here, and it is the variant for those who want the GT 50 Pro to attract attention instantly.
What ultimately stands out is the restraint behind the boldness. The GT 50 Pro is distinctive enough to feel special, but it never crosses into the kind of excess that would make it awkward to use in everyday life. More than anything, it feels like a more refined and self-assured evolution of the GT design language rather than a dramatic reset.
Ergonomics
For a phone that leans this heavily into gaming aesthetics, the Infinix GT 50 Pro is surprisingly manageable in the hand. It measures 162.44 x 72.33 x 8.15 mm and weighs 198g, which firmly places it in large-phone territory, but it never feels unnecessarily bulky or awkward. The proportions are well judged, and the phone carries its size with more balance than the numbers might suggest.
The flat sides do help with grip, especially during gaming or extended video sessions where a more secure hold matters. Paired with the glossy back, the GT 50 Pro still feels steady in the hand rather than overly slippery. The rear panel does pick up fingerprints quite easily, but thanks to the carbon-fiber-like pattern and the liquid-cooling visuals underneath, smudges are less obvious than they would be on a plain glossy surface. The included case, on the other hand, feels quite plasticky, though you will likely want to use it anyway if you plan on attaching the bundled MagCharge cooler, which I will get to later.
One of the more distinctive ergonomic features here is the pair of GT triggers. These customizable pressure-sensitive triggers add something genuinely useful to the physical experience of the phone, especially for gaming. In supported games, they can make actions like aiming, firing, or switching controls feel quicker and more tactile than relying entirely on the touchscreen. Even outside gaming, the fact that they are customizable gives them some practical value and keeps them from feeling like a one-note gimmick.
The rest of the layout is otherwise fairly standard. The power button and volume rocker are easy enough to reach, but the fingerprint sensor sits a bit too close to the bottom edge for comfort. It works quickly, but it is not the most natural placement. Overall, the GT 50 Pro feels built more around grip, control, and gaming comfort than one-handed ease, and that feels entirely appropriate for what it is.
Performance
The Infinix GT 50 Pro is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 8400 Ultimate, paired with 12GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of storage. On paper alone, that already puts it in a very comfortable position for a phone in this segment. In day-to-day use, the experience lives up to that promise. Animations are smooth, apps open quickly, and there is enough headroom here that the phone rarely feels like it is under any real strain, even when several things are happening at once.
Gaming is where the hardware starts to make the most sense. The GT 50 Pro handles demanding titles with the kind of confidence you would expect from a device built around this purpose. Frame rates feel stable, touch response is quick, and the GT triggers add a layer of physical control that makes certain games feel more intuitive than they do on a standard touchscreen-only phone. It is not just about having enough power to run games well. It is also about making the whole experience feel more deliberate and more enjoyable.
The bundled MagCharge cooler is part of the experience, too. Not everyone will need it all the time, but it does make the GT 50 Pro feel more complete as a gaming device. In my use, an hour of playing Delta Force at the highest settings kept the phone below 40 degrees Celsius, which is a reassuring result for extended sessions. It also works as a wireless charger while attached, so you can game for longer without having to put up with a cable jutting awkwardly out of the phone. The built-in lighting effects are a nice touch as well, and they fit neatly with the rest of the GT 50 Pro’s gaming-focused identity.
Software plays a major role in shaping that experience too. Running XOS 16 based on Android 16, the GT 50 Pro offers a wide range of gaming-focused features that fit the phone’s identity well. There is also a growing library of AI tools built into the system, though their usefulness will vary depending on how much you actually rely on those features in daily use.
The GT 50 Pro features a 6.78-inch AMOLED panel with a 1.5K resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate, and it is one of the phone’s biggest strengths. Everything looks sharp, motion is fluid, and the high refresh rate makes a difference not just in games but also in everyday scrolling and navigation. With a claimed peak brightness of 4,500 nits and 1,600 nits in high brightness mode, the screen is generally easy to see even under harsh sunlight. That said, I did run into a few moments where automatic brightness felt a little too conservative, leaving the display dimmer than expected until I adjusted it manually.
The audio experience is less convincing. The stereo speakers are decent enough for casual use, but they do not leave much of an impression. At times, some sounds come across as slightly muffled, which takes away a bit from the otherwise immersive gaming and media experience. It is not a deal-breaker, but it is one area where the phone feels less polished than its display.
Ultra-wide, 0.6x
Main, 1x
Main, 2x
The camera system on the Infinix GT 50 Pro is more practical than ambitious, which feels fitting for a phone like this. You get a 50MP main camera with OIS, an 8MP ultrawide, and a 13MP front camera. The main camera does most of the heavy lifting, and in good lighting, it is capable of producing sharp, pleasing shots for everyday use.
Main, 1x
Main, 2x
Up to 2x zoom, image quality remains decent, but beyond that, the limitations become more obvious. The phone can go as far as 15x, though that upper range feels more like a bonus than something genuinely useful. Color processing also tends to lean warm and vibrant, which gives photos a lively look even if they are not always the most natural.
Main, 1x
Main, 2x
Battery life is another area where the GT 50 Pro benefits from its gaming-first priorities. Depending on the market, the phone comes with either a 6,150mAh or 6,500mAh battery, and either way, that is a generous capacity by current standards. The unit I received came with the 6,500mAh battery, and its endurance is impressive, easily lasting a full day even with a couple of hours of gaming mixed in. Charging support is also solid, with 45W wired charging and 30W wireless charging adding a welcome layer of convenience.
Sustainability
Sustainability is not always the first thing people look for in a gaming-focused phone, but it still matters, especially for a device that is likely to be used heavily over time. With the Infinix GT 50 Pro, the discussion is less about environmental branding and more about durability and software longevity. Those may not be the most exciting parts of the package, but they are often the ones that shape the ownership experience in the long run.
On the hardware side, the GT 50 Pro uses Corning Gorilla Glass 7i for added screen protection and carries an IP64 rating for dust and splash resistance. That does not make it a rugged device, and it is still worth being cautious around water since the protection is limited to splashes rather than full immersion. Even so, these are useful safeguards for a phone that is likely to be handled often and used intensively.
Software support strengthens the picture further. Infinix promises three years of Android OS version updates and five years of security patches, which may not lead the class but still counts as a meaningful commitment at this level. It gives the GT 50 Pro a better shot at remaining secure, relevant, and worth holding onto for longer.
Value
Value is where the Infinix GT 50 Pro still holds up well, but it is also where the conversation gets a little more complicated. In the Philippines, the 12GB + 256GB variant is priced at PHP 25,999, or roughly USD 427, while the 12GB + 512GB version comes in at PHP 29,999, or about USD 493. That is a noticeable jump from the GT 30 Pro, whose 12GB + 256GB version launched at PHP 19,999, or roughly USD 328.
To be fair, the GT 50 Pro still offers a lot for the money. You are getting a Dimensity 8400 Ultimate chip, a 144Hz AMOLED display, GT triggers, a bundled MagCharge cooler, and a large battery, which makes it a well-equipped gaming phone at this price. The challenge is that the improvements over its predecessor feel more incremental than transformative, and it now enters a market with tougher competition. So while the pricing is still reasonable, the GT 50 Pro may not feel quite as disruptive as the GT line once did.
Verdict
The Infinix GT 50 Pro is a capable gaming phone with a clear identity. It offers strong performance, a sharp and fluid display, useful gaming features, and dependable battery life, all wrapped in a design that feels distinctive without becoming impractical.
Its compromises are fairly clear, too. The camera system is decent rather than exceptional, the speakers could be better, and the higher price means it no longer feels quite as disruptive as earlier GT models did. Even so, if your priorities are gaming, display quality, and overall performance, the GT 50 Pro remains a compelling option in its class.
The post Infinix GT 50 Pro Review: Gaming Greatness With a Catch first appeared on Yanko Design.
Engadget review recap: Razr Ultra, AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE and more
A roundup of recent reviews published by Engadget.
Honor Magic V6 Review: Big battery, slim body, refined experience
PROS:
- Slim and comfortable design
- Bright and crisp internal and external displays
- Outstanding battery capacity, backed by fast wired and wireless charging
- Great main and telephoto camera for a foldable
CONS:
- Feels more like a small upgrade over the Magic V5 than a major generational leap
- Ultrawide camera is decent, but not as impressive as the main and telephoto cameras</li?
Honor unveiled its latest foldable, the Honor Magic V6, at MWC 2026 back in March. Now, three months later, the phone is starting its global rollout in Malaysia and Singapore. That shift from launch event to retail availability is where the real test begins, because foldables have reached a point where being thin or flashy is no longer enough on its own.
The Magic V6 does not completely rethink what Honor has already been doing with its book-style foldables. Instead, it builds on a formula that already worked well, pushing it further with a bigger battery, a slim and comfortable design, and a hardware package that feels unusually complete for a foldable. After spending time with it, the Honor Magic V6 feels less like a dramatic reinvention and more like a careful refinement of what Honor already got right.
Designer: HONOR
Aesthetics
Foldables still have a habit of looking oddly cautious. For devices built around one of the most dramatic ideas in modern consumer tech, they often arrive in the safest shades possible. Black, grey, silver, maybe a muted blue if a brand is feeling adventurous. The color choice itself is usually limited, which can make many foldables feel more sterile than stylish. Honor is one of the few brands that has tried to bring a little more personality into the category, and the Magic V6 sticks with that idea.
At first glance, the Magic V6 looks very similar to the Magic V5. The overall silhouette is familiar, the octagonal camera module is still there, and even the color direction feels like a continuation rather than a reset. This is clearly not a redesign for the sake of it. Honor seems comfortable with the look it has established for the Magic V line, so the V6 feels more like a polished follow-up than a fresh visual statement.
The finishes do a lot of the work in giving the phone its character. Honor offers the Magic V6 in four colors, and they feel more thought-through than the usual selection in this category. The red version I received is the most striking, with a soft-touch finish, a subtle hairline pattern, a gold frame, and a matching gold camera ring that make it feel a little warmer and more expressive than most foldables. The gold version goes in a different direction with a crisscross pattern that gives the back more texture and a slightly dressier look. If you want something more restrained, the white and black versions are there too.
Honor has also paid attention to the accessories. Each color comes with a matching case with a built-in kickstand, while the optional Special Edition case adds a bit more flair. Designed with Yoni Alter, it uses red aramid fiber and a colorful mosaic-style horse motif, while also adding built-in magnetic support. It is a small detail overall, but it suits the phone. The Magic V6 may not change Honor’s foldable design language, but it does show that the company is still putting real thought into how this series looks and feels.
Ergonomics
The ergonomics feel more like a refinement of the previous model, and I think that is a good thing. To me, the Magic V5 was already the most ergonomic book-style foldable around, so Honor did not really need to rethink the formula. What it has done instead is rework the internal architecture to fit what is currently the biggest battery in a foldable phone while still keeping the Magic V6 among the thinnest in the category.
There are slight differences depending on the color. The white version is the thinnest and lightest, measuring 156.7 x 74.5 x 8.75 mm when folded and just 4.0 mm when unfolded, with a weight of 219g. The other color variants are slightly thicker at 9.0 mm folded and 4.1 mm unfolded, and they weigh 224g.
In use, the Magic V6 still feels like one of the most comfortable foldables around. The hinge feels secure and firm, and opening and closing it feels fluid and well-judged. The frame is now flat, but the edges are ever so slightly curved, so it does not dig into your hand. The volume rocker and the power button, which also doubles as the fingerprint scanner, are placed where they are easy to reach. You can also customize the double press on the power button, which is a nice little touch in daily use.
What I like most is that the Magic V6 does not really feel like a typical large book-style foldable when it is closed. Folded shut, it feels surprisingly close to a regular slab phone, which makes it much easier to use casually throughout the day. It is this kind of refinement that makes the Magic V6 so easy to live with day to day.
Performance
The Magic V6 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which puts it right where a flagship should be in 2026. It is paired with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, although other configurations are available depending on the market. There is no real issue here with multitasking or with playing demanding AAA titles. Apps open quickly, moving between tasks feels smooth, and the phone has the kind of power that lets the larger display feel properly useful rather than overambitious.
Software is often where foldables either come together or start to feel more awkward than they should. The Magic V6 runs MagicOS 10 based on Android 16, and as with Honor’s recent devices, the focus seems to be on giving users plenty of AI features and cross-platform connectivity. Honor is leaning quite hard into interconnectivity with Apple devices. Using Honor Connect, the Magic V6 supports two-way notification sync with iPhones and iPads, while an Apple Watch can display messages and notifications from both devices. Through Honor WorkStation, the phone can also connect to a Mac and act as an extension of the desktop environment, with support for wireless screen casting, content transfer, and one-tap file sharing, including original-format Moving Photo.
On a foldable, though, the more important question is whether the software makes good use of the larger screen, and here the Magic V6 feels well equipped. Multitasking on the V6 is solid. The inner display gives you enough room to run apps side by side without things feeling cramped, and the phone has more than enough power to keep everything moving smoothly. On a device like this, that matters just as much as raw specs, because a foldable only really makes sense if the larger screen feels genuinely useful in everyday use.
Honor has equipped the Magic V6 with a 6.52-inch 2420 x 1080 AMOLED outer screen and a 7.95-inch 2352 x 2172 AMOLED inner display, and both are vivid, sharp, and fluid. Both panels support a 1 to 120Hz LTPO refresh rate, with up to 5,000 nits on the inner display and 6,000 nits on the outer, alongside eye comfort features such as 4320Hz PWM dimming. In use, the displays are excellent. The crease is barely noticeable, though not quite as invisible as on Oppo’s Find N6. The stereo speakers are also plenty loud and punchy, which suits the phone well for video and games.
The Magic V6 comes with a 50MP main camera with an f/1.6 aperture and OIS, a 64MP telephoto camera with an f/2.5 aperture, a 1/2-inch sensor, and OIS, and a 50MP ultrawide. On paper, that is a solid setup for a foldable, especially in a category where cameras have often felt like one of the first compromises.
In practice, the main and telephoto cameras are both strong for a foldable. Images come out sharp, colors are pleasing, and the overall look tends to lean a little on the brighter side. The ultrawide is satisfactory, though it does not stand out in quite the same way as the other two cameras.
Battery life is one of the Magic V6’s biggest selling points. Honor has managed to fit a 6,660mAh silicon-carbon battery into a foldable that is still among the thinnest in its class, while the 1TB version in China goes even further with a 7,150mAh battery. That is a huge battery even by slab flagship standards, never mind in a foldable.
Charging is strong too, with support for 80W wired and 66W wireless charging on the global model. A foldable this slim with this much battery capacity and this level of charging support is still unusual, and it is a big part of what makes the Magic V6 feel so easy to trust as an everyday device.
Sustainability
When it comes to foldables, durability can still be a concern for some people. Honor is clearly aware of that. The outer screen uses silicon nitride-based Nano Crystal Shield glass with up to 5,600 ultra-precise coating layers, while the inner display uses UTG flexible glass and is said to be 33 percent more impact resistant than the Magic V5. It is also rated for 500,000 folds.
The Magic V6 also comes with IP68 and IP69 ratings, which is the kind of protection you would more often expect from a slab flagship than a foldable. Honor is also promising seven major OS updates, which helps strengthen the long-term ownership story. What would make that sustainability angle more complete is greater use of sustainable materials, which is still an area where Honor could do more.
Value
Value is always a tricky part of the conversation with foldables because these devices are expensive by nature. No one is buying something like the Magic V6 because it is a bargain. Honor is beginning its wider rollout in Malaysia and Singapore. In Malaysia, the Magic V6 is priced at RM 7,699 for the 16GB RAM and 512GB storage version, which works out to roughly US$1,920 at a simple direct conversion. At that price, it is still very much a premium purchase, but the hardware does a lot to justify it. You are getting a slim and comfortable design, strong performance, large and bright displays, a huge battery, fast charging, and a durability story that feels more complete than what many foldables have offered in the past.
Value still depends on what you want from a foldable. If battery life, ergonomics, and high-end hardware matter most to you, the Magic V6 makes a very strong case for itself. If software polish is your top priority, some rivals may still feel a little more mature. Even so, the Magic V6 feels like a foldable that gives you a lot of substance for the money, not just novelty.
Verdict
The Magic V6 feels like Honor refining a formula that was already working well. It does not try to reinvent the book-style foldable, but it improves on the parts that matter most. The design still has personality, the ergonomics are excellent, the displays are strong, and the battery is genuinely standout for this category. The main and telephoto cameras are also better than what many people might expect from a foldable, which helps round out the overall package.
It is not without a few caveats, though. The software still does not feel quite as polished as the very best in the category, and the price places it firmly in ultra-premium territory. Even so, the bigger picture is very easy to like. If you want a foldable that feels slim, practical, powerful, and unusually easy to live with, the Magic V6 makes a very convincing case for itself.
The post Honor Magic V6 Review: Big battery, slim body, refined experience first appeared on Yanko Design.
Logitech Mobi Fold review: The ultra-compact travel mouse
The Mobi Fold is an excellent travel accessory for anyone who wants something that's better than the built-in touchpad on their laptop.
2027 Rivian R2 first drive: Rivian’s second SUV is its best yet
It's not perfect, but Rivian's latest shows this company is playing for keeps.
AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE review: A cheaper GPU for a wildly expensive era
AMD's Radeon RX 9070 GRE is finally available globally, and it's a solid performer for $549.
Engadget review recap: ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo, Fitbit Air, GoPro Mission 1 and more
A roundup of recent reviews published by Engadget.
007 First Light is the stealthy James Bond game I’ve dreamed of
Of course the Hitman devs made a great James Bond game.
