Some of you are already shaking your heads—“A foldable competing with an iPhone? Please.” I get it. Foldables earned an early reputation for being chunky, delicate, and a step behind on cameras. But the landscape has changed fast. To prove it, I put Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro (sleek unibody aluminum) up against the Honor Magic V5 (titanium frame)—a current-gen book-style foldable that doesn’t flinch at flagship comparisons. In a bunch of real-world tests—from photo zoom and night shots to app exports and everyday usability—the iPhone wins some, but it absolutely doesn’t run the table.
Design & everyday feel
Both phones feel premium, just in different ways. The 17 Pro keeps things classic with a cool-to-the-touch aluminum body and Apple’s clean lines. The Honor leans “statement piece”: bigger camera island, titanium frame, and that party trick hinge. Thickness? With the Honor folded it looks beefier, but on paper the gap is tiny—8.9 mm (Honor) vs 8.8 mm (iPhone). The iPhone packs more external buttons—including the new camera button and the programmable Action button—which I like in theory but occasionally press by accident. The Honor’s power-button unlock on the outer display is instant in-pocket convenience; tap, boom, you’re in.
Displays & outdoor visibility
“Foldable cover screens are cramped.” That used to be true. Not here. The Honor’s outer panel (≈6.4″) is a normal phone experience; open it up and you’re in tablet territory. The iPhone’s 6.3″ OLED is a beauty with Apple’s famous color tuning. Outside, both get very bright. Apple quotes 3,000 nits peak; Honor advertises 5,000 nits. In actual sun, the difference isn’t dramatic—both were readable pointed straight at the sky. If glare bugs you, a matte protector helps either phone.
Camera myths, meet reality
This is the part people don’t expect. I shot side-by-side daytime scenes, mid-range zoom, long-range zoom, and night mode.
- Daylight (main cameras): The iPhone’s 48 MP binned to 24 MP delivers the familiar crisp “Apple look.” The Honor’s 50 MP (and smart processing) kept up, often showing a touch more texture in bark, grass, and fine edges. Call it a draw for most shots.
- Mid-zoom (4–6×): The iPhone’s new 4× periscope is a welcome leap from last gen. The Honor’s 6× equivalent periscope, however, pulled slightly cleaner detail and richer micro-contrast on small objects—think siding, shingles, and tree needles.
- Long zoom (40×): This one shocked me. At 40×—the iPhone’s max—the Honor produced a more usable photo with straighter lines and less mush. The iPhone’s 40× looked more watercolor. If you love punching in on faraway subjects, the foldable has range.
- Night shots: Portraits and neighborhood scenes show Apple’s warmer bias and strong stabilization. The Honor often rendered finer texture (tree bark, gravel, window blinds) with more neutral color. Lens flare is still an iPhone quirk under streetlights; the Honor kept artifacts better controlled.
Bottom line: no, a bar phone does not automatically beat a modern foldable. In several camera scenarios—especially zoom—the foldable edged ahead.
Video & audio
All the standard stuff—4K/30, smooth stabilization, quick focus—looked great on both. Audio is where the form factors diverge. The iPhone’s slab gives you a slightly fuller, bassier sound. The Honor’s larger spread means wider stereo separation when it’s open, which is awesome for movies at arm’s length. I still use earbuds either way.
Real-world performance (not benchmarks)
Rather than synthetic scores, I ran my usual creator test in InShot:
- Auto-cut the pauses in a ~4-minute clip.
- Export in 4K.
The iPhone’s A19 Pro blitzed the pause-cut pass. But on the full 4K export, the Honor’s Elite-class chipset finished in a little over half the iPhone’s time—with both phones running only that app. File sizes and settings were matched as closely as the apps allow. Surprised? Me too. Moral: depending on the workload, the foldable can flat-out fly.
Big screen life (the secret sauce)
“Crease!” is the first word skeptics throw out. On good foldables, viewed straight-on, it fades into the content. The payoff dwarfs the nitpick:
- Video: A YouTube clip on the Honor’s inner screen is tablet-big without grabbing a tablet. The iPhone’s panel is lovely, just… smaller.
- Multitasking: This is the game changer. On the Honor I can snap two apps side-by-side in seconds, float a third as a resizable bubble, and keep a chat hovering while I browse. On iPhone, true split-screen between two different apps still isn’t a thing. If you live in calendars, docs, maps, and messages at once, the foldable’s workflow is addictive.
Durability & the “fragile” label
Modern foldables are nothing like Gen-1. Hinge gaps are gone, dust resistance is up, and the inner layer feels sturdier. You still shouldn’t treat it like a beach shovel, but normal phone life? It holds up. Plenty of owners are two or three foldables deep with zero failures.
“But Apple’s making one…”
Exactly. If foldables were a fad, Apple wouldn’t bother. Rumors peg a first-gen iPhone fold with a smaller inner display than today’s Android leaders and a compact outer screen. Specs are still murky—and first-gen Apple hardware is usually conservative—but the signal is clear: foldables are here to stay.
So… which should you buy?
- Choose iPhone 17 Pro if you want Apple’s ecosystem polish, slightly fuller speakers, class-leading one-hand slab ergonomics, and a big leap in iPhone zoom versus last year. It’s the safest all-around choice.
- Choose a flagship foldable like the Honor Magic V5 if you crave screen real estate, true multitasking, and long-range zoom that’s actually usable. The fact that it can out-export an iPhone in a creator workflow is the cherry on top.
The surprise isn’t that the iPhone 17 Pro is great—it is. The surprise is how often a modern foldable matches or beats it. If you wrote off foldables years ago, it might be time to take another look… or at least brace for Apple’s own hinge to swing open next year.