Phone or bag? Honor V Purse folding smartphone is both. It may be a gimmick, but Chinese tech giant’s other new foldable, Magic V2, means business

Part smartphone and part purse, Honor’s new concept device – the Honor V Purse – folds up to look like a handbag and is designed to be worn over the shoulder

The Chinese tech company’s flagship foldable smartphone, the Magic V2, is more than a concept. Set to go on sale soon, it folds to an impressive 1cm thick

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Chinese smartphone maker Honor’s new concept device, the Honor V Purse, is a foldable smartphone that doubles as a handbag and can be worn over the shoulder. Photo: Honor

Published: 7:15am, 8 Sep 2023

Turn your smartphone off and it will probably look like any other phone: a black glass slab with a camera lens or three on the back.

Folding phones, as pushed by companies like Samsung, are attempting to break that monotony – and Chinese tech brand Honor is taking things even further by turning them into full-on lifestyle accessories.

Part smartphone and part purse, Honor’s new concept device – a phone that probably will not ever see a mainstream release – is possibly the first smartphone designed to be worn over the shoulder.

The Honor V Purse, unveiled at Berlin’s annual Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin (IFA) tech fair at the start of September, is a foldable smartphone with a strap attached to the hinge.

Like Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, it has the shape and size of a regular smartphone when closed and opens up into an almost square-shaped tablet with a barely noticeable crease running down the middle of the screen.