HONOR Magic V5 battery drain even when turned off?

[Steven P. Administrators]

I stopped using the Magic V5 around three weeks ago, and it was charged to at least 60% but when I went to turn it on just now I saw that it is completely depleted?

Sealed new phones usually have a decent charge on them so you can get started right away, so I am wondering how this is possible, unless the phone is doing something even when turned off/in standby?

I have an iPhone SE2 as a backup phone and it is usually turned off for months, I power it on to top up or use the PAYG SIM so it doesn't get cancelled (if unused for the last six months) and the iPhone SE2 always has battery even when it has been turned off for months!

Just wondering if anyone can shed light on why this is happening.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

So my money would be that “off” is not actually “off”. I have a few cameras that maintain Bluetooth when “off” so they can be turned on via remote and it’s a real pain - so I always slip the battery when I want it off off!

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

If you have a router that logs DHCP leases, maybe you could see if the Honor Magic 5 phone connected to your Wi-Fi network during the period in which it was off?  That may be a little difficult to tell because some devices randomize their MAC addresses, but that is something that can sometimes be configured with some granularity.

My suspicion is that @Nik Louch is right and the device is performing its version of Microsoft's Modern Standby, where devices that are "off" are actually just in a lower power mode.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

 

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 06/11/2025 at 02:36, goretsky said:

My suspicion is that @Nik Louch is right and the device is performing its version of Microsoft's Modern Standby, where devices that are "off" are actually just in a lower power mode.

Yeah I never did find the setting for this. As far as I can remember I have never had this on any other phone I've used, off = off so there's always power to turn back on. It's also not healthy to completely discharge these batteries.

Somewhat related, I also discovered that the battery in my gifted (for review) Q11 robovac also completely discharges but due to the way the docking station and software works it is also completely unrecoverable!! https://www.neowin.net/reviews/neabot-nomo-q11-review-it-sucks-but-in-a-good-way/ Neabot did send me a replacement battery, so that's good service considering I've had it since 2021!! 

[Steven P. Administrators]

Update: The Magic 8 Pro has the same exact issue  

I can go back to my iPhone SE2 after months and turn it on and the battery will still be good.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

I am guessing it is in a sleep or similar low power mode, and not truly off.

Maybe this is something you could ask Honor (Huawei) about?

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky 

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 21/02/2026 at 12:33, goretsky said:

I am guessing it is in a sleep or similar low power mode, and not truly off.

Nope, I am choosing the "Power off" option, there's no sleep option or such-like.

[goretsky Supervisor]

On 21/02/2026 at 04:47, Steven P. said:

Nope, I am choosing the "Power off" option, there's no sleep option or such-like.

Hello,

I did a bit of looking around, and saw a single mention that turning off recent Honor Magic devices only turns off the main processor, and that the baseband radio portion remains powered while the other half of the device is off.

One way you might be able to test this is to turn manually off all the various radios (5G/4G, Bluetooth, GNSS, mobile data, NFC, Wi-Fi, and so forth), then put into Airplane Mode, and finally power down for the evening.  Then check on it the next morning and see if it has a greater percentage of its battery available.  You can then start playing around with enabling the various radios one-at-a-time to see if you can isolate which one is staying on while the device is off.  Of course, that's assuming this is, in fact, the issue.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

[Nick H. Supervisor]

I'm not great in the mobile scene anymore, so I may be way off base.

But it could be like Windows fast-boot idea, just that they haven't configured it well so it's more like a sleep mode despite the option you choose when powering it off.

It's interesting that the devices you're seeing this with are HONOR devices...I'll take a look tomorrow when I'm in the shop and get bored.

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 22/02/2026 at 03:08, Nick H. said:

I'm not great in the mobile scene anymore, so I may be way off base.

But it could be like Windows fast-boot idea, just that they haven't configured it well so it's more like a sleep mode despite the option you choose when powering it off.

I enabled Developer Options to see if there was anything there that is keeping it semi-powered in the Off state, but nothing also not in the Battery settings. My contact also isn't answering why it happens and the power menu just has Power Off or Restart.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

On 22/02/2026 at 12:07, Steven P. said:

I enabled Developer Options to see if there was anything there that is keeping it semi-powered in the Off state, but nothing also not in the Battery settings. My contact also isn't answering why it happens and the power menu just has Power Off or Restart.

So I got bored and took another look. I also happen to be chatting with geeks while they are painting in the shop.

There are two ideas:

• Everything deteriorates (i.e. power) over time, regardless of the device being turned on or not.
• It's a Chinese manufacturer, so the materials are sub-par.

I struggle with the second point, but it's there.

What is the phone's OS version?

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 22/02/2026 at 14:12, Nick H. said:

What is the phone's OS version?

HONOR Magic8 Pro: MagicOS 10.0.0.132 (based on Android 16)