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Vivo X Fold 5 has the displays, power and even the cameras to back up its premium claims but is that enough to warrant its price tag?
The new foldable from Vivo is light and thin but does it have everything?
Vivo showed us foldables can be powerful and a tough match for the candy bar phones with the X Fold 3 Pro and now it is back with the sequel in the form of the X Fold 5. The new form factor has gotten lighter without compromising on the other essentials like displays, battery and even the cameras. Priced at Rs 1,49,999 the X Fold 5 undercuts its closest rival by around Rs 30,000 but that also means you get the year-old Snapdragon flagship chipset under the hood.
But does the all-round package of the X Fold 5 give it the right push to become a strong contender to be your regular device? We used the foldable as our primary device for a few weeks to find the answer.
The Light And Portable
The X Fold 5 dimensions have come down, just like the new Galaxy Z Fold 7 from Samsung. The Vivo foldable offers 4.3mm in the unfolded state, and 9.2 mm when you fold it. It also weighs 217 grams which is a big drop from the 239 grams on the X Fold 3 Pro version.
Basically, the new design tweaks have made the X Fold 5 friendlier inside the pocket and even when you have to hold it for use. We were comfortably able to hold it in one hand, without feeling any heaviness or bulkiness.
This is the closest a foldable has come to being as compact as a regular smartphone. It also gets IP58 and IP59+ rating to protect against dust and high pressure water jets.
The back panel is made of glass fiber which does get slippery and the giant camera module makes its presence felt with the protrusion. You can clearly see the USB C port being as slim as the device and that shows the amount of engineering that has made it possible to make the X Fold 5 the way it is this year. The speakers are loud but we would have liked them to offer more punch and details.
The Dual-Display Show
The X Fold 5 covers the display basics quite well. You have a 6.53-inch LTPO AMOLED cover display with 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+ and even Dolby Vision. The inner 8.03-inch AMOLED display also gets all these features. The screen protection on the cover is also quite reliable and a few drops on the ground is a testament to those claims.
The end result is a functional cover screen that lets you do most of the work. Be it picking up calls, checking social media or browsing the web. You can even reply to messages without unfolding the screen.
When you do that, the luxury of having an 8-inch screen estate opens up new avenues, and not just limited to watching videos or movies. The displays are crisp, the colours are punchy and viewing them is not an issue for the eyes.
The Power You Get
Vivo seems to have played the smart move by using last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset with 16GB RAM instead of upgrading to the 8 Elite version. It saves on the higher cost of the latest SoC, and seems to be using that to make other aspects better.
The raw performance of the 8 Gen 3 is hard to question but when you are looking to buy the latest flagship device, people generally expect to have the latest of everything.
Having said that, the 8 Gen 3 running on the X Fold 5 is no slouch and with 16 gigs on board along with 512GB storage, you will never feel wanting for power. You get some heating while using the camera or making a video call but the general feedback of the hardware will not give you complaints.
When you combine this setup with the Funtouch OS 15 version on this device, you see new ways to multitask. The Origin Workbench is a unique twist that lets you access multiple apps on the big screen, and all of them are running in the foreground.
Let’s say, you have YouTube, Docs and mail open through the panel, the video will be audible, and the inbox will refresh right in front of you. You get a panel at the top of the screen, and once you enable the feature from the settings, the workbench mode works to a good effect.
Unlike Samsung, Vivo is only offering 4 OS upgrades for its foldable, and not really a flagship class support these days. The Funtouch OS 15 still feels limiting and it needs some level of polishing to make it as intuitive as the One UI version.
The Zeiss Effect
Vivo is offering a triple camera setup on the X Fold 5 which gets you a 50MP wide sensor with OIS, a 50MP periscope telephoto lens with OIS, and a 50MP ultrawide angle lens. The Zeiss optics sensor delivers clear, detailed photos with good dynamic range.
The low light imaging is also quite effective with the right amount of shadows not letting the details go away. Having OIS on the periscope lens also gives you stable shots even when you have to be at a distance from the subject to clearly get the frame. The ultrawide is the weak of the trio, and its colour inconsistency can be annoying at times. The skin tones are mostly placid but you can turn off the mode to get better details in portraits and selfies.
The Foldable That Lasts
While Samsung has played it safe with a 4,400mAh unit on the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Vivo offers a silicone carbon 6,000mAh battery that supports 80W wired and 40W wireless charging speeds. You even get the charger in the box, which Samsung doesn’t. This is the biggest battery we have seen on a Fold till date, and the results were evident. The PCMark score of 20 hours doesn’t really justify its real-life usage endurance but nevertheless it is better than other foldables.
We got close to 8 hours of screen-on time with moderate usage of Wi-Fi, 5G, surfing the web, using social media and more. While pushing the device further with heavy usage of mobile hotspot gave us figures of around 4 hours which is equally decent. The built-in battery can go up to 100 percent in less than an hour which most people would love for its size.
Vivo X Fold 5 is a solid upgrade on the X Fold 3 Pro version and a strong contender to rival the Galaxy Z Fold 7. It has the right dimensions, the displays are impressive, and even the cameras show their worth. Yes, the use of last year’s chipset will have some of you apprehensive but the performance is not lacking.
S Aadeetya, Special Correspondent at News18 Tech, accidentally got into journalism 10 years ago, and since then, has been part of established media houses covering the latest trends in technology and helping fr…Read More
S Aadeetya, Special Correspondent at News18 Tech, accidentally got into journalism 10 years ago, and since then, has been part of established media houses covering the latest trends in technology and helping fr… Read More
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Delhi, India, India
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