A comprehensive review of the best folding solutions

The debut of the foldable Vivo in this country promises to be really impressive, and among them there are many new products in the X Fold 3 Pro segment. Try this one for a foldable book style – it’s the thinnest (11.2mm when folded), lightest (236g), has the largest and brightest display (8.03 inches, up to 4,500 nits), and houses the largest battery ever (5,700 mAh ) ), all of which are taking on the Samsung Z Fold 5 and OnePlus Open in the still emerging segment in the country. The question is – do all these superlatives justify the starting price of Rs. 1,59,999?

It looks pretty good, X Fold 3 Pro in the Celestial Black variant. The 11.2mm thickness makes the device feel like a candy bar both in your hand and in your pocket, and the 236g weight means holding the device for long periods of time is no different than holding an iPhone 14 Pro Max. When opened to an incredibly thin 5.22mm edge, the frosted glass back panel lacks confidence and feels a tad flimsy. The grip issue is exacerbated by the presence of a circular Zeiss-branded camera module on the back, which while it reminds me of Vivo’s X-series flagships, makes the device very heavy and you had to wear gloves when unfolded to avoid any damage. unfortunate falls. In case of a drop, Vivo has equipped the X Fold 3 Pro with Armor Architecture and Schott Xensation technology for scratch resistance of the external display, a carbon fiber hinge certified for 500,000 flexions, and IPX8 water resistance, but I would definitely prefer to have a textured back panel to avoid slippage in the first place !

Open it and the X Fold 3 Pro reveals a massive 8.03-inch 2K+ display that, like the 6.53-inch external display, offers a 120Hz refresh rate, vivid colors and sharp details, and a peak brightness of up to 4,500 nits for good visibility outside. Both the outer display and the foldable inner display come with an in-display fingerprint scanner, which is rare in this segment. When closed, the external display feels like using a somewhat tall and narrow candy bar phone, and the slightly rectangular internal display is good for viewing Dolby Vision/HDR10+ content on streaming services, except for the inevitable black bars when viewing widescreen content.

There is no performance impact either and the device comes with the top-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage. Using heavy apps and games and multitasking between them is expected to be a breeze, and the extensive internal display allows you to use multiple windows simultaneously in a split-screen or floating window arrangement. There’s even a fold-to-split feature that lets you quickly move apps to split-screen mode. You can also leave the screen open at different angles to watch content, take selfies, or use the bottom half as a keyboard (just like on a laptop). And also ahead of the phone’s launch this year – Funtouch OS 14 also has several artificial intelligence features, mainly related to content, transcription and call summarization.

For a phone packed with so many noteworthy features, the X Fold 3’s biggest day-to-day wins come from its camera and battery. Three cameras with a resolution of 50 MP, 64 MP and 50 MP provide excellent photos: the main one takes excellent photos in any lighting conditions, while the telephoto lens and excellent portrait modes allow you to get closer to the subject. These are definitely the best cameras we’ve ever seen on a foldable smartphone. Battery life is also excellent, with a screen time of well over 7 hours and a 100W charging speed that can fill the tank in under 40 minutes – again, this is undoubtedly the best battery and charging speed among foldable smartphones in India.

Is all this worth the princely price? The X Fold 3 Pro is the best foldable model on the market, no price tag – but Samsung’s foldable models are just around the corner, so it’s worth waiting to finally answer this question.

Rating: 8/10

Price: Rs. 1,59,999