Vivo X Fold Three Professional Assessment

Samsung has been resting on years of delivering smaller updates for its clients in India. So, a brand new participant (within the foldable market) like Vivo actually must reinvent the wheel to get a premium smartphone purchaser’s consideration. After utilizing the telephone for a number of weeks, I can conclude that Vivo has not precisely reinvented the wheel with its X Fold Three Professional. However it does take issues to the following stage, providing loads of worth and options in comparison with the competitors. As feature-packed as it could appear, it is not excellent. Learn on to search out out why.

The Vivo X Fold Three Professional is obtainable in only one RAM and storage possibility with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of inner storage that’s priced at a staggering Rs. 1,59,999 in India. It might look like a really excessive worth to pay for an Android smartphone, not to mention a foldable one. However browse round, and you’ll discover that Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 begins from Rs. 1,54,999 (512GB) and goes all the best way as much as Rs. 1,84,999 (for the 1TB variant). Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Extremely can be priced at Rs. 1,29,999, and it is not foldable. Instantly, the Vivo X Fold Three Professional looks as if a fairly whole lot, given what it affords. And there positive is lots!

Vivo X Fold Three Professional Assessment Design: Skinny is in

• Dimensions – Closed – 159.96 x 72.55 x 11.2mm
• Dimensions – Open – 159.96 x 142.Four x 5.2mm
• Weight – 236 grams
• Colors – Celestial Black

As with each foldable machine, design, sturdiness, and repair play a significant function. Whereas I can’t touch upon the final two (except I exploit it long-term), I can inform you concerning the barely totally different strategy that Vivo has taken to get to the very prime of its recreation.

The Vivo X Fold Three Professional is simply 5.2mm thick when open

Vivo’s declare about being the thinnest foldable on supply in India is real. At 11.2mm, it is not as slim as a bar-shaped premium flagship (often round 8.5mm), however it feels shut sufficient once you maintain it. Unfolded, it measures simply 5.2mm, which is impressively skinny not only for a foldable however even for an everyday smartphone or pill.

Having proven this foldable to family and friends, it was simple to wow them as a result of many assumed it was an everyday smartphone till I pried it open from the facet, revealing the bigger show inside.

And if that wasn’t sufficient, Vivo additionally claims that foldable is IPX8 rated (identical to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5), which ought to give consumers peace of thoughts when utilizing it within the rain. Whereas I did bravely spray water on the foldable, I’ll advise in opposition to doing in order the guarantee doesn’t cowl this, identical to every other premium smartphone out there.

Vivo X Fold Three Professional Assessment Shows: Smarter by design

• Cowl show – 6.53-inch, 2,748 × 1,172 pixels, full-HD+, 120Hz
• Essential show – 8.03-inch, 2,480 × 2,200 pixels, 2K+, 120Hz
• Cowl show kind – AMOLED (LTPO), Armour Glass
• Essential show kind – AMOLED (LTPO), UTG

At 8.03 inches, the primary folding show is the most important on a foldable to this point. It is taller and wider than any bar-shaped flagship as nicely, together with Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Extremely (6.8-inch) and Apple’s iPhone 15 Professional Max (6.7-inch). It makes for some attention-grabbing use circumstances for this smartphone. The foldable’s shows, regardless of their bigger than standard dimension, supply good pure colors and get loads of vibrant outside, even beneath direct daylight. There isn’t any seen crease, despite the fact that each halves fold flat in opposition to each other.

I might comfortably eat content material on the primary show because of its barely rectangular 4:3.55 facet ratio, which is loads higher than the sq. one the OnePlus Open (1.0758:1) affords.

Even when folded in Vivo’s “flex mode”, which lays the controls (cursor, brightness, and so forth.) on the underside half of the show (like a laptop computer), the highest half of the show was as large, broad and huge as an everyday premium flagship. When totally opened, it was enjoyable to observe the video, irrespective of which format or facet ratio content material was shot in.

The Vivo X Fold Three Professional’s predominant show at 8.03 inches is the largest one round

And at 6.53 inches, even the duvet show, with its 21.1:9 facet ratio, is among the largest ones accessible on a foldable. It is extremely a lot attainable to pair a Bluetooth keyboard with the telephone and use it as a small Android pill for mild productiveness. I additionally discovered the massive show very helpful whereas attending briefing calls and conferences when a pc was not accessible. The proprietary Armour cowl glass additionally has a 3D curved edge on the best facet, making swiping gestures very inviting and pure.

Like Google’s Pixel Fold (which by no means got here to India), Vivo has added some nifty options that reap the benefits of the telephone’s hinge and huge shows.

When capturing photographs, you possibly can hover the digital camera half of the telephone and use the opposite half as a tripod for snapping group photographs from a distance and even for capturing higher low-light landscapes.

A fold-to-split gesture prompts once you shut the fold midway after which (shortly) open it once more. This locations the prevailing fullscreen app to the left in a dual-spit format and opens up the app drawer so that you can choose the second app. Fairly handy!

The Desk Calendar AOD mode needs to be my favorite. Place the X Fold Three Professional on a desk in tent mode, and the duvet show’s 1Hz refresh charge (LTPO) turns the massive display right into a desk clock. Whereas it positive seems cool and sensible, the Desk Calendar AOD routinely switches off after a most period of two hours.

The Vivo X Fold Three Professional’s Desk Calendar AOD characteristic makes wonderful use of the hinge

The Vivo X Fold Three Professional can be very good. When viewing a video, the telephone will detect its state and orientation relying on whether or not it is in hover mode, tented mode, folded or huge open. Neatly undertaking the video on the right display (or half) dealing with you. It is one thing that simply works flawlessly and feels very pure.

All of this flipping and flexing is feasible due to the brand new hinge. Vivo claims it’s a lot lighter than the competitors and went to a number of lengths to get this foldable’s weight all the way down to 236 grams. This makes it Three grams lighter than the titanium-laden Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely. And it manages to remain this mild and slim regardless of having a giant 5,700mAh battery backup, which is once more the most important we have now seen on a foldable to this point.

Not like most foldables, the X Fold Three Professional has two fingerprint readers, that are embedded into their respective shows. Whereas I discovered the one on the duvet show to be very dependable, I struggled with the one on the primary show, which wants a tough press to reliably unlock the machine with the display open.

Vivo X Fold Three Professional Software program: Wants a little bit of polish

Not like the OnePlus Open, the model’s first book-style foldable, Vivo absolutely had sufficient time to refine its software program expertise, provided that this can be a third-generation machine.

The foldable runs Vivo’s Funtouch OS, based mostly on Android 14. By way of commitments, Vivo affords three years of software program updates and 4 years of safety updates for this foldable. This is not unhealthy, however given how Samsung and Google have raised the bar by providing as much as 7 years of software program assist, it does fall a bit wanting expectations, particularly provided that Vivo is seeking to woo Samsung’s long-standing clients in India.

Vivo’s software program in some way appears to lack the required polish in some areas.

On condition that the X Fold Three Professional has an oblong predominant show, it is pure that many people would reorient the display from vertical (when opened) to panorama to observe motion pictures or just run apps in pill mode, including a cut up display view and extra for sure apps.

With 4 apps on show at a time, the Vivo X Fold Three Professional can simply be used as a light-weight workplace productiveness machine

When reorienting the Vivo X Fold Three Professional, not all apps stretch from edge to edge, leaving a black bar on the left facet of the show, which is almost a centimetre huge, operating from prime to backside, which is a waste of display area. With the apps that I used when testing this machine, a couple of apps (WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger by Meta) stretched to suit the show, however these didn’t even embody Google’s companies like Messages (SMS), Calendar, Drive, and so forth. Even Netflix didn’t play movies in full display except pinched to zoom, which might find yourself cropping the body.

Vivo did introduce a characteristic in Settings known as ‘Show on the prime of the display’ in a current bug-squishing replace to deal with the selfie digital camera’s cutout, however it doesn’t appear to resolve the issue, with problematic apps displaying a filler white bar on the left as a substitute of the empty black void.

I’ve knowledgeable Vivo about the identical and the model has assured (with calls from its software program crew) that they may discover a solution to repair the above challenge. However it’s a bit regarding that no person from Vivo observed this from the get-go.

Among the many quite a few native Vivo apps, the V-Appstore continually reveals annoying notifications every now and then. Uninstall a third-party app from the Play Retailer, and the V-Appstore will seize the chance to push out a notification and remind you to obtain different associated apps from its retailer as a substitute. Fortunately, Android let me flip these off.

There’s an annoying black bar seen on the left that eats into the in any other case huge viewing space when utilizing many third-party apps (proven right here is Netflix)

Whereas the telephone does include a ton of Vivo apps (most of which can’t be uninstalled), a few of it’s helpful as a result of it packs the much-needed AI punch that the model’s flagships have lacked for some time. The performance continues to be fairly fundamental. The native Notes app can create summaries from pasted textual content, whereas the recorder app, aside from transcribing textual content from a recording, may also create a abstract of the audio recording.

For individuals who incessantly document telephone calls, Vivo makes use of its dialer app and so can document calls in a relatively stealthy method, with out a notification or perhaps a beep earlier than, after and even throughout a recording.

Vivo X Fold Three Professional Efficiency: Keepin’ it cool

• Processor – Qualcomm Snapdragon Eight Gen 3
• RAM – LPDDR5X – 16GB
• Storage – UFS 4.0 – 512GB

With a strong processor and a slim physique, the telephone does heat up when utilizing the digital camera beneath direct daylight, however it’s not as regarding and didn’t throw up any warnings even when capturing 4K video samples again to again.

The machine managed spectacular benchmark scores which might be far greater than the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and a bit greater than the OnePlus Open.

Demanding 3D video games like Genshin Impression run completely wonderful with none hiccups or irregular heating at maxed-out settings. Each shows are completely responsive when enjoying Name of Responsibility: Cellular at Max and Extremely body charges. The telephone can simply multi-task if you are enjoying a recreation with a YouTube video and even one other recreation operating on a cut up display.

There is a useful but discreet alert slider on the left half of the Vivo X Fold Three Professional for switching ringer profiles

Certainly, that is all all the way down to the massive vapour cooling system that Vivo has neatly packaged into this machine regardless of its skinny profile. Add to this the truth that the processor resides within the prime half of the telephone (when held in panorama mode), holding the nice and cozy areas away from my arms when gaming on the primary show.

Vivo X Fold Three Professional Cameras: Could possibly be higher

• Essential digital camera – 50MP (OIS), f/1.68 aperture, AF
• Extremely-wide-angle digital camera – 50MP, f/2.Zero aperture, AF
• Telephoto digital camera – 64MP (OIS), 3x optical zoom, f/2.57 aperture, AF
• Selfie cameras – 32MP, FF (cowl show) – 32MP, FF (predominant show)

The first digital camera handles pictures like a professional in all forms of lighting circumstances. Autofocus is fast to lock focus in all forms of circumstances, so I might click on photographs of my child and pets simply in Portrait mode with out worrying about blurry outcomes. Taking pictures metropolis streets in low mild, the colors come out superbly with out getting saturated whereas particulars and sharpness are what one would anticipate from a smartphone at this worth level.

The Vivo X Fold Three Professional has three rear cameras

The telephoto digital camera additionally didn’t fail to impress with tack-sharp portraits of topics or objects in daylight and spectacular outcomes with wonderful color replica in low mild as nicely. Nonetheless, in contrast to the first, the telephoto did wrestle a bit with shifting objects, leading to barely delicate photos of topics when captured indoors beneath synthetic mild.

Vivo X Fold Three Professional Daylight Digital camera Samples. High to backside – Extremely-wide, main, 3x telephoto (Faucet photos to broaden)

The Vivo X Fold Three Professional’s telephoto digital camera can be used for capturing close-ups or macro photographs, and these come out very well and pack in loads of element because of the high-resolution sensor. Zoom was additionally fairly helpful regardless of switching to hybrid after 3X, because the photographs are completely usable as much as 10X zoom, past which there’s a noticeable drop intimately and a few purple fringing as nicely.

The ultra-wide digital camera just isn’t as spectacular as the opposite two, however it will get the job completed in daylight. There’s noticeable barrel distortion, and the colors do not match the outcomes from the opposite two cameras. In dim street-lit settings, the picture high quality takes a drop, with aggressive noise removing messing up the small print. Furthermore, colors additionally seem a bit uninteresting.

Vivo X Fold Three Professional digital camera samples. High – close-up, backside – Tremendous macro (faucet photos to broaden)

Each selfie cameras produce common outcomes with textures that are not as detailed as most flagships at and under this worth level. Nonetheless, since that is foldable, it was attainable to make use of the first digital camera as a selfie digital camera, and the outcomes from this digital camera have been top-notch, with wonderful element, sharpness, and edge-detection. Low-light selfies from the first digital camera additionally got here out equally spectacular.

Vivo X Fold Three Professional Low mild digital camera samples. High to backside – Major digital camera, telephoto digital camera, Selfie from Major digital camera (faucet photos to broaden)

The telephone captures good 4K video at 30 or 60fps with good element and dynamic vary in daylight and low mild. The movies supply a gradual bit charge as nicely and are well-stabilised. The T* coating positive helps reduce down on lens flare when capturing video in low mild. 8K 30fps footage turned out to be one of the best of the lot and even managed wonderful high quality in dim lighting. Sadly, it is a bit too shaky, and at 200MB for 20 seconds of footage, it is not possible to shoot at this decision on a regular basis.

Vivo X Fold Three Professional Battery: Greater is healthier

• Battery Capability – 5,700mAh (dual-cell)
• Wired Charging – 100W
• Wi-fi Charging – 50W
• Charger – 120W (within the field)

Battery life is shockingly good for a foldable and fairly spectacular for an everyday premium telephone as nicely. The telephone simply managed greater than a day with heavy utilization, even with the AOD on, which included blended use of each shows. With informal use, you may get previous 1.5 days of use.

The Vivo X Fold Three Professional’s hinge makes it slimmer and lighter than the competitors

In our video loop battery check, the telephone managed to run for 19 hours and 56 minutes on the duvet show and an equally spectacular 16 hours and Four minutes on the primary show. And even after I ran out of cost, the included charger juices up this foldable’s huge battery (from zero to totally charged) in simply 43 minutes, managing an 82 % cost in simply 30 minutes.

Vivo X Fold Three Professional Verdict

Samsung has been delivering each single foldable that has been launched globally in India 12 months after 12 months. The model absolutely has its following, so it will likely be actually onerous to persuade a Samsung smartphone proprietor to modify to a different model, not to mention a Vivo-branded machine.

Nonetheless, there’s sufficient worth with greater (high-resolution) shows, loads of uncooked efficiency, extra options (with a sprinkle of AI), and higher total digital camera efficiency accessible on the Vivo, making the X Fold Three Professional stand out. Vivo appears to have completed sufficient to get any brand-loyal smartphone purchaser’s consideration. Simply so you realize, this telephone can be manufactured in India. Oddly, Vivo doesn’t supply any paid care program to increase the guarantee of the foldable, as Samsung and OnePlus do. This implies you’ll have to actually maintain the machine (or pay for damages your self in full) in case your show or hinge will get broken past the guarantee interval, which may get costly.

If you’re very choosy concerning the software program expertise, then the OnePlus Open (Assessment) is unquestionably a more sensible choice at a cheaper price, however it lacks a number of options that the Vivo X Fold Three Professional affords. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 (Assessment) will nonetheless be the go-to foldable for a lot of consumers because it additionally gives S-pen stylus assist, however it has now come to some extent that it is onerous to disregard the large {hardware} and have upgrades which might be being provided by the rising competitors this 12 months.