IF NOTHING, THE Phantom V Fold from Tecno goes to show that significantly cheaper book-style foldables — think Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4 — are possible, without any significant deal-breakers. A Fold for the price of a Flip, as some would say… but should you drop a considerable INR 88,888 on the Phantom V Fold?
The screens are the real stars of the show here, with a 6.42-inch 21:9 full HD+ outer display and a 7.85-inch 2K+ inner display, both panels of an LTPO AMOLED variety which can vary the refresh rate between 10Hz and 120 Hz. They’re bright and vivid and can play back HDR 10+ content, while being ably assisted by the dual stereo speakers. The clincher is the minimal crease where the screen folds, courtesy the drop-shaped hinge — a major improvement over the Z Fold 4’s noticeable crease.
The reduction in the crease comes at a cost — the hinge doesn’t support mid-fold positions, meaning that it can either be fully open or fully closed, with none of the ‘flex mode’ tricks that we’ve seen on the Samsungs. In an acknowledgment of that restriction, Tecno bundles in a case with a built-in kickstand that you can use to keep the device half open, and it’s a hack that works for the most part. Slapping on the case pushes the phone well into the 300g category, and the added heft is something you notice every day, whether it’s in the hand or in your pocket. Bear in mind, the phone has no official IP rating for water ingress protection.
All these screens need some grunt for smooth performance, and the MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ chipset, while not the latest flagship chip, brings enough horsepower to keep things humming along smoothly. It’s accompanied by 12GB of LPDDR5X memory and 256GB of UFS3.1 storage, which lets you push games like Call of Duty Mobile comfortably while still managing to last past a day, depending on how often you open up the inner screen. Charging is at a respectable 45W, but there’s no wireless charging support. The HiOS skin atop Android 13 ships with some foldable features like side-by-side apps, app pairs etc but the amount of preinstalled bloatware is not a good look for a phone at this price point.
Finally, the cameras — best described as serviceable, but a clear compromise in an otherwise rather complete package. The question remains — while the pricing will appeal to anyone looking to save while picking up a foldable, you’re going to have to want a foldable above all else to ignore other candybar phones from Apple and Samsung and spend this much money on the Phantom V Fold.
INR 88,888
Rating- 8/10