This popular tech brand gets enough right to create a near-perfect foldable

If you’re in the market for a foldable, Vivo’s X Fold series has earned itself a strong reputation with last year’s X Fold3 Pro, and the new X Fold5 builds on that with meaningful upgrades in design, battery life, and cameras, while undercutting the competition rather significantly on pricing. So, what’s the catch, if any?

Vivo X Fold 5 review: Yay or nay?

Now, foldables getting thinner and lighter than regular flagships was not on my bingo card for this year, but as with the Z Fold 7, the X Fold5 is strikingly thin, a reasonable 9.2mm when closed and a staggering 4.3mm thick when opened – that’s barely thicker than its USB-C port! At 217g, this is a phone with two displays, a hinge, a respectable camera setup and a 6,000mAh battery, and it’s still lighter than Apple and Samsung’s flagship candy bars! In the hand, it sits comfortably with its slightly-curved-edge frame, even more so than the flatter edges of the Samsung.

Should it slip from your hand, the second-generation Armor Glass protection and sturdier hinge should hold you in good stead, and the IP58/59 ingress protection is impressive for a foldable. No ultrasonic fingerprint sensor embedded inside the cover and inner panels this time around though, instead you get the side-mounted reader that’s a common sight across this generation of foldables, plus a custom shortcut button to trigger quick actions even when the screen is off. 

Open the X Fold5 and you go from the 6.53-inch outer panel to a massive 8.03-inch panel on the inside, with both packing bright, 2K+ LTPO AMOLED screens that go up to 120Hz and support HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. With the wider 21:9 aspect ratio outer screen, you can use it for movie watching or getting most regular smartphone stuff done and go to the inner screen when the need arises, be it reading articles, poring over spreadsheets or multitasking between apps. The speakers get loud but lack any bass whatsoever. 

Keen eyes will immediately notice the X Fold 5 launches with the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip as last year’s model instead of the Snapdragon 8 Elite that finds favor with 2025 flagships. Last year’s chip is no pushover, and I didn’t notice any lags or overheating issues even when I played demanding games like Grid Legends on the device. That said, it does throttle performance, as with other foldables with limited space for advanced cooling systems, to avoid heating. 

At the price, you get a single but well specced 16GB memory/512GB storage variant that runs the Android 15-based Funtouch OS 15 smoothly. Aside from a few useful AI features, Funtouch has an intuitive multi-window implementation, including the Stage Manager-inspired Origin Workbench to better leverage the foldable screen, but coming from a Z Fold 7, one found the One UI to be more refined and polished on Samsung’s foldable. Plus, four years of Android OS upgrades when the competition goes to seven should force a rethink by Vivo. 

Where there’s no cause for complaint is in the battery life department, where Vivo has packed in a capacious second-gen silicon cathode 6,000mAh battery without adding bulk, and the foldable lasts a full day of heavy use. You get 80W charging and a charger in the box, something the competition would do well to emulate.

On cameras, Vivo’s Zeiss partnership works well with the trio of 50MP sensors: a main shooter with OIS, an ultra-wide, and a 3x optical zoom telephoto lens with OIS, plus two 20MP selfie shooters. The X Fold3 had the best cameras for a foldable, and the X Fold5 extends the lead over its peers, with a strong showing on photos and videos – good details and colors - even in challenging lighting. Low light photos and portraits are a highlight. 

 In all, the X Fold5 nails the fundamentals of a great foldable – sleek durable design, strong displays, excellent battery life and a camera system that’s ahead of the foldable peers by a country mile, not to forget a new, lower price point. Save for a few shortcomings on performance and software, this is as close to a perfect foldable as it gets.

Rating: 9/10 

Price: Rs. 1,49,999 (16/512GB) 

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