When Samsung and HUAWEI captured the world with their folding smartphones a few years back, they opened an entire can of worms. Samsung stuck to their original design with multiple displays on offer and they made it stick with their second and third iteration of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold as they call it today. Their form factor also became the de facto foldable smartphone layout; just look at the OPPO Find N.

OPPO and HUAWEI are not the only smartphone manufacturers that wants a piece of the foldable smartphone pie with Samsung’s designs. Companies like OnePlus and even Google themselves have expressed interests in building their own version of a smartphone with one folding display and another solid display out front. Now vivo has beaten them both and introduced their own vivo X Fold.

vivo, to be fair, did not just launch the X Fold in China. They also launched their largest smartphone to date – the vivo X Note. In this case, before we talk about the foldable, we do have to at least talk about the vivo X Note.

vivo X Note

It is vivo’s most powerful candybar smartphone to date. It packs Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 for everything that Android 12 needs on the device. For photography, it packs vivo’s own developed V1 chip. That V1 chip powers a 50-Megapixel main camera that is flanked by an 8-Megapixel 5x telephoto camera, a 12-Megapixel 2x telephoto camera, and another 48-Megapixel ultrawide camera. Of course, the new vivo X Note is capable of recording videos at 8K. For selfies, you get a 16-Megapixel front-facing camera sitting in a punch hole in the display.

Speaking of display, it is an expansive 7-inch display that boasts 2K 1440p. It is an LTPO AMOLED display capable of up to 120Hz in refresh rate and down to 1Hz if need be. The brilliant display also offers HDR10+ in colour and contrast which also means watching Netflix or Prime Video on it should be a rather enjoyable experience.

For memory and storage, you get up to 12GB in RAM and 512GB in built-in UFS 3.1 flash module. Right beneath the display is also a large under-disply optical fingerprint sensor for faster and better fingerprint sensor coverage. To keep all of that running an entire day and more is a 5,000mAh battery that is also capable of 80W charging speeds. They say that the vivo X Note can fully charge (from 0%) within 32 minuttes.

vivo X Fold

The star of the show is vivo’s first foldable device, the vivo X Fold. While you may expect the vivo foldable device to have more in common to its cousin over from OPPO, the X Fold has more in common with Samsung’s Foldable. It is a larger device that the Samsung though.

For starters, the secondary outer display measures 6.53-inch compared to Samsung’s 6.2-inch. Unfold the device and an 8.03-inch display greets you. The outside display is an excellent AMOLED display that boasts Full HD+ resolutions at 21:9 aspect ratio. It is also a speedy display at 120Hz.

The larger main display boasts even more pixels than the outer display, which is quite expected. You get 1,916 by 2,160 pixels from the 8-inch flexible AMOLED panel. It boasts HDR10+ in colour contrast for the best display experience you can get for smartphones currently. It is also an LTPO display, which means that it goes down to 1Hz refresh to extend your battery life.

It shares some similarities with the vivo X Note too. It packs a 50-Megapixel main camera flanked by the same 5x telephoto, 2x telephoto, and high-resolution ultrawide cameras. There is only one front-facing camera though, unlike some of the foldables that we have seen. The 16-Megapixel front-facing camera sits in a punch-hole on the outer display.

The device is powered by the best that the industry has to offer currently, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 system on a chip (SoC). Supporting the powerful SoC is up to 12GB in RAM. You also get up to 512GB of storage for good measure.

Instead of a side mounted fingerprint sensor though, vivo has employed the use of their large under-display optical fingerprint sensor. They have also installed not one, but two fingerprint sensors (one outside, one inside) for maximum convenience for users. vivo also produced their own unique hinge for the folding display that is supposed to minimise the crease of the folding display with a rising aluminium plate supporting the flexing part of the display. It could also help in durability and reliability of the folding display too.

To keep everything happy and running an entire day or more is a 4,600mAh battery pack within its body. It does not charge at 80W like the X Note though. Still 66W charging speeds should bring it from 0% to a full charge in about 37 minutes, which is still rather impressive.

All these things do make it a little heftier than the even the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3. It weighs just over 300g. To be specific, it weighs 311g, 40g heavier than the Samsung. Considering all that it packs though, that is not too big of a weight increase.

Price and Availability

For now, the vivo X Note and X Fold will only be available in China. There are no mentions when vivo will bring the device out of China. Then again, there are no confirmations on whether vivo will be selling the device outside of China. Remember the OPPO Find N? While that was showcased in Malaysia, the device never made it to Malaysia officially.

The vivo X Note will come in three storage and RAM offerings. It starts at 8GB + 256GB configuration at CN¥ 5,999 (MYR 3,990*) and tops out at CN¥ 6,999 (MYR 4,650*) for a 12GB + 512GB configuration.

The vivo X Fold will also be offering in a variety of storage options. It starts from 12GB + 256GB option at CN¥ 8,999 (MYR 5,960*) and tops out at 12GB + 512GB configuration at CN¥ 9,999 (MYR 6,620*).

* Approximation by Vivo Malaysia