The foldable market is growing rapidly, with more companies wanting a bite out of the pie. After technology giants such as Samsung, Xiaomi, and OPPO, Tecno wants in on the action. The company is widely known for its smartphones in the budget segment. With the Chinese tech maker starting to up their game in the flagship market with its Phantom X2 series (Review) — a foldable smartphone seems to be the next right step.
The Tecno Phantom V Fold is playing a simple card that can prove vital for them — which is undercutting the competition by a huge margin while still providing most of the perks.
The device has an interesting specification list and an even more interesting price tag. A MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ SoC powers it and comes with a 6.42-inch cover display, a 50-megapixel primary camera, and many other things.
We spent some time on the phone, and here are our first impressions of the Phantom V Fold.
Tecno Phantom V Fold 5G India pricing and availability
The Phantom V Fold is available in two variants with a starting price of Rs 88,888. However, the company has early bird offers exclusively on Amazon. This offer brings the price to Rs 77,777. The company also offers many benefits for pre-booking, such as one-time screen replacement, extra warranty, and more.
Tecno Phantom V Fold 5G Initial Thoughts
Tecno has a thing for textured back panels, which all started with the Phantom X2 Pro. It’s just as mesmerising on the foldable, with the rough fibre finish acting as a fidget. While the back panel is made of plastic to save up on costs and supposedly keep the planet green, it does not feel cheap by any means. The foldable phone is available in two hues, and both look gorgeous, with the white variant slightly getting an edge because of the copper-painted frame.
At first glance, it’s hard to tell this is a foldable phone because of how wide it looks in its folded form compared to the rivals in the market. However, it’s also easy to grip and does not register any fingerprint marks.
The camera module takes up a fairly huge portion of the back panel. The hinge cover has a set of grooves which are super-fidgety — or maybe it’s just us. The device weighs in at 299 grams, making it one of the heaviest phones we’ve used.
The slightly curved back panel seeps into the side frame, which holds in place a volume rocker and power button that doubles up as a fingerprint sensor. One part of the bottom side has a USB Type-C port and a primary microphone, while the other one has a SIM tray and speaker grille. The top frame features a secondary microphone and another speaker grille to complete the stereo speaker setup.
The cover display, or the sub-screen as Tecno likes to call it, holds a hole-punch camera that isn’t very intrusive in place. The 6.42-inch LTPO AMOLED panel has pretty thin bezels with more screen estate compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 4 (Review). In an unfolded state, the primary display opens up to 7.85 inches, making it the largest in the market.
We found opening and folding the V Fold a bit tedious because of how stiff the hinge and magnet felt. It’s just too springy, to put it simply. On the plus side, the almost creaseless display has been tested for 200,000 folds, as per the company. We’ll be rigorously testing that claim in our full review.
The Phantom V Fold is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ SoC and comes in 256GB and 512GB storage variants, with 12GB LPDDR5X RAM being a constant factor. The camera setup is led by a duo of 50-megapixel cameras with a primary and a telephoto camera. A 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera completes the setup. The front is graced by a 32-megapixel selfie camera on the cover display and a 16-megapixel partner on the main panel.
The device runs on HiOS Fold based on Android 13. Tecno says it has managed to optimise over 2,000 apps for the bendy panel. In addition, it has a bunch of features specifically catered for foldable such as Split Mode. The UI is pretty smooth but also comes with a bunch of bloatware. The Phantom V Fold packs in a 5,000mAh battery and can charge at speeds of 45W.
In our limited time with the Phantom V Fold, we quite liked its form factor and design choices. Both the displays are quite useful and give you more screen real estate to play around with. The hinge, however, is what irked us, but then again, we’ll need to use it for a longer period of time to form a proper opinion on it.
With that affordable price of Rs 88,888, the Phantom V Fold may bring the foldable dream closer to reality for many people. It may even start a race to make the cheapest foldable in town.
We can’t wait to test the Phantom V Fold 5G in its entirety soon, so stay tuned to MySmartPrice.
