Without a doubt, foldable phones are the apex of the smartphone aristocracy. We reviewed every foldable that has been launched so far, from nearly every brand that is available. Although late to the Indian market, Vivo has finally released its first foldable phone, the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro, here. However, it was initially launched in China before making its way to the Indian market. Having said that, Vivo, like OnePlus, hopes to compete with Samsung by providing something extra with its foldable products.
Vivo designed something very unique in terms of hardware. For the past week to ten days, we’ve been using it as our primary device, and we’ve been quite happy with its performance—particularly the cameras, given that it’s foldable.
In This Article
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro Review: Design and Display
The phone will grab your attention as soon as you lay your eyes on it. When folded, the smartphone measures 159.96 x 142.4 x 5.2 mm and weighs 236 grams, making it the perfect size—not too tall or too wide. What else could a person possibly want from a foldable? Well, a few other things as well. Let’s talk about them.
The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro’s sleek appearance makes it an obvious design winner. It is even thinner than a typical bar-shaped smartphone. It feels light in your palm and nice to grip, although it’s not particularly light. This one appears lighter than the bulk of other foldables due to its excellent weight distribution.
The smartphone sports a large circular camera module with three sensors on the back. The firm refers to it as a “Big Eye” camera module. Inspired by high-end watches, the fluted bezel design adorns the outer ring of the lens.
Also Read: OnePlus Open Review: It can really open up to you
It has an ultra-durable glass fibre and UPE Armour Back Cover with an aluminium alloy frame, as well as an ultra-durable lightweight carbon fibre hinge. The company claims that it can endure for more than 12 years at a rate of 100 folds per day.
We opened and closed it about 30 to 40 times per day, which is much less. But what if you did that 100 times every day, opening and closing it? Fret not, it is quite durable, lasting up to 12 years at that rate. You can thus fully trust it, especially with this folding phone’s hinge mechanism.
The X Fold 3 Pro’s cover screen is reinforced with Armour Glass, a microcrystal screen, and accurate gap-filling adhesive technology. The primary (inside) screen, on the other hand, is made of Super Tensile UTG and impact-resistant material. Durability is another important design feature of the phone. Vivo’s phone, like Samsung’s, is water-resistant and has IPX8 rating.
The camera module at the back has a matte finish. However, dust collection around the camera module creates an unclean appearance. When placed on a flat surface, the upper section of the phone slants due to the camera hump. However, its stability and absence of wobbling are welcomed.
Now for the ports and buttons. The bottom features a USB Type C port, a microphone SIM slot, and a speaker grill. The USB port is 3.2 Gen 2, which gives you a 10 Gbps speed for data transfer. The SIM card tray can accommodate two micro SIM cards, but eSIM support is not there. On the right, you’ll find a power on/off button and a volume rocker. The frame’s top features another speaker grill, an IR blaster, and a microphone. On the left, you’ll find a microphone and an alert slider. The manufacturer provides three microphones in total, with the fourth put inside the camera module for capturing great audio without noise.
The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro’s 8.03-inch primary 2K E7 LTPO AMOLED display boasts a 4:3.55 aspect ratio and 2,200×2,480 pixel resolution. Note that this is the biggest display on a foldable smartphone. The primary foldable screen supports Dolby Vision and HDR10. There’s also a 2,160Hz dimming, so in low light, your eyes shouldn’t have any issues.
In contrast, the 6.53-inch AMOLED cover display has a resolution of 1,172×2,748 pixels with an aspect ratio of 21.1:9. With Ultra-Thin Glass (UTG) protection, the external and interior screens can both have refresh rates of up to 120 Hz. Both screens have a maximum brightness of 4,500 nits. So again, these are the brightest displays available on a foldable phone. In direct sunlight, the two screens are very legible.
When it comes the bezels, both inner and outer, are quite thin. When opened, it almost looks like a square. Despite its large size, it is easy to carry. The beauty of this is that, when folded, it looks exactly like a candy bar smartphone. You may also open it and use it as a tablet. That is why form factor and hand feel are so important.
When it comes to entertainment, a larger screen is ideal for binge-watching and multitasking. It can also be useful for video chats, meetings, and presentations, which is a bonus. The bigger screen area plays a very important and useful role, in our honest opinion.
Once again, the Vivo display lives up to expectations. The display responds quickly to touch inputs and reproduces colours quite accurately. It has a gorgeous contrast and white balance. The display is fluid and smooth with the 120 Hz refresh rate feature. Dolby Vision is also supported, which improves the overall visual experience by displaying even the smallest details and offering extraordinarily vivid colours.
Moreover, during our testing, there were neither jitters nor struggles. We enjoyed watching videos on over-the-top services (OTT) like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Vivo X Fold 3 Pro offers a very realistic and fluid visual experience on these platforms.
The nicest thing about this foldable phone is that it can be used in tent mode, which is useful for watching films or taking photos in challenging circumstances like low light (without any shakes). Additionally, you may use it as a desk calendar AOD screen in this mode to view the date, weather, battery life, and time.
The sound quality is good, however, the speakers are not very loud. You can use it to watch videos and listen to your preferred audio playlists. It will not disappoint.
For convenience, the foldable device incorporates two additional fingerprint readers. As you may have observed, the fingerprint scanner on most foldable devices is integrated into the power button. However, this particular device has one built into the cover display, and the second sensor is accessible when the main display is unfolded to reveal it in the lower portion of the right panel. This is an ultrasonic fingerprint reader, by the way, and it functions incredibly well. Therefore, Vivo has done a fantastic job with hardware.
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro Review: Performance and Cameras
Now for the performance, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS4.0 storage is located under the hood. When it came to performing regular things like binge-watching, listening to music, and browsing social media, the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro performed exceptionally well. The Vivo foldable phone has good performance in all areas, including gaming thanks to the latest Qualcomm processor. It was a great experience, with nearly no sluggishness or issues thanks to OxygenOS’s fine-tuning.
The game experience was excellent throughout. We played everything from casual games to complex ones. There were no lags or frame dips in any of these games. Most demanding games, like Call of Duty: Mobile, BGMI, and Asphalt 9, can be played at top settings on it.
Out of the box, the smartphone runs the most recent Funtouch OS 14, which is based on Android 14. In addition to language translation, the notes and recording apps also have several additional generative AI integrations to easily capture thoughts, manage tasks, and achieve precision and efficiency with a single tap.
Also Read: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 review (long term): A foldable delight
The gadget includes AI Note Assist, which boosts workplace productivity with adaptable AI-generated notes for meeting minutes, weekly reports, and scheduling. AI Transcript Assist is another great tool that converts, records, and transcribes essential points from voice calls, video calls, phone conferences, and online classes. AI Screen Translation, on the other hand, uses machine real-time translation to enable consumers to overcome language obstacles, have a smooth language conversion experience, and improve usability.
Over that, the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro supports cross-screen connectivity. It can support up to five apps running on the display at the same time, all of which are running in the background. Other advantages include file drag and drop, copy and paste, and convenient phone calls between your PC and smartphone.
X Fold 3 Pro also supports split-screen screenshots. Users can capture the left screen by swiping down using three fingers from the top of the screen, and the right screen by doing the same. Swipe down from the centre to capture the entire screen and instantly save or share important photographs. Moreover, a split screen can be invoked at an appropriate bending angle (activated at 160 degrees) on the main display.
The camera quality of the Vivo X100 Pro (Review) was incredible, and we were expecting Vivo to deliver the same level of quality on its foldable phone. The good news is that the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro has the same camera quality as its sibling. Collaboration with Zeiss, we believe, is Vivo’s best decision ever.
The X Fold 3 Pro has a triple camera setup, which includes a 50MP primary sensor with OIS VCS, a 50MP wide-angle AF, and a 64MP Telephoto (OIS) 3x Optical Zoom lens. The outside and primary panels have two 32-megapixel sensors for selfies, each with an f/2.4 aperture. The camera app has Snapshot, Night, Portrait, Photo, Video, High Resolution, Pano, Ultra HD Document, Slo-mo, Long Exposure, Time-Lapse, Supermoon, Astro, Landscape & Architecture, Pro, Food, Live Photo, and Cinematic Portrait modes.
When shooting in daylight, the photographs were quite sharp and detailed, which is more visible when you zoom in. The dynamic range is particularly impressive, and the colour reproduction is good. Because there are no saturation concerns, the colours appear natural, which is rather stunning. Looking at the photographs, you can’t say that the company made any compromises.
If you are taking pictures against the light during the day, this kind of difficult lighting condition makes it hard for the camera to get sharp images. However, you won’t experience any such issues with the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro’s camera. It can capture sharp pictures of objects that are in direct light, too.
This image, which was taken in low light with and without night mode, has good dynamic ranges and seems considerably clear. The photos taken in extremely low light also have good colour and clarity levels. Overall, we were happy with how well the primary camera performed in low light.
All things considered, you are getting one of the best primary cameras available for foldable devices. Although there is some shutter lag (seen here and there), it is still pretty quick.
Also read: Vivo X100 Pro review: Goes above and beyond with its cameras
Similar outcomes are also obtained with the 50-megapixel wide-angle lens; you get crisp, true-colour photos. The pictures have a decent amount of crispness. Though not extremely wide, the pictures are unquestionably excellent. It also did an excellent job of controlling the tone of the human subjects.
Though they could have done a better job, particularly against the light, the shots are not overexposed; overall, they turn out nicely, even in dimly lit environments. The larger sensor size allowed it to capture the greatest amount of light feasible, which maximally decreased the level of noise. The wide-angle lens’s support for autofocus is a plus.
Additionally, take note that wide-angle photos have warmer tones. We recommend using the primary camera to get the best colour.
The great part about the Pericope telephoto lens is that you can also use it to capture macro images. The macros here are sharp and have wonderful details with out-of-focus bokeh effects. You may take pictures of landscapes, cityscapes at night, pictures of the sun or moon, and more with the telephoto lens’s 3x optical and 100x digital zoom capabilities.
The photos have somewhat enhanced colour when seen at 3x magnification. One feature we truly appreciate is that it stays stable no matter how far you zoom—even up to 100 times. Both OIS and EIS perform well. For crisp and powerful shots, you may easily go up to 30x. Do note that you will have to make some little compromises if you go to 100x.
With its ability to capture portraits at 24 mm, 35 mm, 50 mm, 85 mm, and 100 mm focal lengths, the phone’s portrait mode excels at highlighting details while preserving a high degree of clarity. Perfect edge detection and superb portraiture are provided. The skin tone appears to be natural. We believe that this is Vivo’s foldable’s primary USP. Concerning folding phones, Vivo is unmatched in terms of portrait photography; the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro produces some of the best images.
normal vs night mode
Accurate skin tones are produced in selfies taken with the 32-megapixel Sony front-facing camera. Their detail and crispness are superb. The hues are beautiful and vivid, and saturation is not an issue. Moreover, the dynamic range is superb. In the portrait mode, edge detection was flawless, and selfies looked fantastic.
So, you will obtain 1x, 2x, and 3x zoom if you record cinematic videos. While both 1x and 3x are optical modes, 2x is available in a digital mode. This is the first folding phone that allows you to capture 4K cinematic footage. It looks like the handheld videos were captured using a gimbal because of how steady they are. This is a pretty efficient usage of the Vivo V3 chip. Next-level performance. This is a highly powerful chipset that allows you to record videos in up to 8K.
When in hover mode, the X Fold 3 Pro will activate the tripod mode, which will improve the clarity and steadiness of the image when taking hands-free photos. When semi-folded, you can take beautiful, low-angle pictures without stooping.
Many consumers will naturally find battery performance to be essential because this phone is very different from other smartphones. 5,700 mAh of battery life is included with this phone. This means that your battery will last for a full day. It also has 50W wireless charging capability and 100W fast charging. So, when in need it will swiftly juice up.
Also Read: Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Review: Flip it good!
Verdict
Once again, Vivo has established a new standard. The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro, the company’s first foldable here, most likely contains everything that the other models lacked. This Vivo foldable raises the bar in all aspects, be it build quality, weight, form factor, camera, or display. Generally speaking, foldable phones lack an in-display fingerprint sensor because the majority of devices on the market have a side-mounted sensor instead. Unlike its competitors, the X Fold 3 Pro boasts two in-display fingerprint sensors, setting it apart from the rest. That’s correct—it’s simply drawing fresh boundaries. The best foldable device on the market right now, in our opinion, is Vivo’s latest offering.
We thoroughly enjoyed using this folding phone, particularly the outer screen. It feels just like we’re using a regular smartphone.
We enjoyed taking portrait photos. The quality of the details is unaffected by extremely low light. Additionally, the smartphone is capable of taking macro photos, and these images likewise feature good colour and detail quality. Impressive levels of edge recognition, background blurring, and colour reproduction are achieved. You can capture breathtaking images in any lighting situation.
In short, it’s not really necessary to travel with a professional camera when you have the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro with you.
The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro costs Rs 1,59,999 and comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Buy here
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro Pros:
- Sturdy
- Professional grade cameras
- Gorgeous Display
- Bigger battery with fast charging
- Ideal for gaming
- AI features
- In-display fingerprint sensor
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro Cons:
- speakers are not very loud
