Foldable smartphones are intriguing. They had been the largest departure from candy-bar smartphones in years but adoption charges have been low. Though increasingly shoppers are shopping for foldables yearly, the exorbitant costs are an apparent deterrent to mass adoption. Enter the Tecno Phantom V Fold 5G. Priced at ₹88,888, the Tecno Phantom V Fold is almost half the price of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 (Evaluate) and is cheaper than the smaller Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 (Evaluate). So, the telephone is absurdly aggressive when it involves pricing and it democratises the type consider India. Not simply that, the Phantom V Fold has a wider facet ratio for the cowl display screen and a much less noticeable crease. So, all of this at just about half the value of the business chief feels like a candy deal. Nevertheless, is the telephone designed properly, is the software program well-optimised, how does the telephone carry out, and the way are the cameras? These are a few of the questions I’ll reply in my assessment.
Tecno Phantom V Fold Evaluate: Construct and Design
The Tecno Phantom V Fold 5G is constructed extraordinarily properly for its value. The foldable has a fabric-like textured again panel that appears beautiful. Tecno has used recycled plastic to construct the rear panel, but it doesn’t really feel low-cost in any respect. The rear panel is additionally proof against fingerprints and smudges. The telephone’s grip is good and I felt snug sufficient to make use of it with no case. Tecno does present a plastic case with a kickstand proper inside the field.
The hinge and the sides of a telephone are fabricated from aluminium. The crease of the internal display screen is minimal on account of Tecno’s ‘Drop-Hinge’ design – means much less outstanding than the crease on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 – which is extraordinarily commendable for the firm’s first try at a foldable telephone. The foldable has the quantity rockers and the energy button on the proper – they’re good and tactile. Nevertheless, the side-mounted fingerprint sensor is extraordinarily delicate and prompts at the slightest contact.
The digicam island on the again is giant and round, and it might not be to everybody’s style. There’s additionally appreciable wobble when the telephone is stored on a flat floor. At 299 g, it is one among the heaviest foldables on the market proper now, but its cowl display screen has a a lot wider facet ratio than another rivals in the market, so a bump in weight is anticipated. This facet ratio additionally signifies that the cowl display screen is way more helpful since it is nearly as extensive as regular smartphones on the market.
Nevertheless, the show hinge can not stay partially open. This is one thing that foldables from OPPO and Samsung have, and it permits for lots of attention-grabbing and helpful foldable mechanics. For instance, you possibly can have a YouTube video play on the prime display screen and the playback controls are on the backside display screen. You’ll be able to even prop it up at 90 levels to have a makeshift tripod, of types, which is not potential on the Tecno.
Regardless of this, I’m a fan of the seems of the Tecno Phantom V Fold 5G and commend the firm for its understated but stylish design language. I hope the firm improves upon the hinge mechanism, to permit it to remain partially open, in its subsequent iteration of a foldable telephone.
Tecno Phantom V Fold Evaluate: Show(s)
As I discussed above, the Tecno Phantom V Fold 5G comes with a large facet ratio (21.3:9) cowl display screen, which makes it really feel extra like an everyday display screen than rivals like the Galaxy Z Fold4 with its abnormally tall display screen. The display screen measures 6.42 inches and sports activities FHD+ decision. It is an LTPO AMOLED show with assist for 1 billion colors and 120 Hz refresh charge, and for defense, you’ve received Gorilla Glass Victus on prime.
In the meantime, the internal foldable show measures a whopping 7.85 inches – the largest foldable display screen in the Indian market proper now. The show sports activities 2K+ decision (2296×2000 pixels). The foldable panel is LTPO AMOLED and helps 1 billion colors and 120 Hz refresh charge, like the cowl display screen. So, each shows have Adaptive refresh charge with assist to change from 10 Hz – 120 Hz, as per the utilization. The excessive refresh charge makes scrolling appear very easy. Nevertheless, each shows don’t include HDR certification, which is extraordinarily disappointing for a premium smartphone. There is Widevine L1 assist although, so you possibly can eat HD content material in your favorite streaming companies.
Each the shows at rated at 1100 nits of peak brightness. Nevertheless, throughout my testing utilizing a lux meter, I received a most studying of 802 nits on the internal show and 815 nits on the cowl show in shiny daylight on Auto-Brightness. Whereas the telephone doesn’t match as much as its rated brightness ranges, what it supplies is greater than ample for display screen legibility in all conditions, together with beneath harsh daylight.
Each the screens look nice – the colors are usually not the most correct but look vivid and pleasing and the element is good as properly. Nevertheless, the viewing angles are mediocre at this value. Moreover, I encountered a problem with the show knocking down the refresh charge to merely 10 Hz when watching YouTube movies on the internal show which resulted in fairly uneven video playback, we hope Tecno can iron this out with an OTA replace. Till then, it could also be sensible to manually select a refresh charge when watching YT movies.
Tecno Phantom V Fold Evaluate: Efficiency
Armed with a MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ SoC, the Tecno Phantom V Fold 5G affords dependable efficiency in day-to-day duties. You get 12 GB LPDDR5X RAM and 256 GB UFS 3.1 storage. There’s additionally assist for 9 GB of digital RAM. Issues reminiscent of calling, texting, clicking photographs, social media shopping, watching YT or Netflix, and net shopping occur with none hitches. Multitasking is a breeze too with 12 GB of quick LPDDR5X RAM. Gaming efficiency is respectable as properly, but not finest in school.
To gauge the telephone’s efficiency chops, I started operating a number of benchmarks on the machine. We began with CPU checks the place the Tecno Phantom V Fold scored 992328 in AnTuTu – the highest amongst each different foldable I examined towards this telephone together with the OPPO Discover N2 Flip, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4, and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4.
In Geekbench although, each the Samsung foldables beat the Phantom V Fold in each the Single Core and Multi Core checks. Nevertheless, the Tecno Phantom V Fold did soundly beat the OPPO foldable. In PCMark Work, as soon as once more, the Tecno confirmed its prowess with the Dimensity 9000+ processor by outputting a incredible rating of 15180. So, uncooked efficiency isn’t a problem, but what might be a problem is throttling.
I ran the CPU Throttling Check on the Tecno Phantom V Fold 5G to see how it would carry out beneath sustained workloads and it dropped to 76 per cent of its peak efficiency in simply quarter-hour. In distinction, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 doesn’t present such an enormous dip of 24 per cent in merely quarter-hour. I additionally observed that the telephone tends to run sizzling after taking part in a few rounds of video games reminiscent of Name of Responsibility: Cellular on Excessive or Very Excessive graphics. There have been additionally noticeable body drops in the gameplay after 4 successive rounds.
Talking of gameplay, I ran a number of GPU benchmarks on this telephone as properly, but it’s protected to say that the Phantom V Fold didn’t impress me as a lot right here. The telephone constantly received decrease scores than the two Samsung foldables and the OPPO Discover N2 Flip in all GPU benchmarks, as you possibly can see beneath. I observed that the telephone defaulted to Excessive Graphics in COD: Cellular in contrast to different flagships that often begin off at Very Excessive – this might be on account of the inferior GPU efficiency. There weren’t loads of stutters at Excessive Graphics throughout gaming but as we talked about earlier than, after a few rounds, body drops can be noticeable.
OPPO Discover N2 Flip and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 did not run 3D Mark Wild Life (once we examined them)
As for software program, the Tecno Phantom V Fold runs HiOS 13 Fold based mostly on Android 13. This is the newest model of Tecno’s proprietary OS and it is an altered Fold-specific model. The telephone has a number of modes to utilise the foldable facet of the show together with break up display screen (vertical), pop-up home windows, app pairing, and parallel home windows. It’s all well-implemented and intuitive, so it gained’t take too lengthy to study the actions that set off these modes. The telephone additionally seamlessly transitions from the unfolded giant model of an app on the internal display screen to the regular model nearly instantaneously once you shut the machine. Neat.
Nevertheless, there are some misses too. As talked about earlier than, the hinge can not keep in a half-folded state, so many actions which can be potential on different foldables on account of this are unavailable. Moreover, there’s no assist for horizontal break up display screen, which is disappointing. You’ll be able to create app pairs but there’s no choice to put them on the residence display screen. And in addition, you possibly can’t resize home windows once you’re in break up display screen, which is odd since even candybar telephones reminiscent of the S23 Extremely can carry out this operate.
I additionally encountered a really annoying bug in the digicam app the place the telephone stored switching the digicam interface between full-screen and split-screen view with none triggers from my facet. Primarily, split-screen mode in the digicam app strikes the viewfinder to the proper and shows a column of your newest photographs on the left – but this mode stored triggering on and off even once we didn’t need it to. Hopefully, this may be fastened through a software program replace.
The UI additionally isn’t the cleanest. It has fairly a couple of third-party apps and Tecno apps preinstalled. Nevertheless, as a primary try, this is a superb foldable software program – a couple of issues might be higher optimised although.
Tecno Phantom V Fold Evaluate: Digicam
The Tecno Phantom V Fold 5G packs a penta-camera setup consisting of a 50 MP main digicam with Auto Focus assist, a 50 MP telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom and 20x digital zoom capabilities, a 13 MP ultrawide shooter with a FOV (Subject Of View) of 120-degrees, and two selfie cameras. The one on the internal display screen is 16 MP and the one on the outer show is 32 MP. In fact, the telephone’s a foldable, so you possibly can really take actually high-quality selfie photographs from the highly effective rear digicam.
In my time with the Tecno Phantom V Fold 5G, I fairly loved the digicam setup, particularly, the main digicam that is able to capturing spectacular photographs, each in daylight and low gentle. Footage taken in daylight look crisp and detailed, plus they’ve good dynamic vary and pretty pure color as properly. Shut-up photos look nice as properly, with good pure bokeh and crisp particulars. Portraits taken from the principal digicam have good colors and edge detection. I’ve hooked up some picture samples beneath, but do word, they’ve been compressed for the net.
Portrait taken from main digicam
Nevertheless, I observed a pointy decline in high quality in telephoto portraits the place the 2x zoom ranges are engaged. Pictures look means softer and have a considerable quantity of shake as properly – so that they’re not very presentable. I recommend utilizing the principal digicam for portraits as typically as you possibly can since the distinction between the outcomes is night time and day.
Portrait taken from 2x telephoto digicam
Ultrawide photos taken from the 13 MP lens are respectable but nowhere close to flagship degree, sadly. The centre of the image seems crisp but the sides are awfully mushy and noisy. The ultrawide digicam additionally doubles as a macro shooter which takes surprisingly usable and handsome photographs. The sides of the picture aren’t as sharp, but it’s nonetheless spectacular. Have a look beneath.
Macro picture from the Tecno Phantom V Fold
Low-light photographs even have loads of element when taken from the principal digicam. Noise is stored to a minimal as properly. Nevertheless, the ultrawide digicam doesn’t do as properly with noisier photographs, normally.
Selfies are respectable from the internal display screen, there’s a little bit of softness but in splendid lighting circumstances, you will get respectable photographs. The outer selfie digicam is higher, with extra element and good dynamic vary. But, the finest selfie photographs are taken from the main lens – you’ll not often get to see such crisp selfies with oodles of element. General, the Tecno Phantom V Fold 5G has a superb digicam setup, nevertheless, enhancements might be made to the telephoto portraits and ultrawide lens.
Tecno Phantom V Fold Evaluate: Battery life
Geared up with a large 5,000 mAh cell, the Tecno Phantom V Fold 5G impressed us with its battery life. It is the solely foldable in India to sport a big 5,000 mAh cell. But outfitted with giant 120 Hz LTPO panels, it is a boon that this telephone sports activities a big battery. It is a battery of this capability that makes the telephone a reliable performer on this division.
In our 4K video loop check, the telephone lasted a whopping 16 hours and 18 minutes – beating out the OPPO Discover N2 Flip, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4, and even the Z Fold4. But, it didn’t beat out the Galaxy Z Fold4 by a lot. In case you’re a light-weight person, you’re taking a look at a minimal of a day and a half of battery life. And if you’re extra of an intensive, heavy person, put together to cost up the machine at night time, once you’re making ready to fall asleep.
As for charging, the Tecno Phantom V Fold comes with 45 W wired charging assist and also you get the supported charger out of the field. The firm claims that the machine can cost from 0-100 in simply 55 minutes, but throughout my testing, I observed the numbers had been far off. The telephone charged from 0-100 in 1 hour and 12 minutes, and reached the 62 per cent mark in half an hour. There’s additionally no wi-fi charging, which is current on the Samsung foldables.
Tecno Phantom V Fold Evaluate: Verdict
For the firm’s first try at a foldable – the Tecno Phantom V Fold 5G is spectacular. Not solely has the firm managed to convey us a well-designed foldable with an understated crease, but the Phantom V Fold additionally is the largest phablet-style foldable in India with a extremely usable outer show. All of that at simply ₹88,888! So, it is a superb worth proposition for these eager to expertise a phablet-style foldable at half the price of the business chief. Nevertheless, the telephone does falter in some areas – the software program, whereas well-implemented in the grand scheme of issues, does have some bugs, and the efficiency (particularly gaming efficiency) isn’t the finest at this premium value.
Additionally, whereas we loved the main digicam of the telephone, the telephoto and ultrawide lens might be higher optimised. All in all, this is an honest foldable – but if cash is no bar, then it merely can not match as much as the efficiency and finesse of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4. If you’re searching for a price range various although, I believe the telephone has sufficient deserves to gloss over a few of its demerits at this value.
