Samsung beware: Foldable heavyweight Vivo X Fold 2 beats Galaxy Fold 4 in performance
Samsung is no longer the only name in the foldable game, and this brand new phone actually beats the Galaxy Z Fold 4 in terms of performance.
What you see above is a first look at the Vivo X Fold 2 (thanks to 91Mobiles), one of the first folding phones to come with the beastly Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, so it certainly is a very viable alternative to Samsung's Fold 4. As a quick reminder, Vivo is one of the largest Chinese phone makers, and it is now taking foldable phones seriously.
The Vivo X Fold 2 will launch alongside a smaller, flip-type phone, the Vivo X Flip, and both are expected to get an official unveiling on Thursday, April 20th.
Read more: Best foldable phones
Vivo X Fold 2
The most powerful foldable phone ever?
So what is the story with the Vivo X Fold 2?
It's a book-like folding phone much like the Galaxy Z Fold 4, but it has an even larger main screen at 8.03 inches. The big story is about the chip under the hood: the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 on the X Fold 2 is considerably more powerful than the older Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip used on the Galaxy.
The Vivo also comes with a whopping 12GB of the latest LPDDR5X RAM, and a choice of either 256GB or 512GB of storage, both of the fast UFS 4.0 type.
Not only that, it will come with a larger battery than the Galaxy. The Vivo is said to pack a 4,800mAh battery, compared to a 4,400mAh cell on the Z Fold 4. This is a nearly 10% larger battery!
The Vivo will also sport a larger front/cover screen at 6.52" with a tall, but still manageable 21:9 aspect ratio.
Here is how the screens on the Vivo X Fold 2 compare to the Galaxy Z Fold 4:
- Main screen: 8.03" on Vivo, 7.6" on Galaxy
- Cover screen: 6.52" on Vivo, 6.2" on Galaxy
Count much faster charging on the list of advantages as well: you will have support for 120W wired fast charging compared to a meager 25W speeds on the Galaxy, and wireless charging on the Vivo goes up to 50W again nearly three times faster than the speeds supported on the Samsung phone.
The new folding phone is also expected to pack in quite the powerful camera system:
- 50MP main camera, f/1.75 aperture
- 12MP ultrawide, f/2.0 with a 108° FoV
- 12MP portrait camera
- 16MP camera on cover display
With that, however, the Vivo X Fold 2 will weigh a bit more too at 280g (9.9 ounces) vs 263g (9.3 ounces) for the Galaxy. The Vivo will arrive in three colors: a black, a red, and a blue model.
Vivo X Flip
Intereseting fingerprint placement
Vivo is also launching a Galaxy Flip competitor, the Vivo X Flip, which will have a large cover screen and while it won't have the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, it will still pack a punch.
Here are the specs highlights:
- 6.74" main screen, 21:9 aspect ratio, 1080p, 120Hz
- 3" cover screen
- Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
- 12GB LPDDR5X RAM
- 256/512GB UFS 4.0 storage
- 4,400mAh battery
- 44W wired charging
- 166.4mm x 75.3mm x 8.2mm size
- 200g weight
- Purple, black, and gold colors
Interestingly, instead of opting for a fingerprint scanner in the power key, like the Galaxy Flip, the Vivo will instead have an in-screen fingerprint reader (on the main screen).
As for the camera system, the Vivo X Flip goes with a dual main cameras: a 32MP, f/1.75 wide shooter and a 12MP, f/2.2 ultra-wide camera with a 108° FoV. You will also have a selfie camera on the inner display and that one would be a 32MP shooter.
These two shape up to be one of the most exciting new folding phones for 2023, but will they launch in Western markets? That's the big question and we hope we can learn more about that soon. The phones will be officially unveiled in just a couple of days on April 20th, so stay tuned as we will be bringing you the news about them.
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