Vivo held its Tech Day 2022 event in Delhi on Tuesday, October 18. During the event, the company showcased some of the technologies it is working on in the 5G, gaming, photography, and design areas. The star of the show, however, turned out to be the Vivo Fold, the first foldable from the company. The Vivo Fold or the Vivo X Fold, as the global variant is called, has a folio-like foldable design, similar to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold, but there are many differences.
During the event, we got a good hands-on with the Vivo Fold. Since the smartphone was running on global software, we were not able to test out the smartphone’s features and usability, but we got to see what Vivo has done with the design, and what differences or similarities it has with other foldables in the market. Here are my first impressions around the Vivo Fold, basis the smartphone’s design, build, and features that we got to experience during the Vivo Tech Day 2022 event in Delhi.
So starting with design, the Vivo Fold looks like two Vivo X80’s sandwiched together in a very well-packaged folio design. The Vivo Fold has a more proportionate outer display that is more usable than Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4’s tall aspect ratio. The Vivo Fold looks like it will be more convenient to use as a normal phone when folded, but still bulky, of course.
One thing that Vivo has been able to achieve is putting an under-display inside the display of the Vivo Fold, something other brands have struggled with. How Vivo has achieved this is that the company has used a Titanium alloy sheet with a mix of polymer under the Ultra-Thin Glass (UTG) folding display. This material allows the ultrasonic rays to pass through the titanium alloy sheet.
Vivo’s hinge mechanism is also new. The company has used a re-inforced hinge mechanism that reduces the crease on the foldable display. Vivo, during the Tech Day presentation, told us that the Vivo Fold’s hinge allows the display to fold in a waterdrop-like shaped, instead of the U-like fold that other foldable smartphones in the market offer. This reduces the crease’s prominence. While the crease is still very much visible, it is much less prominent than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4. The hinge of the Vivo Fold also holds on any angle, so the user can make the phone stand, or use it for clicking group pictures or self portraits.
Apart from this, the Vivo Fold’s design is also a perfect sandwich. This means that the two panels close perfectly with no margin in between the two panels. There is no gap in between the Vivo Fold when the smartphone is in its fully-folded form. The gap is so tight that even a sheet of paper wasn’t able to pass through the two panels in the folded form factor.
At the back, the Vivo Fold has a similar-looking camera module as the Vivo X80 series. The camera here is also Zeiss-branded, which has four lenses. Vivo didn’t give us the specifications, but our guess is that the camera is the same as the global variant, which includes a 50-megapixel primary wide-angle lens, a 48-megapixel wide-angle lenss, a 8-megapixel periscope lens, and a 12-megapixel telephoto lens.
The back panel has a faux leather finish, which makes the Vivo Fold feel more premium in your hands, and offers better grip than glass or metal finish, as we have seen on other foldables. There is also a black colour option, which has a fabric strip running down the left side of the back panel.
Overall, the Vivo Fold is a well-made foldable smartphone. It felt sturdy in my hands, and I was confident while folding or unfolding the device, even with one hand. For a first generation foldable, this is good build quality. The hinge mechanism and ultrasonic fingerprint sensor are two of most appealing design elements on the Vivo Foldabe. However, if the smartphone will be viable competitor to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 depends on more extensive testing. We did get a few minutes with the phone during the Vivo Tech Day event, but it was just to experience the device, not test it. While I wait to test the Vivo Fold, and hope for the brand to bring it to India, the design and other elements of the smartphone look very promising and at times, better than the most popular foldables out there. Samsung needs competition in the Foldable market, and this product looks like it can do that very well.
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