Back in December, Tecno, a relatively obscure mobile firm on this side of the globe, stunned us with a pop-out portrait lens on its Phantom X2 Pro flagship phone. The Chinese manufacturer gave us the Phantom V Fold for its MWC showcase today, which happens to be the first horizontally-folding phone powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 9000+ chipset (hello, Oppo Find N2 Flip! ), rather than anything from Qualcomm. This typically suggests that the entry barrier is lower, which is always a positive thing.
The Phantom V Fold, like Honor’s Magic VS and Xiaomi’s Mix Fold 2, has a broader body than Samsung’s competitors — but not as wide as Oppo’s. Tecno’s “nearly crease-free” foldable screen is 7.85 inches and has a resolution of 2,296 x 2,000, while the sub-panel measures 6.42 inches and has a resolution of 2,550 x 1,080. Both AMOLED displays can refresh at up to 120Hz. In terms of endurance, the company claims that “the gadget is capable of 200,000 folds,” which is comparable to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4, but only half of what the Chinese competitor has just done.
The Phantom V Fold also has a full set of cameras. A 50-megapixel primary camera, a 50-megapixel telephoto camera (2x optical zoom), and a 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera are located on the back. They are encircled by an eco-friendly rear cover made of recycled plastics, available in black or white. Then there are two punch-hole selfie cameras: one with 16 megapixels on the foldable screen and one with 32 megapixels on the outer screen. The latter is acceptable for video chats on that smaller screen, but for better selfies, you’d definitely want to unfold the phone and utilise the primary camera instead.
Tecno did not skimp on the battery either. The Phantom V Fold comes with a 5,000mAh battery and a 45W fast charger. This achieves a 40% charge in 15 minutes and a 100% charge in 55 minutes. That’s a little slower than the Chinese competitors, but it still outperforms the Galaxy Z Fold 4 if you don’t mind foregoing wireless charging.
On the software front, the Phantom V Fold is powered by Tecno’s HiOS 13 Fold, which is based on Android 13. According to the business, it has personalised the folding experience on its tablet for the top 1,000 most downloaded applications worldwide, with 90 percent of them also optimised for split-screen and multi-window modes.
So, how much less expensive is the Phantom V Fold? Not too shabby. The basic model, which has 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage, costs $1,099, while the 512GB option costs $1,222. Outside of China, they are relatively competitive when compared to Samsung and even Honor, however, costs may vary by country — in this example, India, followed by other African and Latin American nations where Tecno is normally active.
