Vivo X Fold 5 review

Let's get one thing straight: the X Fold 5 is staggeringly, almost absurdly, thin. Unfurl this bad boy, and you’re greeted with a profile that’s just 4.3mm thick, that’s barely wider than the USB-C port at its base. When snapped shut, it’s a manageable 9.2mm, making it feel less like a tech sandwich and more like a conventional candybar smartphone. Tipping the scales at a mere 217g, it sidesteps the pocket-dragging heft of some rivals, like the OnePlus Open.

This is a foldable you can genuinely imagine using as your daily driver without needing to invest in trousers with reinforced pockets. The solid-coloured glass-fibre back and colour-matched aluminium alloy frame give it a minimalist, premium feel. The Titanium Gray variant we tested has a refined texture that feels lovely in the hand, with softly curved edges that make for a surprisingly comfortable grip. It’s an elegant piece of kit that doesn’t scream for attention but certainly earns it upon closer inspection. This isn’t just engineering; it’s origami with purpose.

The visual experience is, in a word, lush. Whether you’re using the expansive 8.03-inch main screen or the very capable 6.53-inch cover display, you’re in for a treat. Both are 2K+ E7 AMOLED panels with a buttery-smooth 120Hz refresh rate and an eyeball-searing local peak brightness of 4500 nits, making them perfectly readable even under the glaring Indian… well, let’s just say on a very bright day. With resolutions of 2480x2200 on the main screen and 2748x1172 on the cover, everything from text to 4K video is pin-sharp. It also supports Dolby Vision, which makes Netflix content look brighter and punchier.

Vivo also boasts about durability, with a triple-threat of screen protection including the industry-first second-gen Armor Glass on the cover screen, which is supposedly 30% more puncture-resistant than its predecessor. Add IP58/IP59 water resistance and IP5X dust protection, and you have a foldable that’s less fragile flower and more hardy perennial.

But here’s the rub. For all the visual splendour, the audio is a bit of a let-down. The stereo speakers sound disappointingly hollow, lacking the depth and low-end punch you’d find on a Samsung Fold or OnePlus Open. It’s not a deal-breaker, especially if you’re permanently attached to a pair of top-notch TWS earbuds, but for a phone commanding this sort of price, you’d expect the built-in audio to be just as premium as the pixels.

Under the bonnet, the X Fold 5 is packing some serious firepower. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 paired with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage means this phone chews through tasks like a caffeine-addled hamster. In real-world terms, it’s more than enough juice for even the most demanding user.

We threw Grid Legends at it, and the game ran as smooth as silk, with no signs of overheating or thermal throttling. To really push our luck, we fired up the Origin Workbench mode. It’s Vivo’s take on the iPad’s Stage Manager that lets you run up to five apps at once. In a fit of pure madness, we ran BGMI and Grid Legends simultaneously. The result? The X Fold 5 didn’t even break a sweat. It’s staggering to see how far mobile processors have come, running two graphically intensive games without a single stutter.

While it can handle any task you can dream up, benchmark purists might note it falls slightly behind the rumoured Snapdragon 8 Elite chip in Samsung’s next-gen Fold. But in the real world, this is a non-issue. The more noticeable hiccup is in the software. While the hardware is perfectly capable of god-tier multitasking, the Funtouch OS 15 software feels a tad underdeveloped. Beyond the nifty Origin Workbench, it lacks the intuitive gesture swipes for quick split-screening that make OxygenOS on the OnePlus Fold such a joy to use. It’s a small niggle, but one that slightly hampers the device’s productivity credentials.

And keeping all this power running is a colossal 6000mAh battery, the largest in any flagship foldable in India, according to Vivo. It utilises some clever second-generation semi-solid battery tech to cram all that power in without adding bulk, and it easily lasts a full day of heavy use.

Vivo’s partnership with ZEISS continues to pay dividends, and the camera system on the X Fold 5 is a proper showstopper. You get a trio of 50MP sensors: a main shooter with OIS, an ultra-wide, and a 3x optical zoom telephoto lens, also with OIS. This isn’t just a numbers game; the hardware and software work in beautiful harmony.

The results are, for the most part, fantastic. The camera system is thoroughly enjoyable, giving even the most cack-handed photographer the ability to capture snaps that look professional. Photos are vibrant and eye-pleasing without straying into the realm of the unnatural. It strikes a perfect balance that will flatter your subjects and your scenery. Even in harsh sunlight, the camera does a commendable job, managing to control blown-out highlights while keeping the overall exposure well-judged.

In low light, the X Fold 5 truly shines, delivering shots with excellent colour balance and impressive detail retention. Where it gets a bit dicey is in its processing, particularly with people. Compared to the more naturalistic approach of a Google Pixel or iPhone, the Vivo can be a bit aggressive with its face-brightening and texture-smoothing, occasionally smudging fine details.

When pitted against its main rival, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, the Vivo’s portraits are noticeably brighter, sometimes to the point of looking slightly washed out. It tends to brighten skin tones for a ‘pleasing’ look rather than a strictly accurate one. The Samsung, by contrast, produces much noisier images with a peculiar reddish tint on skin.

The Vivo, for all its brightening, does a better job of retaining natural light and more accurate skin tones.

The camera app is also loaded with clever tricks. Telephoto Stage Portrait mode uses AI to help you capture cracking shots of school plays or concerts from the back of the hall, while the Super Landscape Mode combines various features to make capturing epic vistas a doddle. There's even a 'Classic Negative' style inspired by Fujifilm film for that moody, cinematic look. It’s a versatile and powerful toolkit for any shutterbug.

The Origin Workbench is great for juggling multiple apps, but the real star might be the physical Shortcut Button. This customisable key gives you instant access to apps and functions like the torch, camera, or even AI Captions without even waking the screen. It’s a genuinely useful addition.

The AI gets even smarter. Live Text (or AirExtract) lets you point your camera at text in the real world and instantly convert it to digital content, which is brilliant for grabbing info from posters or receipts. It’s baked into the Notes app, so you have to open Notes > long-press anywhere to open the clipboard and tap ‘Snap Text’ to open the camera and extract text from anything you’re pointing your camera at.

There are many more useful features baked into the OS somewhere, but the phone doesn’t teach you any of them or show you where they are. You sort of have to figure it out as you use the phone.

The Vivo X Fold 5 is a formidable piece of hardware. It nails the design, delivering a foldable that is blissfully thin and light enough to banish the bulk that has plagued earlier generations. The performance is blistering, the battery life is heroic, and the display is a joy to behold. The ZEISS camera system, despite some overzealous processing on faces, is incredibly versatile and capable of stunning results.

It’s not perfect, of course. The audio is a definite weak spot, the multitasking software could be slicker, and its benchmark scores won't top every chart. Even though these are relatively minor quibbles in what is otherwise a brilliantly executed package, we can’t ignore that price for which you should’ve absolutely got a Snapdragon 8 Elite.

The X Fold 5 is a mature, elegant, and powerful foldable that proves the form factor is ready for the mainstream. In terms of hardware, it’s a device that feels less like a compromise and more like a genuine upgrade on the traditional smartphone.