Vivo X Fold3 Pro review

Unlike the clamshell form factor that gives you a compact phone for your pocket but needs you to unfold it to use most of the time, the Vivo X Fold3 Pro takes the much more practical book-style form factor. There’s a cover screen on the top, and it’s capable of running the Android OS and UI in its entirety. You’ll manage most functionality without even needing to unfold the Vivo smartphone.

While the book-style form usually means a rather bulky and thick smartphone in the normal ‘folded shut’ way, the Vivo X Fold3 Pro uses its design chops to somewhat negate that effect. Touted as India’s slimmest and lightest foldable smartphone at 11.2mm thick when folded and 236g, it’s only a bit thicker and bulkier than the OnePlus 12R I use as my regular smartphone. You won’t really mind the bulk, given the obvious benefits of the much larger screen inside, and as such the Vivo X Fold3 Pro is practically the same thickness as a regular smartphone despite being a foldable.

The slim edges feature the power and volume buttons on lower side, and the ringtone mode slider on the upper side. When folded shut, both of these are obviously on the right side of the Vivo X Fold3 Pro, while the left side has the carbon fibre hinge mechanism. On the outside though, you’ll just feel a smooth surface. The X Fold3 Pro is IPX8 certified for water resistance too, which is impressive for a foldable smartphone.

The back of the Vivo X Fold3 Pro features a smooth finish, which often felt almost too smooth and forced me to grip tighter so it wouldn’t slip out of my hand. There’s also the rather massive triple camera module at the back, complete with the unmistakeable Zeiss badge that we’ve been seeing on various Vivo smartphones including the X100 Pro. Some might also find the IR emitter at the top to be useful.

The book-style form factor means that the Vivo X Fold3 Pro has two displays, both of which are big and well suited to their requirements and functions. The cover screen is a 6.53-inch, 2748x1172-pixel AMOLED with a 21:9 aspect ratio, while the main folding screen is an 8.03-inch 2480x2200-pixel AMOLED with a 4:3.55 aspect ratio. While the screen size of the main screen might make you believe it isn’t much bigger than the cover screen, don’t let that fool you - it’s actually massive and turns the Vivo X Fold3 Pro into a proper tablet-style device.

Both screens have a peak brightness rating of 4500 nits, pixel densities in excess of 400ppi, and refresh rates of 120Hz. This means that you can safely pick which screen to use based on what you want to use it for, and you’re assured of an equally good experience either way. Quite usefully, there are in-display fingerprint sensors on both screens as well.

There’s also LTPO 8T backplate tech on both screens, letting them drop to a refresh rate of 1Hz for efficient always-on functionality. The main display has a rather screen-to-body ratio of 91.8 percent, too, and there’s support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+ high dynamic range formats on both the cover and main screens.

Both screens are excellent, and the main screen also does a decent job of masking the mild fold crease in the middle. The UI also features various implementations to allow the screens to work in different ways depending on the orientation and fold mode. For example, placing the Vivo X Fold3 Pro in tent mode activates the always-on clock, and the laptop-style orientation activates the bottom half as a touch control pad in Flex Mode. There’s more as well, which we’ll explore in the software section.

Folding smartphones are still high-end products, and if you’re already spending big money then you’ll expect a flagship-grade phone too. The Vivo X Fold3 Pro ticks the boxes there, with a spec sheet that doesn’t hold back in the slightest. Under the hood is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, along with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. You also get dual-SIM with dual-standby capabilities, 5G connectivity, and Bluetooth 5.4, but no eSIM support.

On the software front, there’s Android 14 with Vivo’s FunTouch OS 14 on top. In most ways, it’s exactly what you get on the Vivo X100 Pro; that’s a good thing because of how straightforward, to-the-point, and in line with the Android way of things that FunTouch OS is. It isn’t devoid of bloatware (the kind you can’t even disable) but apart from the occasional annoyances, it’s a fairly clean software setup. There are also some AI-based assists for functions such as note-taking, transcription, and translation.

Of course, the Vivo X Fold3 Pro comes with certain software-based implementations within FunTouch OS and Android that let you make proper use of the larger main screen. For one, it’s tuned to perfectly adapt to the different screen ratio, and things never look out of place regardless of which screen you use. Most apps work in full-screen mode, while some adapt to a 4:3 ratio which leaves only narrow blank spaces. There are even a couple of pre-installed animated wallpapers which work rather well with the two-screen setup.

Apart from Flex Mode and Smart Screen Shift (tent mode), you can also choose whether you want the cover screen to stay on or go off when the phone is unfolded. There is also a taskbar which keeps the quick-launch and recently-used apps easy to reach at the bottom of the screen even with apps running. You can use this to quickly switch between apps, or drag and drop to run two apps simultaneously in split-screen mode. It’s easy to get used to and works well to let you make the most of the large main screen.

Vivo has pulled ahead of much of the competition with its camera capabilities in recent times; the Vivo X100 Pro is among the best camera-focused flagships smartphones you can buy right now. There’s a lot of the same ingredients here, with the Vivo X Fold3 Pro sporting a similar camera setup and hardware to make it all work well.

The V3 chip, first seen on the X100 Pro, makes a return here, bringing along its specialised capabilities in image processing with the help of AI. The rear camera setup features a 50MP primary camera, a 50MP super wide-angle camera, and a 64MP Zeiss telephoto camera which also doubles up for portrait photography. You also get 3X optical zoom, up to 100X digital zoom, and telephoto portraits to give you a bit more control and creativity over the shots.

Expectedly, all of it performs quite well, and nearly to the same level as the Vivo X100 Pro. Portrait shots are impressive in most cases, the Zeiss bokeh modes come in handy during specific conditions, and it’s rather easy to get a good shot regardless of the conditions. Zoomed-in pictures are rather clear, wide-angle shots bring just the right amount of drama, and you really can’t go wrong.

That said, the Vivo X Fold3 Pro doesn’t quite get the pictures down as well as the Vivo X100 Pro, despite having near-identical hardware and capabilities. Still, on an everyday basis and even for more complex photography needs, this one won’t let you down; it’s a top-notch camera system in every way. Features such as telephoto gunshot and Zeiss multi-focal portrait also help to get interesting shots, once you figure out how to use these modes properly.

Understandably, the Vivo X Fold3 Pro comes with two front cameras - one for each screen, so you don’t find yourself held back regardless of how you want to use the phone. Usefully, both of these are 32MP sensors.

The form factor also enables a couple of interesting possibilities for the cameras on the Vivo X Fold3 Pro. It can be placed securely on any surface to shoot hands-free when it half-folded mode, and pointed in various directions to be able to shoot stable shots. This can help with selfies as well, as well as letting you preview images while shooting by using the main screen to fit both in at the same time.

The Vivo X Fold3 Pro doesn’t hold back in the slightest when it comes to performance, thanks to capable hardware under the hood. It’s the first folding smartphone in India to be powered by the current-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, and comes with an impressive 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. 

The numbers get backed up in practice rather nicely - the Vivo X Fold3 Pro flies through just about everything you throw at it. Whether multi-tasking or even just running intensive apps or games, the X Fold3 Pro didn’t really give me any trouble at all. Even folding functionality is rapid, and switching between the cover and main screens is instant and free-flowing. Android 14 keeps things chugging along nicely as well.

When you’re dealing with two screens - one of which has a lot of real estate - you’re going to need a big battery to keep things running. Fortunately, the Vivo X Fold3 Pro gets a 5700mAh battery, which manages to keep it going for at least a day and sometimes a bit more. Charging is fast too, thanks to 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging; the phone tops up completely in around 35-40 minutes with wired charging, and the 100W charger is included in the box.

Although Samsung isn’t the only smartphone manufacturer in the foldable smartphones game, it’s definitely the one to beat. With the entry of the Vivo X Fold3 Pro, it’s now looking like a real fight for bragging rights. This is an impressive smartphone even before you get to the folding screen, making this a worthwhile choice for anyone looking for the benefits that having a big screen in a small form factor brings.

Perhaps the only thing holding the Vivo X Fold3 Pro - and indeed all folding smartphones - back for now is the price. At Rs. 1,59,999, it’s a big, big cost to consider, and even the minor kinks like bloatware and the odd aspect ratio of the main screen might be things worth thinking about, making the OnePlus Open seem enticing. However, this is a smartphone with much more going for it than not, and is legitimately one of the best Android devices you can buy right now if you have the budget for it.