Samsung has been dominating the smartphone market globally in foldable phone segment. It looks like Samsung is going to feel a serious pressure from a couple of other manufacturers, who have announced their foldable phones for the global markets. Yesterday, we saw Honor announcing the Magic Vs for the global markets. Today, at MWC 2023 in Barcelona, Tecno has launched its first ever foldable phone called, the Tecno Phantom V Fold.
Weighing at 299 grams, it is a big folding phone. Like other foldable phones, the Tecno Phantom V Fold features a book-style folding mechanism with an exterior phone-like screen on the outside and a bigger, tablet-like display on the inside. Tecno is the first manufacturer which has decided to go with a MediaTek processor rather than the Snapdragon chipsets we’ve seen in international Fold-style phones so far.
When closed, it features a 6.42-inch LTPO AMOLED cover display with 1080x2550px resolution, with refresh rate capping of at 120Hz. When unfolded, you will have a bigger 7.85-inch 2000x2296px folding screen, which is also a LTPO panel with 120Hz refresh rate. Phantom V Fold’s inner screen is bigger than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4’s inner display. Tecno claims its outer screen is more usable than the Z Fold 4’s with an aspect ratio of 21:9. The device has a much more reduced crease with a lighter, flatter, and more stable hinge.
Inside, it is running on the Dimensity 9000+ SoC, which performs similar to that of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 inside the Galaxy Z Fold4. The chipset is paired up with 12GB of RAM and up to 512GB storage. It comes with Android 13 based HiOS13 UI. It has HiOS Fold with Split Screen, Parallel Windows and more optimized for a foldable screen.
The camera part consists of a 50MP f/1.9 primary shooter, a 50MP telephoto with 2x optical zoom, and a 13MP 120-degree field-of-view ultrawide camera. The selfie cameras are located on both the inner and outer displays. The outer screen has a 32MP camera, while the inner screen has a 16MP camera on the inside. It has super night portrait, night mode, and super night 4K video features.
Under the hood, the Tecno Phantom V Fold packs a 5,000mAh with 45W of wired charging. The device can be charged up to 40% in just 15 minutes, and gains 100% charging in 55 minutes.
In India, the Tecno Phantom V Fold will be sold in Black and White colours, and it is cheaper than the Galaxy Z Fold 4, with the lowest spec model (12/256GB) costing at INR 89,999 ($1,099), which translates to around $1,099. The highest spec model (12/512GB) comes in at INR 99,999 ($1,222). There is an early bird price of Rs. 79,999 / $979 for the 12GB + 256GB model.