By 
This year’s MWC has proven that there is immense interest in flexible displays, though in different ways. Lenovo and Motorola showed us rolling display prototypes, and Honor announced its Magic Vs folding phone. Tecno’s latest product confirms its entry into the foldables market and it did so under its flagship “Phantom” tier of smartphones.
The Tecno Phantom V Fold is a large foldable that will compete with the likes of Samsung’s Z Fold4. It has two displays and is powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 9000+ chipset and it is the second foldable device to launch with MediaTek silicon (the first was the Oppo N2 Flip).
We liked the textured back of the device, it feels like a cross between carbon fiber but with more of a canvas-like feel. On the back of the device is Tecno’s camera module, containing the device’s triple camera setup, including a main 50MP camera with f/1.9 aperture, a 50MP telephoto camera with 2x optical zoom, and a 13MP ultrawide camera. Otherwise, there are two punch-hole selfie cameras on each of the displays: 16MP and 32MP ones on the interior and exterior displays, respectively.
The cover display is a 6.42-inch LTPO AMOLED screen capable of 120Hz refresh rate. With a resolution of 1080 x 2550 pixels, the cover display comes out to an aspect ratio of about 21:9. Meanwhile, the device unfolds to reveal a huge 7.85-inch display, also supporting 120Hz refresh rate and 1100 nits of peak brightness. Both displays are bright and vivid, and the crease on the internal display, although visible, is quickly forgotten about as you use the device.
In hand the Tecno Phantom feels slightly hefty at 299g, but the large displays and battery capacity are a decent tradeoff for the added heft. The camera bump is ‘two-stage’ as the first raised camera ring houses the flash and secondary cameras while the main camera is raised just a little bit higher than the main camera ring. We were not able to confirm whether the device would rock on a table as they were tethered at Tecno’s booth.
The hinge mechanism feels solid, and the magnetic clasp that holds the device closed is strong as well. There’s a satisfying lock that happens when the phone unfolds all the way open. The Phantom V Fold is not, however, able to hold a partially open/closed position like with Samsung’s Flex Mode hinges.
The Tecno Phantom V Fold will be the most affordable left-to-right foldable device of recent times. It is going to launch in India with a starting price of around $1,099 for the 256GB variant while the 512GB variant will run about $1,222.
The Phantom V Fold shows great promise with its hardware, but we don’t yet know how well its software will support the emerging form factor.
Comments