vivo launches its first foldable smartphone, the vivo X Fold

Combining aerospace-grade material, latest Qualcomm chipset and a camera system co-engineered with ZEISS, vivo looks to push boundaries of the foldable smartphone experience

• Durability ensured by aerospace-grade hinges, tested to fold and unfold more than 300.000 times

• Flagship performance with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8Gen1 platform, combined with latest battery charging technology

• Camera system co-engineered with ZEISS, featuring the signature T* lens coating for outstanding image quality

vivo has launched its first foldable smartphone, the vivo X Fold. As first of its kind in the brand's line-up, the X Fold represents vivo's understanding of a high-end smartphone, through exploration of a new format which aims to bring a more efficient, convenient, and creative smartphone experience. The launch was also an opportunity for vivo to introduce two new devices in its portfolio, the X Note and the first vivo tablet, the vivo Pad.

New vision of a high-end smartphone

The vivo X Fold integrates a number of industry-leading technologies and pushes boundaries through significant reduction of the screen crease and improved hinge durability. At the same time, the smartphone offers a flagship experience, through outstanding display, chipset, and battery performance, as well an imaging system co-engineered with ZEISS.

Folding and unfolding over 300.000 times, thanks to an aerospace-grade hinge

One of the elements in designing a foldable smartphone, is to design a durable hinge. As this directly contributes to the overall performance and user experience of this device format, vivo took great care to integrate an aerospace-grade folding wing hinge; This was extensively tested by TÜV Rheinland, looking not just at the hinge but also at the crease of the display, which both passed with flying colours after being folded and un-folded over 300.000 times. Based on vivo's laboratory research, a user will unfold and fold the device approximately 80 times a day, meaning that the vivo X Fold can still be used with confidence for as long as 10 years.

The hinge of the X Fold contains 174 parts and adopts six-layer aviation materials such as liquid metal and high-strength steel, which in return yields added strength, impact resistance as well as bending and corrosion resistance.

To optimize the crease, the vivo X Fold adapts a floating mid-plate design, which holds up the central crease of the screen. This way, the screen itself can be flatter when unfolded, and the mid-plate drops down when folding, leaving enough space for the screen to bend safely. The X Fold uses a tough display glass with a unique interlaced structure, as well as industry leading 2.3-milimetre bending radius of the waterdrop hinge structure, which makes the display crease not only narrow but also almost completely flat, avoiding the "bulge" which commonly appears on foldable designs.

Two displays, 120Hz refresh rate, E5 material for brilliant visibility

Making sure to offer a flagship foldable smartphone experience, vivo has integrated an 8-inch foldable main display on the inner, and a 6,53-inch display on the outer side of the device. 

As foldable smartphones have higher requirements for colour consistency, the vivo X Fold supports 120Hz refresh rate on both the main as well as outer display, and uses E5 luminous material, ensuring a smooth viewing experience and optimized energy consumption. vivo has also developed its own colour calibration scheme, so the precision of colour reproduction on both displays is almost identical. All these contributed to the X Fold achieving 19 DisplayMate records, and an overall A+ level certification, a current top level in the industry.

The X Fold is also the world's first foldable smartphone, featuring a Dual 3D ultrasonic fingerprint reader, supporting fingerprint unlock on both its displays. Apart from convenience, the device offers improved fingerprint recognition, and increases the unlocking speed by 38%, comparing to traditional photoelectric mechanisms.

Flagship performance, inside-out

To secure performance matches the look and feel of the device, vivo has included the new generation Snapdragon 8 Gen1 SPU customized flagship chipset, with a 4-nanometer MEP process, offering 10% improved performance comparing with the previous generation Snapdragon 888 chipset. The GPU rendering speed has been increased by 30%, backed with UFS 3.1 flash memory and enhanced LPDDR5 storage, so the vivo X Fold reads and writes data faster.

Bearing in mind the power requirements of the X Fold, vivo has integrated a 4600mAh battery, which allows for almost 21 hours of continuous calls, 12 hours of videoconferencing or 8 hours of mobile gaming(1). The X Fold also features vivo 66W FlashCharge, which enables users to top-up the battery to 50% in just 17 minutes, and a full charge in 37 minutes. On top of that, the foldable features industry-leading 50W wireless FlashCharge, enabling a 10% charge in 5 minutes, and a full charge in 53 minutes(2). In addition, the X Fold supports 10W wireless reverse charging.

Outstanding photography, with a ZEISS co-engineered camera system

The imaging system of the vivo X Fold was co-engineered by vivo and ZEISS; It features ZEISS certified lenses as well as the signature ZEISS T* Coating, contributing to the overall optical performance of the lens through reduced dispersion and glare, so users can take full advantage of the high-resolution sensors performance.

The X Fold is equipped with a quad-camera setup at full focal lengths, benefiting from the ZEISS natural colour calibration, ZEISS texture portraits and other full-scene effects, allowing clear and true-to-life photography no matter if capturing up-close moments or impressive landscapes.

Modern aesthetics meeting Asian philosophy

The design concept of the X Fold comes from Asian philosophy, integrating simple squares and circles in the smartphone design. Combining these simple geometric forms, through stepped layers and different materials and textures, the designers sought to highlight the dynamic momentum of the X Fold. At the same time, the foldable smartphone adopts processes such as contrasting colour mute keys, frosted metal middle frames, two-colour stitching, and embossed textures, so that users can enjoy the duality of the visual and haptic feedback. The vivo X Fold will be available exclusively in China for now, on offer in two colours, a classic blue, or a calm grey hue.

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(1) and (2): Results achieved in the vivo Test Lab.