Vivo announces the X Fold Plus, its second foldable from 2022

Vivo appears to be starting to accelerate its foldable device development, now launching its second flagship model with such a display this year, the Vivo X Fold Plus. Of course, we’re talking about a relatively minor upgrade, but we’re seeing a faster speed of iteration from Vivo than we see from other manufacturers like Samsung, Huawei or Motorola. The design has hardly changed at all, but on the inside we get a few small upgrades.

Vivo X Fold Plus is a relatively minor hardware refresh

As with Vivo’s original Fold, the Fold Plus is also currently available exclusively in China. Thus, we’re not sure if we’ll ever see this foldable outside of its home country. Still, it’s important to see some competition in this space, which is largely dominated by Samsung. As I said in the Galaxy Z Fold4 review, the foldable area seems to have been stagnating for almost 4 years, with no other competing models pushing companies to innovate.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 on the original model has been replaced by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, while the 4,600 mAh battery has been increased to 4,730 mAh capacity. These upgrades are welcome, along with faster charging at 80W (and 50W wireless), while Samsung still limits foldable phones (and more) to 25W for charging.

The design and other components seem to be otherwise the same. The Vivo X Fold Plus benefits from a 6.53″ FullHD+ external display in 21:9 aspect ratio at 120 Hz, one much more suitable for normal use than Samsung’s, along with an 8.03″ foldable screen, slightly larger than Samsung’s, with 2,160 x 1,916 pixels resolution at 120 Hz. Interestingly, both screens have integrated fingerprint sensors, while Samsung puts the sensor in the power button with rather poor results.

The cameras have a few advantages over the Galaxy Z Fold4

Vivo’s cameras are comparable to Samsung’s instead. We have the same 50-megapixel sensor produced by Samsung itself on the main camera, a 48-megapixel ultrawide camera and a 12-megapixel 2x zoom camera, but also something Samsung doesn’t offer on the Fold4: a 5x periscopic zoom with an 8-megapixel sensor. The periscopic and main cameras are also optically stabilized, and each screen also has an integrated 16-megapixel selfie camera. In this department, at least on the inner screen, Vivo will definitely outperform the Fold, which has a very poorly integrated camera below the display.

One drawback of the Vivo X Fold Plus is its lack of water resistance, something Samsung seems to have already perfected for two generations. Prices for China are very good though, compared to other foldable models on the market. 9,999 yuan, or €1,450 for the base variant with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage and 10,999 yuan, or €1,600 for the 12+512GB. Of course, these are China prices. In Europe, they would increase by a few percent, probably through the Galaxy Z Fold4 area.