Vivo X Fold 3 Pro Review: A Foldable That’s Slim, Powerful, and Packed With Features, But Not Perfect
Samsung has dominated the foldable market for years, offering incremental updates that kept its loyal customer base satisfied. But with the emergence of new players like Vivo, the competition is heating up. Vivo’s X Fold 3 Pro aims to capture the attention of premium smartphone buyers with its impressive features and innovative design. While it doesn’t entirely reinvent the foldable wheel, it does push the boundaries, offering a compelling value proposition compared to the competition. However, it’s not without its flaws. Read on to discover why.
The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro is available in India for a price tag of Rs. 1,59,999, only available in a single configuration with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage. While this may seem like a hefty sum for an Android phone, especially a foldable, it’s worth noting that Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 starts at Rs. 1,54,999 (512GB) and goes up to Rs. 1,84,999 (for the 1TB variant). Even Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra, a non-foldable powerhouse, costs Rs. 1,29,999. Suddenly, the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro seems like a more reasonable deal considering the features it brings to the table.
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro Review: Design: Thin is in
As with any foldable, design, durability, and service are critical factors. While I can’t comment on the latter two without long-term experience, the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro takes a unique approach towards design, aiming for the very top of its game.
Vivo boasts the thinnest foldable on offer in India, and rightly so. At 11.2mm when closed, it’s not as slender as a traditional flagship (around 8.5mm), but it feels remarkably close. Unfolded, it measures just 5.2mm, making it incredibly thin, not just for a foldable, but even for a regular smartphone or tablet.
Its slim profile is sure to impress. Many assumed it was a regular smartphone until I opened it, revealing the larger display inside. This makes for a truly captivating experience.
Vivo also claims the X Fold 3 Pro is IPX8 rated, just like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5, offering peace of mind when encountering rain. While I tested this with water, I wouldn’t recommend doing so as it’s not covered by warranty, similar to other premium smartphones.
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro Review: Displays: Smarter by Design
The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro features two impressive displays:
- Cover display: 6.53-inch, 2,748 × 1,172 pixels, full-HD+, 120Hz, AMOLED (LTPO), Armour Glass.
- Main display: 8.03-inch, 2,480 × 2,200 pixels, 2K+, 120Hz, AMOLED (LTPO), UTG.
The 8.03-inch main display is the largest on any foldable to date, exceeding even bar-shaped flagships like Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra (6.8-inch) and Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro Max (6.7-inch). This opens up new possibilities for how you use the device.
Despite their size, the displays offer vibrant natural colours and excellent outdoor visibility, even under direct sunlight. There’s no noticeable crease on the main display, even with the two halves folding flat against each other.
The 4:3.55 aspect ratio of the main display makes it ideal for content consumption, surpassing the square aspect ratio of the OnePlus Open (1.0758:1). The 6.53-inch cover display boasts a 21.1:9 aspect ratio, making it one of the largest available on a foldable. Its substantial size allows for pairing with a Bluetooth keyboard, making it a productive mini-tablet. I found it incredibly useful for attending conference calls and meetings when a computer wasn’t available. The Armour cover glass features a 3D curved edge on the right, making swiping gestures feel natural and intuitive.
Vivo has implemented some clever features that leverage the phone’s hinge and large displays:
- Hover mode photography: Use the camera half of the phone as a tripod for capturing distant group photos or landscapes in low-light conditions.
- Fold-to-split gesture: Quickly folding and unfolding the phone halfway automatically splits open apps for a dual-screen experience, allowing you to seamlessly switch apps.
- Desk Calendar AOD mode: The cover display’s 1Hz refresh rate (LTPO) transforms the large screen into a clock when the device is placed in tent mode on a table. While visually striking and practical, this feature automatically switches off after two hours.
The device intelligently detects the phone’s state (hover, tent, folded, or fully open) and automatically adjusts video projection to the correct screen or half, providing a natural and seamless user experience.
Vivo’s new hinge is a triumph. It’s significantly lighter than its competitors, contributing to the phone’s lightweight design. Despite its slim profile, the X Fold 3 Pro packs a large 5,700mAh battery, the largest we’ve seen in a foldable to date.
The X Fold 3 Pro features two fingerprint readers embedded in each display. While the cover display reader is reliable, the main display reader requires a firm press for accurate unlocking.
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro Review: Software: Needs a Bit of Polish
Vivo has had ample time to refine the software experience, being the third-generation foldable from the brand. The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro runs on Funtouch OS 14, based on Android 14, with generous support commitments: three years of software updates and four years of security updates. While this is commendable, it still falls short of the seven-year software support offered by Samsung and Google, especially considering Vivo targets Samsung’s loyal Indian customer base.
Certain aspects of Vivo’s software seem to lack the polish one expects from a premium device.
Given the rectangular main display, it’s natural to reorient the screen to landscape for movies or tablet mode, enabling split-screen viewing and other enhanced features. However, not all apps stretch from edge to edge when reorienting the X Fold 3 Pro, leaving a black bar on the left side of the display that extends from top to bottom, wasting valuable screen space. Apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger by Meta, among others, stretch to fit the display, but Google services like Messages, Calendar, Drive, and even Netflix do not fill the screen, often requiring pinching to zoom and cropping the frame.
Vivo introduced a "Display at the top of the screen" feature in a recent bug fix update to address the selfie camera cutout, but it doesn’t solve the issue. Instead of a black bar, problematic apps display a white filler bar, which doesn’t improve the aesthetic.
I’ve informed Vivo of this issue, and they have assured me that they will address it, but it’s disappointing that this wasn’t identified earlier.
The native Vivo apps, while numerous and mostly non-removable, offer some useful AI features that previous flagships lacked. The Notes app can summarize pasted text, and the recorder app can transcribe recordings and even create summaries of them.
Vivo’s dialer app offers a sneaky call recording feature without any notifications or beeps before, during, or after recording.
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro Review: Performance: Keeping it Cool
The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro boasts impressive hardware:
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
- RAM: LPDDR5X – 16GB
- Storage: UFS 4.0 – 512GB
The phone does warm up during intensive camera usage under direct sunlight, but it’s not a major concern and doesn’t trigger any warnings, even while shooting back-to-back 4K video samples.
Benchmark scores are impressive, exceeding those of the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and falling slightly behind the OnePlus Open.
Benchmark Scores
| Benchmark | X Fold 3 Pro (Cover/Main) | OnePlus Open (Cover/Main) |
|---|---|---|
| AnTuTu v10 | 2,051,650 / 2,063,526 | 1,305,500 / 1,26,4480 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 | 14,489 / 14,251 | 10,276 / 10,521 |
| Geekbench 6 Single | 2,143 / 2,167 | 1,426 / 1,056 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi | 6,562 / 6,800 | 4,096 / 4,114 |
| GFXB T-rex | 120 / 120 | 60 / 60 |
| GFXB Manhattan 3.1 | 120 / 105 | 60 / 60 |
| GFXB Car Chase | 102 / 67 | 60 / 46 |
| 3DM Slingshot Extreme OpenGL | Maxed Out / Maxed Out | Maxed Out / Maxed Out |
| 3DM Slingshot | Maxed Out / Maxed Out | Maxed Out / Maxed Out |
| 3DM Wild Life | Maxed Out / Maxed Out | Maxed Out / Maxed Out |
| 3DM Wild Life Unlimited | 17,985 / 18,721 | 13,731 / 13,731 |
Demanding games like Genshin Impact run smoothly at maximum settings without lag or overheating. Both displays are responsive when playing Call of Duty: Mobile at max and ultra frame rates. The phone effortlessly handles multitasking, letting you game while simultaneously watching YouTube or even running another game in split-screen mode.
This impressive performance is due to the large vapour cooling system expertly integrated within the phone, despite its slim design. The processor is located in the top half of the device (in landscape mode), keeping heat away from your hands during gaming.
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro Review: Cameras: Could Be Better
The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro features a camera setup including:
- Main camera: 50MP (OIS), f/1.68 aperture, AF
- Ultra-wide-angle camera: 50MP, f/2.0 aperture, AF
- Telephoto camera: 64MP (OIS), 3x optical zoom, f/2.57 aperture, AF
- Selfie cameras: 32MP, FF (cover display) – 32MP, FF (main display)
The primary camera delivers professional-grade photographs in all lighting conditions. Autofocus is swift and accurate, capturing sharp images of children and pets in Portrait mode. Shooting city streets in low light, colours are beautifully rendered without saturation, and detail and sharpness are as expected from a phone in this price range.
The telephoto camera doesn’t disappoint either, producing exceptionally sharp portraits of subjects or objects in daylight and impressive low-light results with accurate colour reproduction. However, unlike the primary camera, it struggles a bit with moving subjects, resulting in slightly soft images of subjects captured indoors under artificial light.
The telephoto camera can be used for macro photography, delivering excellent detail thanks to the high-resolution sensor. Zoom is useful up to 10x, beyond which there’s a noticeable decrease in detail and some purple fringing.
The ultra-wide camera is not as impressive as the other two, delivering acceptable results in daylight. Noticeable barrel distortion is present, and colours don’t match the other cameras. Image quality suffers in dim street-lit settings, with aggressive noise reduction impacting detail and colours appearing dull.
Both selfie cameras produce average quality with textures lacking the detail offered by most flagships in this price range. However, the foldable design allows for using the primary camera as a selfie camera, delivering remarkable results with excellent detail, sharpness, and edge detection. The primary camera also excels at capturing impressive low-light selfies.
The phone captures high-quality 4K video at 30 or 60fps with impressive detail and dynamic range in daylight and low light. Videos offer a stable bit rate and excellent stabilization. The T* coating effectively reduces lens flare in low light video capture. 8K 30fps footageis the best of the lot, delivering excellent quality even in dim lighting. However, there’s noticeably more shake, and with a file size of 200MB for 20 seconds of footage, it’s not practical for regular use.
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro Review: Battery: Bigger is Better
The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro boasts a massive battery:
- Battery Capacity: 5,700mAh (dual-cell)
- Wired Charging: 100W
- Wireless Charging: 50W
- Charger: 120W (included)
Battery life is remarkably good for a foldable and impressive for a regular premium phone. The phone easily lasts more than a day of heavy use, even with the AOD turned on, using both displays. With casual use, you can expect over one and a half days of battery life.
In our video loop battery test, the phone lasted 19 hours and 56 minutes on the cover display and an equally impressive 16 hours and 4 minutes on the main display. Even when depleted, the included charger replenishes the large battery in just 43 minutes, reaching 82 percent charge in 30 minutes.
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro Verdict
Samsung has dominated the Indian foldable market, consistently offering new models. However, it will be challenging to persuade loyal Samsung users to switch brands, especially to Vivo.
However, the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro offers compelling value with its larger, high-resolution displays, impressive performance, intuitive AI features, and generally better camera performance. Vivo seems to have done enough to gain the attention of brand-loyal smartphone buyers. It’s worth noting that the phone is also manufactured in India.
Interestingly, Vivo doesn’t offer any paid care programs to extend the warranty, unlike Samsung and OnePlus. This means you’ll need to carefully protect the device, as repairs beyond the warranty period can be expensive.
If you prioritize software experience, the OnePlus Open is a reasonable choice at a lower price, but it lacks many of the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro’s features. While Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 remains the go-to foldable for many due to its S Pen support, it’s hard to ignore the significant hardware and feature upgrades offered by the growing competition this year.
The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro is a compelling foldable option that pushes the boundaries of design and performance, offering a compelling alternative to Samsung’s dominant positions. However, its software shortcomings, lack of warranty extension program, and slightly weaker ultra-wide camera performance may make you hesitate, especially if you’re a Samsung loyalist.
