Vivo X Fold 5 review: Destroying Samsung where it counts
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If you’re ready to switch to a foldable, there are a few models that deserve your attention: Honor’s Magic V5, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, and the Vivo X Fold 5. Vivo proved last year that it knows how to deliver an all-round package with a sleek design, amazing cameras, and good software features.
With the X Fold 5, it isn’t changing things too much; if anything, the phone is nearly identical to X Fold 3 Pro. Coming in at 4.3mm, it is among the thinnest tech products you can buy today, but it just misses out on being the thinnest foldable — that honor goes to the 4.2mm Magic V5.
However, Vivo put a bigger 6,000mAh battery in its foldable, and that ensures the device easily lasts a day even with heavy use. And at 217g, it is 12g lighter than the X200 Ultra, and that in itself highlights just how much foldables have evolved in recent years. Like last year, Vivo is making the X Fold 5 available in several Asian countries, but it won’t debut outside the region.
Having used the X Fold 5 as my daily driver, I’m convinced that it is one of the best foldables you can buy in 2025 — provided you’re in a country where Vivo sells the device.
Vivo X Fold 5: Specs, pricing, and availability
Vivo unveiled the X Fold 5 alongside the new X200 FE on July 14, and the devices are slated to go on sale in select Asian countries over the coming weeks. The X Fold 5 is coming to India, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, Singapore, Pakistan, and Indonesia.
The X Fold 5 will retail at ₹149,999 ($1,745) in India for the 16GB/512GB edition, and while that is a huge chunk of cash, it undercuts the Galaxy Z Fold 7 by a considerable amount in the country, with Samsung’s foldable debuting at ₹186,999 ($2,175).
| Category | Vivo X Fold 5 |
|---|---|
| Outer Display | 6.53-inch 120Hz LTPO AMOLED, 5,500 nits max, Dolby Vision |
| Inner Display | 8.03-inch 120Hz LTPO AMOLED, 4,500 nits max, Dolby Vision |
| OS | Funtouch OS 15 based on Android 15 |
| Chipset | Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, 4nm |
| RAM | 16GB LPDDR5X |
| Storage | 512GB UFS 4.1 |
| Rear camera 1 | 50MP Sony IMX921 main camera, OIS |
| Rear camera 2 | 50MP Samsung JN1 wide-angle lens |
| Rear camera 3 | 50MP Sony IMX882 tele, 3x optical zoom, OIS |
| Front camera | 20MP |
| Ingress protection | IP5X, IPX8, and IPX9 dust and water resistance |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, 5G bands, NFC, dual-band GPS |
| Security | Side-mounted sensor |
| Audio | USB-C, stereo sound, 24-bit/192kHz, Snapdragon Sound, AptX HD, AptX Adaptive, AptX Lossless |
| Battery | 6,000mAh silicon battery, 80W charging, 40W wireless charging |
| Dimensions (unfolded) | 159.7 x 142.3 x 4.3 mm |
| Dimensions (folded) | 159.7 x 72.6 x 9.2 mm |
| Weight | 217g |
| Colors | Green, White, Grey |
Vivo X Fold 5: Design
- Vivo didn’t alter the design too much from last year.
- Even then, the X Fold 5 is among the thinnest and lightest foldables of 2025.
- It also gets IP58 and IP59 ingress protection.
Vivo didn’t change the design of the X Fold 5, and I don’t mind that one bit; you’re still getting a thin-and-light foldable, and it’s great to hold and use. The grey model I’m using doesn’t stand out quite as much, and if you need a vibrant color, I’d suggest getting it in green or white.
Build quality is excellent, and Vivo clearly knows what it’s doing in this area. There is enough width along the sides to hold the foldable comfortably, and the hinge has smooth articulation. If anything, the hinge has better durability this time around, and it stays unlocked at any angle between 45 and 150 degrees.
Most manufacturers are focusing on sleek designs this year, and the X Fold 5 comes in at just 4.3mm while unfolded and 9.2mm when folded. To give you some context, the X200 Ultra is 8.7mm, so the X Fold 5 is only a smidgen bulkier than a regular phone. In fact, you don’t even notice that you’re using a foldable when interacting with the cover panel, and that is the biggest difference with the latest-gen foldables — they’re not unwieldy in the least.
It is also lighter than most regular phones at 217g, and what I like is that Vivo somehow managed to bring IP58 and even IP59 ingress protection to the X Fold 5. Samsung only manages to deliver IP48 on its foldables, and the increased protection on the X Fold 5 means you can unfold it underwater (at one meter), and that’s just plain cool.
There’s just enough width at the bottom to accommodate the USB-C port, and it’s almost as if this is the bottleneck in limiting the design to 4.3mm. One of the best features on last year’s foldable was that it had a traditional ultrasonic sensor embedded inside the cover and inner panels, but the X Fold 5 misses out on that — you get the usual side-mounted reader that’s present on all foldables.
You get a dedicated button on the side that lets you trigger actions — similar to the Plus key on the OnePlus 13s — and it has good configurability. The positioning of the button isn’t ideal, and I didn’t get much use out of it while testing the foldable, but it’s there if you need it, and you can assign short and long press actions.
Although Vivo didn’t make many changes to the design, the X Fold 5 has a sleek profile, and there are no issues with usability. The glass back has a frosted finish that prevents smudging, and the oversized camera ring is similar to what you get with the X200 Ultra and X200 Pro.
Vivo X Fold 5: Display
- Both the inner and outer AMOLED panels have 120Hz refresh and great colors.
- The 8.03-inch inner panel is among the biggest around.
The X fold 5 has a 6.53-inch outer panel and a fold-out 8.03-inch panel on the inside, with both featuring AMOLED tech and LTPO. They both go up to 120Hz and dynamically alter refresh according to on-screen content, and they get bright. You also get 5,280Hz PWM dimming, and Dolby Vision.
I used the outer panel most of the time, and the size is just right; it’s wide enough that there are no problems with text scaling, and it feels comfortable to hold and use. I switched to the inner panel to browse or get back to emails, and the sleek design doesn’t inhibit usability in any way.
Colors are excellent out of the box, and you get a decent amount of customizability when it comes to adjusting the color balance. Funtouch OS has decent always-on styles as well, and there isn’t much missing on the device. On that note, there’s stereo sound that gets pretty loud and detailed.
Vivo X Fold 5: Performance
- The X Fold 5 misses out on Snapdragon 8 Elite, instead featuring last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
- It still manages to do a good job in games and daily use.
Annoyingly, the X Fold 5 misses out on the Snapdragon 8 Elite, and is instead powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 — same as last year. Vivo says it is about delivering the right “balance and efficiency,” but the manufacturer didn’t go into detail as to why it didn’t use the 3nm-based 8 Elite over the 4nm 8 Gen 3. It’s entirely likely that it wanted to undercut Samsung and Honor, so it utilized last year’s platform.
Thankfully, the 8 Gen 3 still has plenty of power, and I didn’t see any slowdowns in the week I used the X Fold 5. It handled demanding games and visually-intensive titles without any issues, and I didn’t see much in the way of overheating either. That said, it tends to throttle significantly earlier than regular phones powered by the same silicon. This is the case with other foldables I tested; they just don’t have the same thermal management systems, so they tend to throttle sooner to avoid heating issues.
| Category | OPPO Find N5 | Vivo X Fold 5 | Honor Magic V3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geekbench 6 (single-core) | 2625 | 2184 | 1600 |
| Geekbench 6 (multi-core) | 7201 | 6330 | 5293 |
| Geekbench AI (Quantized Score) | 2505 | 3326 | 2923 |
| 3DMark Wild Life Extreme (score) | 5252 | 3740 | 4032 |
| 3DMark Wild Life Extreme (FPS) | 31.45 | 22.4 | 24.14 |
| 3DMark Solar Bay (score) | 9898 | 5711 | 7927 |
| 3DMark Solar Bay (FPS) | 37.64 | 21.72 | 30.14 |
The vibration motor delivers good feedback, and like last year, Vivo is selling a single 16GB/512GB edition of the device in global markets. This is the right call, and 512GB UFS 4.1 storage is the sweet spot for a foldable these days. It doesn’t miss out on the essentials either, and it retains Snapdragon Sound, giving you all the high-res AptX codecs you need.
Vivo X Fold 5: Battery life
The X Fold 5 has a 6,000mAh battery similar to that of the X200 Ultra and X200 Pro. It utilizes silicon-carbon tech, delivering much better density and longevity. With a density of 866Wh/L, it is the densest cell you’ll get on a foldable, and Vivo did all the right things in this area.
I had no issues getting the X Fold 5 to last all day even with heavy use. This was a problem on last year’s foldables where they needed to be plugged in before the end of the day, but that just isn’t the case this time around. While 80W charging isn’t as good as the 100W standard from last year, there isn’t much in the way of a difference in real-world usage. The foldable took an hour to charge, and unlike Samsung, you get a charger in the box.
Vivo X Fold 5: Cameras
- You get three 50MP cameras at the back with Zeiss tuning.
- It has the best cameras of any foldable right now.
Vivo slotted in a 50MP Sony IMX921 as the main camera on the X Fold 5, and it is joined by a 50MP Samsung JN1 module that acts as the wide-angle lens, and a 50MP Sony IMX882 as the tele lens with 3x optical zoom. The main and tele lenses get OIS, and there are two 20MP selfie shooters.
The camera interface is similar to what you get on the X200 Pro, and there are the usual Zeiss filters and exclusive shooting modes. The phone shoots 4K60 video with all sensors, and you get all the shooting modes available on the X200 Pro.
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Vivo is clearly in a dominant position with its cameras, and the X Fold 5 takes fantastic photos and videos. It may not be at the same level as the X200 Pro, but it is better than every other foldable I used. Daylight shots have good detail and colors, and it holds up just as well in challenging situations, producing vibrant photos with minimal noise levels.
The auxiliary cameras are pretty good too, and like every other Vivo phone I tested in 2025, you get standout portrait shots. Although the cameras aren’t as good as the X200 Pro, I never quite felt that I was missing out in this area, and that’s a testament to how much Vivo has evolved in the last two years.
Vivo X Fold 5: Software
- The foldable runs Android 15 out of the box, with Android 16 slated to arrive by the end of the year.
- You get good customizability, and new multitasking modes.
The X Fold 5 runs Funtouch OS 15 based on Android 15, and I’m annoyed that it doesn’t get Android 16 out of the box. Samsung managed to have Android 16 pre-installed on its foldables, and I don’t know why Vivo couldn’t do the same. Another bugbear is that the X Fold 5 will get just four Android OS updates alongside five years of security updates, and that isn’t enough when Google, Samsung, and Honor are delivering seven years of updates.
Outside of that, I don’t have any problems with the software. I like Funtouch OS 15, and the design is clean, cohesive, and you get extensive customizability. I think Vivo is on the right path with its software efforts, and while you get a slate of AI-backed features, they’re not anywhere as annoying to use as other brands.
There’s also a new Origin Workbench mode that makes multitasking easier on the device. The UI itself is fluid, and I didn’t see any issues in the week I used the X Fold 5. I prefer Funtouch OS to ColorOS or OxygenOS now, and that’s one of the reasons why I used the X200 Pro as my daily driver for a good chunk of 2025. Now that I switched to the X Fold 5, I intend to use this device for a few months, and a big part of that decision has to do with the software.
Vivo X Fold 5: The alternatives
The Honor Magic V5 is the closet rival to the X Fold 5. It has an even thinner design, is powered by Qualcomm’s latest silicon, and gets a 5820mAh battery. I didn’t use the foldable yet, so I can’t talk about the quality of the cameras, but the Magic V3 was plenty good in this area, and the Magic V5 should deliver decent upgrades.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is available globally, and while it is costly, Samsung finally managed to tweak the design, so it is just as thin as the X Fold 5. That said, it doesn’t last anywhere as long thanks to a 4,400mAh battery, and the charging tech lags behind its rivals. But you get Android 16 out of the box, and Galaxy AI has extensive utility.
Vivo X Fold 5: Should you buy it?
You should buy this if:
- You need a foldable with the best battery life
- You want a sleek design that’s great to hold and use
- You need great cameras with good auxiliary lenses
You shouldn’t buy this if:
- You want the best hardware
- You need Android 16 out of the box
The X Fold 5 proves that it doesn’t need huge upgrades to stand out. While the overall design and underlying hardware hasn’t changed much, there isn’t much wrong with the device, and it continues to excel at gaming and mundane tasks. Battery life is a clear differentiator as well, with the X Fold 5 managing to last longer than every other 2025 foldable.
The cameras are among the best on a foldable, and I don’t see any reason to switch back to the X200 Pro. The ultra-thin design and great in-hand feel is the main reason why I’ll continue to use the X Fold 5 after the review, and it just feels like a regular phone most of the time — with the added benefit of an 8.03-inch fold-out panel.
If you’ve convinced yourself to get a foldable this year, don’t bother with Samsung — the X Fold 5 is a much better choice in just about every area.
With an ultra-thin design and fabulous cameras, the X Fold 5 proves that it is the foldable to beat in 2025. It does a better job than Samsung’s alternative, and doesn’t cost as much.
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