The Vivo X Fold5 arrives at an interesting crossroads. Last year's X Fold 3 Pro proved that Vivo could nail the fundamentals—impossibly thin design, solid cameras, and respectable battery life. But in the twelve months since, the foldable landscape has shifted dramatically. Everyone's caught up to that slim-and-light memo. What was once impressive is now table stakes, and everyone out there worth their salt has figured out how to make a phone that folds without weighing down your jeans. The novelty of not needing cargo pants to carry your foldable has worn off.
So here's Vivo's challenge: how do you follow up a genuinely good foldable when everyone else has closed the gap? Vivo's answer seems to be doubling down on what worked while quietly addressing the pain points that kept the previous generation from being a daily driver for most people. Slim it down a little more, make the battery as big as you can, and keep those highly regarded cameras.
While the X Fold 3 Pro felt like Vivo's attempt at a no-compromise foldable, this time around Vivo's taking a more pragmatic approach, accepting certain trade-offs to deliver better value—even if that means sticking with last year's chip instead of the newer one that powers this year's flagship crowd.
Throw all of that in the cooking pot, and you get the Vivo X Fold5, priced at Rs 1,49,999 (that’s Rs 10,000 less than what Vivo was asking for X Fold3 Pro last year). While I wouldn't call it "affordable" by any stretch, it's definitely more palatable than what other foldables are asking for today.
Now, all of this sounds like a perfect sequel, but the real test isn't whether Vivo can match last year's magic trick. It's whether they can convince you that the X Fold5 deserves your attention in a world where others have finally gotten serious, and your regular phone probably does 90% of what you need anyway. After weeks of folding and unfolding this thing, I think I have the answer.
When thin becomes normal
Here's the thing about the X Fold5: it's boring in all the right ways, at least in 2025. I mean that as high praise, because boring means I'm not constantly worried about dropping it or wondering if it'll survive a normal day. At 9.2mm thick when folded and 217 grams, it feels like a regular phone that just happens to do something clever. The X Fold 3 Pro was already pretty good on this front, but this feels like Vivo finally nailed the "just a phone" vibe.
The hinge is where you really notice the improvements. It's got this satisfying click when it opens and closes, like a good laptop or a well-made lighter. There's enough resistance to keep it stable at whatever angle you want, but not so much that you feel like you're fighting it. I've been opening and closing this thing dozens of times a day for weeks, and it still feels solid. The crease? Yeah, it's there, but honestly, after the first day I stopped noticing it. Though I did catch myself being weirdly gentle with it during the first week—old foldable habits die hard.
The cover screen proportions work better now too, though it's still narrower than what you'd get on a conventional smartphone. But it's wide enough that you're not constantly unfolding for basic stuff like checking messages or scrolling through social media. When you do unfold it, the inner display is plenty useful. Reading, watching videos, actually getting work done—everything can be done on it. The fingerprint sensor placement took some getting used to though—it's positioned where my thumb doesn't naturally land, so I found myself fumbling for it more often than I'd like.
I never dropped it, but the build quality feels solid throughout. The phone feels premium without being precious, if that makes sense—like something you'd actually use rather than baby. The black finish, which is the only colour option available, has this glossy surface that's a total fingerprint magnet. The only time I find myself babying this phone is constantly wiping it down with my shirt every time I pick it up.
Honestly, I wasn't going to use this phrase, but let's address the elephant in the room: that camera bump. Now, it isn't the biggest bump we've seen, and one can't call it really huge, considering this is Vivo's X series phone that's known to have substantial camera bumps. But it's definitely there, and it does make the phone feel a bit top-heavy when you're holding it unfolded. The good news? It doesn't cause the phone to wobble when you place it flat on a table, so at least your typing sessions won't turn into a rocking boat experience.
Half the equation solved
The two screens on the X Fold5 are solid AMOLED panels that get properly bright—4,500 nits peak brightness, which actually matters when you're trying to read something outdoors. The 120Hz refresh rate makes scrolling feel smooth on both the 6.53-inch cover screen and the 8.03-inch main display. Colours look natural without being washed out, and the blacks are deep enough that the screen edges disappear in dark rooms. Also, text reads sharp and photos look detailed.
Yes, the cover screen is a bit narrow compared to regular phones, but it's fine for all the normal phone things like calling, texting, and quick social media checks. The main screen has a square-ish aspect ratio, which feels weird at first if you're coming from a regular phone, but it grows on you, especially for reading and multitasking. Apps mostly transition well between the two screens, picking up where you left off when you unfold the phone. Though you'll occasionally get that annoying app restart that reminds you this is still a foldable phone.
The crease has improved a lot from earlier foldables. It's there if you go looking for it or run your finger across the screen, but if you're using the phone like a regular person, you'd barely notice it. The only times it really becomes obvious are when you're looking at solid-coloured backgrounds at certain angles, or when light hits the screen just wrong. During actual use—reading, watching videos, scrolling through apps—your brain just filters it out. It's one of those things that sounds like a big deal until you actually live with it for a while.
The phone has stereo speakers and honestly they're just fine for calls, some casual music listening, and for the times when you're watching short videos at full volume. But there's barely any bass, and turning the volume up just makes everything sound hollow. For a phone at this price, you'd expect better. It's especially noticeable when you're watching movies or shows on that gorgeous big screen—the visuals look fantastic with Dolby Vision and HDR10+ making everything pop with vibrant colours and sharp contrast, but the audio just doesn't match up.
When folding becomes routine
Daily use with the X Fold5 has settled into a routine that just works. Most of the time, I found myself using it folded like a regular phone—the cover screen handles texting, calls, and quick social media scrolling without any fuss. When you do need that extra screen real estate, unfolding it feels natural rather than like activating some special mode. Vivo's FunTouch OS 15 handles the dual-screen setup well enough, though it's not quite as polished as Samsung's approach.
The real party trick is Origin Workbench , which lets you run up to five apps simultaneously on the main screen. Now I'm not someone who likes to do all their work on a phone, whether it be foldable or not, but I found this feature quite useful. Having WhatsApp, Gmail, Chrome, and a note-taking app all open on one screen is something most people would want, and with Workbench they can do exactly that. Though, the execution isn't perfect. Managing all those windows can get fiddly, and occasionally you'll accidentally close something when trying to resize it.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset is where Vivo made their big compromise, and honestly, it shows more in benchmarks than real-world use. Sure, it's not the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite that powers the current flagship crowd, but for most tasks, you won't notice the difference. Apps open quickly, games run smoothly, and that multitasking setup doesn't bring the phone to its knees. I threw some heavy games at it during testing, and it handled everything without breaking a sweat. The only time you might feel the age is in very specific scenarios like heavy video editing or when future apps start demanding more horsepower.
The phone manages heat and performance consistently over extended use. Unlike some phones that throttle hard when things get intense, the X Fold5 maintains steady performance even during long gaming sessions or when you're pushing the multitasking features. The larger chassis probably helps with heat dissipation, but whatever Vivo's doing under the hood, it works. The phone rarely gets uncomfortably warm, and performance stays stable even when you're asking it to do several things at once.
Vivo has sprinkled in some AI features throughout the OS, though they feel like nice-to-haves. The AI transcript feature works well for converting voice notes to text, and the live text extraction is handy when you need to grab text from photos or documents. There's also some AI-powered photography enhancement happening in the background, but it's subtle enough that you won't really notice unless you're pixel-peeping. Nothing novel, but useful enough that you'll find yourself using these features occasionally.
The software does have its quirks though. Some apps still don't play nicely with the foldable form factor, either refusing to resize properly or looking stretched and weird on the main display. The transition between screens isn't always seamless—sometimes apps will restart when you unfold the phone, which gets annoying when you're in the middle of something important. I also noticed that the phone occasionally gets confused about which orientation you want when you're holding it at certain angles, flipping the screen when you definitely didn't ask it to.
Then there's the update situation—the X Fold5 ships with Android 15 when Android 16 is already on the horizon, and Vivo's only promising three years of OS updates and four years of security patches.
That said, features like app continuity, split-screen gestures, and the drag-and-drop functionality between windows work much better than they did on the X Fold 3 Pro, so Vivo is clearly moving in the right direction. The improvements are noticeable enough that daily use feels more polished, even if there are still occasional hiccups that remind you this form factor is still evolving.
Battery life is where the X Fold5 really delivers. That massive 6,000mAh battery easily gets you through a full day of heavy use, and often into the next morning. Even with the main screen unfolded for hours of work and entertainment, I rarely found myself reaching for the charger before bedtime. The 80W fast charging means you can top up quickly when needed—about 30 minutes gets you from dead to usable, and a full charge takes just over an hour. It's one of those things that removes a major anxiety point about using a foldable as your daily driver.
Point, shoot, repeat
The cameras on the X Fold5 do their job well. You get three 50MP sensors on the back—a main camera, ultra-wide, and a 3x telephoto with optical zoom—all with Zeiss branding. The main camera takes good photos with natural colours and decent dynamic range. Low-light shots come out better than expected, and the colours look balanced without being oversaturated. The Zeiss partnership seems to help with keeping things looking realistic rather than overly processed.
While the ultra-wide camera keeps up with the main shooter in terms of details and colours in daylight, it takes a considerable hit in low light, with details becoming fuzzy and colours becoming somewhat muted. The 3x telephoto lens is solid too—you can push it to 6x or even 10x zoom and still get usable shots.
Another perk of Zeiss' partnership is that portrait mode on the X Fold5 works like a charm. Though there are some usual quirks like struggling with edge detection around hair and busy backgrounds, sometimes blurring things it shouldn’t.
Using the cameras on a foldable has its perks and quirks. You can flip the phone around and use the main cameras for selfies while watching yourself on the cover screen, which beats the front-facing camera quality by a lot. The phone works well propped up for video calls too. The downside is that the camera app doesn't always play nicely with the unfolded screen layout, and switching between modes can feel a bit clunky.
The camera app has plenty of features, though some feel more necessary than others. The Zeiss portrait modes add some variety, night mode does what it's supposed to, and video recording is decent with good stabilisation. The app can feel overwhelming with all the options scattered around different menus, and it occasionally takes longer to launch than you'd want—an issue that carried over from the X Fold 3 Pro.
The good-old foldable question
The X Fold5 feels like Vivo's most mature foldable yet. It's the kind of device you can actually live with daily—the 6,000mAh battery removes the constant charging anxiety, the construction feels built to last, and Origin Workbench genuinely enhances how you work on a phone. This is a foldable that gets out of its own way and lets you focus on what you're trying to do, which is exactly what the form factor needed to achieve.
Where the X Fold 3 Pro felt like Vivo's attempt at a no-compromise foldable, the X Fold5 takes a more pragmatic approach, accepting certain trade-offs to deliver better value. Those trade-offs are there, but they're mostly reasonable ones.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, while perfectly capable for daily use, feels like a compromise you shouldn't have to make at this price point. The software has improved significantly from the X Fold 3 Pro, but the larger issue remains that apps don't quite know what to do with the form factor, and that'll remind you this form factor is still evolving. Plus, the update policy lags behind competitors.
At Rs 1,49,999, the X Fold5's pragmatic approach pays off, and the phone finds itself in an interesting position. It's more affordable than most book-style foldables while still delivering the core experience that makes this form factor appealing. It's a thoughtful evolution of Vivo's foldable approach, showing real improvements in the areas that matter most for daily use.
It's still foldable money, but if you're already convinced you want a foldable and can live with occasional software quirks, the X Fold5 makes a strong case for itself. It folds. It lasts. It fits.
Our rating: 4/5
So here's Vivo's challenge: how do you follow up a genuinely good foldable when everyone else has closed the gap? Vivo's answer seems to be doubling down on what worked while quietly addressing the pain points that kept the previous generation from being a daily driver for most people. Slim it down a little more, make the battery as big as you can, and keep those highly regarded cameras.
While the X Fold 3 Pro felt like Vivo's attempt at a no-compromise foldable, this time around Vivo's taking a more pragmatic approach, accepting certain trade-offs to deliver better value—even if that means sticking with last year's chip instead of the newer one that powers this year's flagship crowd.
Throw all of that in the cooking pot, and you get the Vivo X Fold5, priced at Rs 1,49,999 (that’s Rs 10,000 less than what Vivo was asking for X Fold3 Pro last year). While I wouldn't call it "affordable" by any stretch, it's definitely more palatable than what other foldables are asking for today.
Now, all of this sounds like a perfect sequel, but the real test isn't whether Vivo can match last year's magic trick. It's whether they can convince you that the X Fold5 deserves your attention in a world where others have finally gotten serious, and your regular phone probably does 90% of what you need anyway. After weeks of folding and unfolding this thing, I think I have the answer.
When thin becomes normal
Here's the thing about the X Fold5: it's boring in all the right ways, at least in 2025. I mean that as high praise, because boring means I'm not constantly worried about dropping it or wondering if it'll survive a normal day. At 9.2mm thick when folded and 217 grams, it feels like a regular phone that just happens to do something clever. The X Fold 3 Pro was already pretty good on this front, but this feels like Vivo finally nailed the "just a phone" vibe.
The hinge is where you really notice the improvements. It's got this satisfying click when it opens and closes, like a good laptop or a well-made lighter. There's enough resistance to keep it stable at whatever angle you want, but not so much that you feel like you're fighting it. I've been opening and closing this thing dozens of times a day for weeks, and it still feels solid. The crease? Yeah, it's there, but honestly, after the first day I stopped noticing it. Though I did catch myself being weirdly gentle with it during the first week—old foldable habits die hard.
The cover screen proportions work better now too, though it's still narrower than what you'd get on a conventional smartphone. But it's wide enough that you're not constantly unfolding for basic stuff like checking messages or scrolling through social media. When you do unfold it, the inner display is plenty useful. Reading, watching videos, actually getting work done—everything can be done on it. The fingerprint sensor placement took some getting used to though—it's positioned where my thumb doesn't naturally land, so I found myself fumbling for it more often than I'd like.
I never dropped it, but the build quality feels solid throughout. The phone feels premium without being precious, if that makes sense—like something you'd actually use rather than baby. The black finish, which is the only colour option available, has this glossy surface that's a total fingerprint magnet. The only time I find myself babying this phone is constantly wiping it down with my shirt every time I pick it up.
Honestly, I wasn't going to use this phrase, but let's address the elephant in the room: that camera bump. Now, it isn't the biggest bump we've seen, and one can't call it really huge, considering this is Vivo's X series phone that's known to have substantial camera bumps. But it's definitely there, and it does make the phone feel a bit top-heavy when you're holding it unfolded. The good news? It doesn't cause the phone to wobble when you place it flat on a table, so at least your typing sessions won't turn into a rocking boat experience.
Half the equation solved
The two screens on the X Fold5 are solid AMOLED panels that get properly bright—4,500 nits peak brightness, which actually matters when you're trying to read something outdoors. The 120Hz refresh rate makes scrolling feel smooth on both the 6.53-inch cover screen and the 8.03-inch main display. Colours look natural without being washed out, and the blacks are deep enough that the screen edges disappear in dark rooms. Also, text reads sharp and photos look detailed.
Yes, the cover screen is a bit narrow compared to regular phones, but it's fine for all the normal phone things like calling, texting, and quick social media checks. The main screen has a square-ish aspect ratio, which feels weird at first if you're coming from a regular phone, but it grows on you, especially for reading and multitasking. Apps mostly transition well between the two screens, picking up where you left off when you unfold the phone. Though you'll occasionally get that annoying app restart that reminds you this is still a foldable phone.
The crease has improved a lot from earlier foldables. It's there if you go looking for it or run your finger across the screen, but if you're using the phone like a regular person, you'd barely notice it. The only times it really becomes obvious are when you're looking at solid-coloured backgrounds at certain angles, or when light hits the screen just wrong. During actual use—reading, watching videos, scrolling through apps—your brain just filters it out. It's one of those things that sounds like a big deal until you actually live with it for a while.
The phone has stereo speakers and honestly they're just fine for calls, some casual music listening, and for the times when you're watching short videos at full volume. But there's barely any bass, and turning the volume up just makes everything sound hollow. For a phone at this price, you'd expect better. It's especially noticeable when you're watching movies or shows on that gorgeous big screen—the visuals look fantastic with Dolby Vision and HDR10+ making everything pop with vibrant colours and sharp contrast, but the audio just doesn't match up.
When folding becomes routine
Daily use with the X Fold5 has settled into a routine that just works. Most of the time, I found myself using it folded like a regular phone—the cover screen handles texting, calls, and quick social media scrolling without any fuss. When you do need that extra screen real estate, unfolding it feels natural rather than like activating some special mode. Vivo's FunTouch OS 15 handles the dual-screen setup well enough, though it's not quite as polished as Samsung's approach.
The real party trick is Origin Workbench , which lets you run up to five apps simultaneously on the main screen. Now I'm not someone who likes to do all their work on a phone, whether it be foldable or not, but I found this feature quite useful. Having WhatsApp, Gmail, Chrome, and a note-taking app all open on one screen is something most people would want, and with Workbench they can do exactly that. Though, the execution isn't perfect. Managing all those windows can get fiddly, and occasionally you'll accidentally close something when trying to resize it.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset is where Vivo made their big compromise, and honestly, it shows more in benchmarks than real-world use. Sure, it's not the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite that powers the current flagship crowd, but for most tasks, you won't notice the difference. Apps open quickly, games run smoothly, and that multitasking setup doesn't bring the phone to its knees. I threw some heavy games at it during testing, and it handled everything without breaking a sweat. The only time you might feel the age is in very specific scenarios like heavy video editing or when future apps start demanding more horsepower.
The phone manages heat and performance consistently over extended use. Unlike some phones that throttle hard when things get intense, the X Fold5 maintains steady performance even during long gaming sessions or when you're pushing the multitasking features. The larger chassis probably helps with heat dissipation, but whatever Vivo's doing under the hood, it works. The phone rarely gets uncomfortably warm, and performance stays stable even when you're asking it to do several things at once.
Vivo has sprinkled in some AI features throughout the OS, though they feel like nice-to-haves. The AI transcript feature works well for converting voice notes to text, and the live text extraction is handy when you need to grab text from photos or documents. There's also some AI-powered photography enhancement happening in the background, but it's subtle enough that you won't really notice unless you're pixel-peeping. Nothing novel, but useful enough that you'll find yourself using these features occasionally.
The software does have its quirks though. Some apps still don't play nicely with the foldable form factor, either refusing to resize properly or looking stretched and weird on the main display. The transition between screens isn't always seamless—sometimes apps will restart when you unfold the phone, which gets annoying when you're in the middle of something important. I also noticed that the phone occasionally gets confused about which orientation you want when you're holding it at certain angles, flipping the screen when you definitely didn't ask it to.
Then there's the update situation—the X Fold5 ships with Android 15 when Android 16 is already on the horizon, and Vivo's only promising three years of OS updates and four years of security patches.
That said, features like app continuity, split-screen gestures, and the drag-and-drop functionality between windows work much better than they did on the X Fold 3 Pro, so Vivo is clearly moving in the right direction. The improvements are noticeable enough that daily use feels more polished, even if there are still occasional hiccups that remind you this form factor is still evolving.
Battery life is where the X Fold5 really delivers. That massive 6,000mAh battery easily gets you through a full day of heavy use, and often into the next morning. Even with the main screen unfolded for hours of work and entertainment, I rarely found myself reaching for the charger before bedtime. The 80W fast charging means you can top up quickly when needed—about 30 minutes gets you from dead to usable, and a full charge takes just over an hour. It's one of those things that removes a major anxiety point about using a foldable as your daily driver.
Point, shoot, repeat
The cameras on the X Fold5 do their job well. You get three 50MP sensors on the back—a main camera, ultra-wide, and a 3x telephoto with optical zoom—all with Zeiss branding. The main camera takes good photos with natural colours and decent dynamic range. Low-light shots come out better than expected, and the colours look balanced without being oversaturated. The Zeiss partnership seems to help with keeping things looking realistic rather than overly processed.
While the ultra-wide camera keeps up with the main shooter in terms of details and colours in daylight, it takes a considerable hit in low light, with details becoming fuzzy and colours becoming somewhat muted. The 3x telephoto lens is solid too—you can push it to 6x or even 10x zoom and still get usable shots.
Another perk of Zeiss' partnership is that portrait mode on the X Fold5 works like a charm. Though there are some usual quirks like struggling with edge detection around hair and busy backgrounds, sometimes blurring things it shouldn’t.
Using the cameras on a foldable has its perks and quirks. You can flip the phone around and use the main cameras for selfies while watching yourself on the cover screen, which beats the front-facing camera quality by a lot. The phone works well propped up for video calls too. The downside is that the camera app doesn't always play nicely with the unfolded screen layout, and switching between modes can feel a bit clunky.
The camera app has plenty of features, though some feel more necessary than others. The Zeiss portrait modes add some variety, night mode does what it's supposed to, and video recording is decent with good stabilisation. The app can feel overwhelming with all the options scattered around different menus, and it occasionally takes longer to launch than you'd want—an issue that carried over from the X Fold 3 Pro.
The good-old foldable question
The X Fold5 feels like Vivo's most mature foldable yet. It's the kind of device you can actually live with daily—the 6,000mAh battery removes the constant charging anxiety, the construction feels built to last, and Origin Workbench genuinely enhances how you work on a phone. This is a foldable that gets out of its own way and lets you focus on what you're trying to do, which is exactly what the form factor needed to achieve.
Where the X Fold 3 Pro felt like Vivo's attempt at a no-compromise foldable, the X Fold5 takes a more pragmatic approach, accepting certain trade-offs to deliver better value. Those trade-offs are there, but they're mostly reasonable ones.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, while perfectly capable for daily use, feels like a compromise you shouldn't have to make at this price point. The software has improved significantly from the X Fold 3 Pro, but the larger issue remains that apps don't quite know what to do with the form factor, and that'll remind you this form factor is still evolving. Plus, the update policy lags behind competitors.
At Rs 1,49,999, the X Fold5's pragmatic approach pays off, and the phone finds itself in an interesting position. It's more affordable than most book-style foldables while still delivering the core experience that makes this form factor appealing. It's a thoughtful evolution of Vivo's foldable approach, showing real improvements in the areas that matter most for daily use.
It's still foldable money, but if you're already convinced you want a foldable and can live with occasional software quirks, the X Fold5 makes a strong case for itself. It folds. It lasts. It fits.
Our rating: 4/5
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