Equipment
If smartphones were “met with their clothes on”, the new Tecno Phantom V Flip would compete for the title of this year’s best. All thanks to its rich equipment.
The box itself opens like a lid – the top folds back and then we are greeted by the smartphone itself. The package includes 45 W charging, USB-A to USB-C cabling, and a high-quality rubber-coated case consisting of two halves, in addition to the device itself. By the way, two small boxes for the charger and cable are made of cardboard imitating leather, which is very unusual.
Also in the box you can find two pieces of paper with stickers on them, which can be used, for example, to cover a protective case.
Design
Tecno Phantom V Flip has aluminum frames and an eco-leather covered cover. The smartphone feels and looks like a full-fledged flagship, and the use of leather-like material is very beneficial, as the device does not collect fingerprints. Although it is not known how quickly such a coating will wear out and how it will behave when you drip oil or some kind of paint on the body.
Despite the fact that the socialbites.ca correspondent tested the new device for two weeks, it was very difficult to get used to some design solutions. Perhaps because the Phantom V Flip is so tall (it has a 6.9-inch screen) and the volume rocker seems to be placed too high, people with small hands or short fingers will have to hold the device to change the volume. .
It would also be nice to place the unlock button with the built-in fingerprint scanner a few millimeters lower, where an average-sized finger would intuitively fit.
The cameras are also housed inside the disk-shaped block with a built-in round outer screen. Due to the size of this unit it may seem that the top of the smartphone will outweigh the bottom, but in reality this is not the case.
Tecno Phantom V Flip received an unusual and original design, in which, according to the correspondent of socialbites.ca, the lilac color is perfect for girls. Men should only look at the black version.
screens
The main flexible display of the Phantom V Flip is a 6.9-inch diagonal LTPO AMOLED matrix with a resolution of 2640×1080 pixels with an adaptive image refresh rate of up to 120 Hz and a maximum brightness of 1000 nits. The screen quality is high and its brightness is sufficient for use in direct sunlight.
The only thing that raises questions is how quickly the screen “collects” fingerprints, which are sometimes very difficult to “remove”.
The main problem with many foldable devices is the visibility of the screen fold. When looking at the Phantom V Flip from a perpendicular angle, no wrinkles are visible. You can feel it when you slide your finger on the screen. However, it must be admitted that after two weeks of active testing the fold did not become deeper or more pronounced.
The external 1.3-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 466×466 pixels and a frequency of 60 Hz is very similar to a smartwatch screen in its shape, features and some functions. Here you can read notifications, respond to messages, for example, with templates or emoticons prepared in Telegram, check the weather, your physical activity and much more. It wasn’t possible to run other apps on it, but given the size of the second screen this wouldn’t be very useful.
The most important advantage of the external screen over the main screen is the ability to take selfies with the main camera. True, due to the format and size of this screen, when shooting vertically, not all details fall into the viewfinder, when shooting horizontally, on the contrary, everything fits, but part of the screen is not used in any way.
cameras
Tecno Phantom V Flip received dual cameras: a main RGBW sensor with a resolution of 64 MP and a 13 MP ultra-wide-angle module with a viewing angle of 120 degrees. There is a 32-megapixel selfie camera in the cutout on the internal screen.
Photos taken with the main camera in good lighting conditions are of good quality and moderately saturated. The algorithms don’t try to distort colors too much, resulting in a more “natural” frame than some competitors. Night photography works well – there is no overexposure or excessive “yellowishness” in the picture; This is a problem with some other Chinese brands.
Ultra wide-angle module “there are not enough stars in the sky.” Still, the camera allows you to take good photos in good lighting conditions, although the details are not always pleasing.
The 32 MP front sensor turned out to be very “simple”. The most interesting detail in this camera is that there is a special flashlight in the frame above the screen, with which you can highlight the face in the frame and take better quality photos. Otherwise, this camera will most likely be used only for video calling because the Phantom V Flip allows you to take selfies directly with the main camera, thanks to its form factor.
In this case, selfies turn out to be quite detailed and rich.
If there are no questions regarding the photo part of the camera, they may have already arisen regarding the video part. This is why the output turns into a jerky video, since none of the cameras provide optical stabilization: each step will make itself felt by a strong shake in the frame. You can enable the “Maximum Stabilization” mode, which is achieved by the software cropping the frame, but then you can only shoot in Full HD mode.
The main camera records video in Full HD (30 and 60 fps) and 4K resolution (30 fps). The ultra-wide-angle sensor shoots Full HD and 4K (30 fps), and the selfie camera shoots Full HD (30 and 60 fps) and 2K (30 fps).
In general, the Phantom V Flip shows a very good result, especially considering that this is a foldable smartphone. For some reason, cameras on smartphones of this format, as a rule, cannot be called flagship. This is probably due to the lack of space in the case for large sensors and optical stabilization.
Durability
Immediately after turning on and setting up the smartphone for the first time, the user is greeted with an important warning; This warning includes the following statements: It is recommended that the protective film supplied with the product be removed from the screen or not allowed to become contaminated with liquid, sand or other objects. inside the device.
The spot with water and sand can of course scare potential buyers of the folding bed. But as the experience of the socialbites.ca correspondent who used the device in drizzle shows, there is nothing to worry about. At least if you don’t drop the Phantom V Flip in water or use it in a heavy downpour.
Tecno promises that the smartphone’s teardrop hinge will withstand 200,000 folds. If you open the Phantom V Flip a hundred times a day, this will last almost 5.5 years. But it is still unknown how the device will perform in the Russian winter.
Yield
Tecno Phantom V Flip doesn’t have a flagship chip, but the MediaTek Dimensity 8050 is powerful enough for all daily tasks and mobile gaming. The performance of the smartphone is also provided by 8 GB RAM (LPDDR4X) and 256 GB internal storage (UFS 3.1).
Although the device can handle demanding games like Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail, it gets quite noticeably hot at the top of its body, and the aluminum frames only aggravate this process.
Still, it’s hard to imagine an avid mobile gamer playing, say, PUBG on a clamshell phone. This is more of a status smartphone than a gaming smartphone.
The screenshots below show the results of testing the Tecno Phantom V Flip in various benchmarks.
WITH
Tecno Phantom V Flip comes with pre-installed proprietary HiOS 13.5 shell based on Android 13. The firmware has many interesting and unusual features. For example, you can turn on “invisibility”, which allows you to read messages in WhatsApp without notifying the sender, change the voice in calls, launch applications using gestures and much more.
Despite the fact that the review is an engineering sample, the smartphone worked stably and quickly. From this we can conclude that production samples should not perform worse.
Battery
Phantom V Flip has a 4000 mAh battery with 45 W fast charging support. This is a big advantage compared to the Galaxy Z Flip5 because it has a 3700 mAh battery with 25 W charging.
The smartphone lasts for a day or 5-7 hours of continuous use on a full charge, depending on usage scenarios, and takes about an hour to charge.
Other features
The smartphone has only 256 GB and this memory cannot be expanded. Moreover, it is worth noting that the Tecno Phantom V Flip only supports one SIM card.
The new product features NFC, which means it supports contactless payment using SberPay or MirPay.
As for stereo speakers, they do not provide full stereo – the main part comes from the bottom speaker, while the headphone complements it. Still, this is enough for watching videos, movies and listening to music, but you shouldn’t rely on flagship sound.
Solution
Its official price on the Russian market is 60 thousand rubles. Tecno Phantom V Flip looks unbeatable. Although it is sometimes inferior to its competitors in terms of performance, external screen size and other elements, it is still cheaper than other folding phones in Russian retail.
However, if you want to try a clamshell phone and Samsung seems expensive, you won’t regret checking out this new offering from Tecno. Especially considering that this price includes the official warranty service of the manufacturer, it is a rare situation nowadays.