vivo X Fold3, X Fold 3 Pro launched in China

The third generation of vivo‘s X Fold series smartphone was just launched in China, along with some other cool devices including the vivo Pad3 Pro. Meet the new vivo X Fold3 series, the successor to the popular vivo X Fold2, and it is available in two variants – the standard vivo X Fold3 and the vivo X Fold3 Pro.

Both the vivo X Fold3 and the vivo X Fold3 Pro are nearly identical in some aspects including the design and display. Instead, the differences between the two foldable smartphones are mostly found under the hood.

Starting with the similarities between the two phones, the vivo Fold3 series features identical OLED displays. The external screen or cover display measures 6.53 inches with a 2748 x 1172px resolution and 120Hz refresh rate, while the main display measures 8.03 inches with a 2480 x 2200px resolution. Both the cover and main display come with a 120Hz refresh rate, 4500 nits of peak brightness, and support Dolby Vision and HDR10+ colors.

In terms of design, the vivo X Fold3 series are almost identical too. You get the metal exterior with a large circular camera housing at the rear. Thanks to some changes in design, the X Fold3 now only measures 4.65mm when closed, making it one of the slimmest foldable smartphones on the market. It’s also quite light weighing only 219g.

But that’s about where the similarities end. The standard vivo X Fold3 is rated at IPX4, while the Pro is rated IPX8. While the camera housing is identical, the standard X Fold3 uses a 50MP main shooter, 50MP portrait camera, and a 50MP Ultrawide. On the Pro, the 50MP portrait shooter is replaced by a 64MP OIS periscope camera. Both phones also use the same 32MP front camera.

Under the hood, the vivo X Fold3 Pro uses the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset paired with a custom vivo V3 imaging chip. There are two configurations available 16GB+512GB and 16GB+1TB. For reference, the Pro uses LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage.

As for the standard X Fold3, it uses the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset as the X Fold2. The entry-level variant starts at 12GB+256GB and is available with up to 16GB+1TB. Interestingly, the standard X Fold3 does not come with the V3 imaging chip.

What’s interesting is vivo gave the X Fold3 series different battery sizes. The Pro model packs a larger 5,700 mAh battery pack with fast charging of 100W (wired) and 50W (wireless). In comparison, the standard X Fold3 packs only a 5,500 mAh battery and only comes with 80W wired charging.

In terms of price, the vivo X Fold3 starts at CNY 7,000PHP 56,426USD 962INR 81,500EUR 916 (PHP 54,530USD 929INR 78,774EUR 885CNY 6,767) for the 12GB+256GB variant, while the X Fold3 Pro starts at CNY 10,000PHP 80,609USD 1,374INR 116,428EUR 1,308 (PHP 78,000USD 1,329INR 112,679EUR 1,266CNY 9,680) for the 16GB+512GB variant. The two foldable smartphones are already available in vivo’s China store, but there’s no word yet whether when they will be made available globally.