Best Book-Style Foldable for Most People

The TECNO Phantom V Fold was announced back in February last year. It has been over a year since then at this point. Well, the Phantom V Fold 2 arrived quite recently, and we’ve been using it for a while now. I did not review the original phone, my colleague did, but I did have some brief time to check out the phone. That did give me some perspective going into the TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 review.

In all honesty, I was very pleasantly surprised with this device. Why? Well, because it feels like a considerable jump from the original, and considering its price tag, that’s a big deal. There are a lot of positives when it comes to the TECNO Phantom V Fold 2, that’s for sure. We’ll go over those in this article, and of course… the negatives as well. The TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 sure is an interesting device, and I have plenty of thoughts after my time with it. Let’s get to it, shall we?

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 Review: Hardware / Design

The TECNO Phantom V Fold 2’s design is one of the first things that left a positive impression on me. This thing is considerably thinner and lighter than the original device, and it does feel really well-built. Basically everything has improved, ranging from the looks of the device, to the actual folding feel, etc. The TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 comes in two color options, and those two phones have a different backplate to offer. The one I had the chance to test out is the ‘Rippling Blue’ variant, which has vegan leather on the back. That sure does help with fingerprint smudges and it does add grip to the device. The other model is ‘Karst Green’, which has a laminated fiberglass battery cover. TECNO says it offers a “metallic texture”. I haven’t had a chance to use that one, but it’s more slippery than the vegan leather model.

The second-gen model is much thinner than its predecessor

This smartphone is 11.78mm thick when folded, and 5.52mm thick when unfolded. The original was 14.5mm thick when folded, and 6.9mm thick when unfolded. That’s a major difference when you’re holding and using the device. On top of that, this model is considerably lighter at 249 grams. The original’s weight was 299 grams. Despite that weight reduction, the new model also has a much larger battery. The TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 is a design/hardware improvement in basically every way. It sits in the hand nicely, and it even feels thinner than it really is. It is ever so slightly thicker than the OnePlus Open, and it feels noticeably lighter due to the curvature.

The ‘Rippling Blue’ model sure is eye-catching

The phone is also a lot nicer on the eyes this time around. The ‘Rippling Blue’ model really is eye-catching. It has a sky blue color on the back, which turns into a light purple color under specific lighting. Quite a few people had questions about this phone since I started using it, whether it’s in a coffee shop, whether my friends are asking me when I’m hanging out with them, or even on the street, that happened once too. The curves are well-implemented, and the vegan leather portion does protrude on the back on the back. On top of the fact it’s curved, it really is a great cushion for your hand when you’re holding the device. That’s a nice touch by TECNO.

The hinge does offer more resistance than I’d like, but it’s not a big deal

Its power/lock button doubles as a fingerprint scanner, while you’ll notice speaker grille holes on both the phone’s top and bottom. Unfolding the device is quite satisfying, but do keep in mind that you’ll get a bit more resistance here than on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and OnePlus Open. The phone can be half-folded at several points, but not as many as the two aforementioned devices. That’s not something that bothered me, at all. Overall the folding/unfolding experience was quite satisfying. You will find a display camera hole on both of its displays. The bezels are a lot thinner than I though they’d be. That goes for both main and cover displays. Even the hinge is really neatly tucked away (thin), much thinner than it was last time around. That hinge is a bit too stiff for my liking, though. The camera island on the back is not exactly eye-candy, but it didn’t bother me either. This phone has been designed by LOEWE, by the way, which is something that is highlighted on the phone itself.

The overall design is great

Overall, I’m very pleased with the design of the TECNO Phantom V Fold 2. This phone feels like it should cost even more when you hold and use it, and yet it’s one of the most compelling book-style foldables out there, price-wise. This model with vegan leather on the back really does feel great, and it does allow you to forget you’re using a foldable at times. Do note that the phone is also IP54 certified for water and dust resistance.

What’s in the box?

Aside from the phone, a 70W charger is included in the box, along with a USB-A to USB-C charging cable. On top of that, you’re getting the standard paperwork, a SIM ejector tool, and a case. You can check out that case in the gallery below. It’s a two-piece plastic case that is very thin and includes sticky pads for additional security. This case has a soft-touch back that mimics the phone’s vegan leather backplate. It’s a nice case, and it’s good that it’s thin as this is a foldable phone, so it doesn’t add all that much bulk to the equation.

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 Review: Display

The TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 has two displays, of course. It is a book-style foldable after all. The main display on the phone measures 7.85 inches, and it’s a 2K+ AMOLED display that supports the V Pen input. That’s a name for TECNO’s stylus, by the way. It does not come in the retail box, though, you’ll have to buy it separately. The exact resolution that display offers is 2000 x 2296, and it’s an LTPO panel. In other words, it has an adaptive refresh rate. The peak brightness of this panel is 900 nits, while the touch sampling rate is 360Hz.

Both displays have all the right specs

The cover display on the phone measures 6.42 inches, and it offers a fullHD+ resolution (2550 x 1080). That’s also an LTPO AMOLED display, so it has an adaptive refresh rate (up to 120Hz). The touch sampling rate is 240Hz, while the peak brightness is 1,600 nits. This panel also offers a high-frequency PWM dimming at 2,160Hz. The cover display on the phone has a curve on the right side, as we’ve seen on some other book-style foldables. I actually didn’t mind it at all, quite the contrary.

The displays are not perfect, but they’re still very good

I was actually pleasantly surprised by both of these panels. They’re not perfect, which is unrealistic to expect considering the price difference between this phone and its competitors. However, both displays are still very, very good. I realistically have only several complaints about them, other than that, everything was great. The brightness could be higher, especially on the main display. That really bothered me only when I was using it in direct sunlight, though, other than that, it was perfectly fine. The other thing is that the main display is more reflective than the OnePlus Open’s main panel… but once again, keep in mind the price difference. The third complaint is the adaptive brightness on the cover display, in low-light environments, it kept getting too dim for me, even though I constantly tried to correct it.

The vast majority of people will be more than pleased

Everything other than what I mentioned is quite great. Both panels are very vivid and have great viewing angles. They’re very responsive to the touch, and the main display doesn’t feel plasticky at all. TECNO even did a good job with the crease. It’s not the best around, but it’s not that far from it either. I honestly didn’t even notice it when using the phone, which is always a good sign. The company used two really good panels here, that’s for sure. As I said, I was pleasantly surprised.

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 Review: Performance

The TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 is fueled by the MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ processor. This is a 4nm chip manufactured by TSMC. This is not the most recent chip, though. It was announced in June 2022, and it definitely is not a flagship processor. However, it’s a solid chip. TECNO coupled that with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 3.1 flash storage. The storage chip used is also not the fastest in the market, but it’s more than fast enough. All Pixel 9 phones use it, for example. This chip is also comparable to the Tensor G4 in terms of power, so there you go.

The performance is, in general, really good

You’re probably wondering what it’s like to actually use? Well, really good. I did see some skipped frames from time to time, but they were few and far apart. The weirdest thing is that they didn’t really occur when you’d expect them to, but on random actions. That did not really bother me one bit because, as is said, they were tiny stutters, and happened rarely. This phone actually offers really good day-to-day performance, with nice animations too. I was able to juggle a bunch of apps at the same time, jumping between them, with no issues. This phone is also not as aggressive with killing background apps as some other Chinese smartphones are, which is also really good to see.

Gaming was good, but not perfect

Gaming was also not an issue, for the most part. As long as you stay away from high graphical settings in the most demanding games, such as Genshin Impact, you’ll be fine. I mean even if you do that, the phone does run the game, but it gets a bit choppy. Everything else is not a problem, really, to be quite honest. As long as you’re not a hardcore gamer and want the absolute best smartphone for gaming, you won’t have an issue here.

The phone did get warm while I was playing truly demanding titles

Do note that the phone does get warm during demanding games, but it never got too warm for me. I did not notice the heat during anything else, to be quite honest. Even when I used the camera for extended periods of time, or watched a TV show on the phone while keeping the screen on for over an hour at a time. It generally doesn’t even get warm during general usage, which is always good to see.

TECNO Phantom V Pen is this phone’s stylus

The TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 does not ship with a stylus, but it does support one. TECNO’s new Phantom V Pen is compatible with this smartphone. Do note that it’s compatible with the main display only, not the cover panel. TECNO did shop one over for us to check out, and I spent more time with it than I thought I would, even though I don’t know how often I’d use it in general. Those of you who have a habit of using one, well, there’s an option. It also comes with a nice case which you can stick whenever you want. It includes a sticky pad, so you can place the pen case on the back of your phone case if you want. There are two buttons on the stylus itself and a charging port.

There are quite a few options for the Phantom V Pen

With that being said, this phone does include some features specific to this stylus. You can check out the gallery below to see a full list of them. When the stylus is connected, you do get a nice icon for a special menu on the side. When you tap it, you’ll see a bunch of options. Those options include New Notes, Notes, Screen Notes, Translate, Photo Cutouts, and Settings. You can even start writing a note on the locked display with this stylus. I did spot a problem with the Photo Cutouts feature, though, as I couldn’t get it to work, though TECNO will likely take care of that soon.

Benchmarks

When it comes to performance-related benchmarks, you’ll find a handful of them below. First, we’ve fired up Geekbench 6, for both CPU and GPU of the device. The next test is the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test, followed by the Genshin Impact temperature test. The last test on the list is the video export test via CapCut. Geekbench shows the sheer power of the CPU and the GPU, while the 3D Mark test simulates really intense use to see how will the phone handle it.

Geekbench 6

3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test

Temperature Genshin Impact

Video export test

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 Review: Battery

The TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 actually has a rather large battery on the inside. This phone comes with a 5,750mAh battery pack. Just to put things into perspective, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 has a much smaller 4,400mAh battery. The HONOR Magic V3, a phone that is considered to have a rather large battery, has a 5,150mAh unit. The Phantom V Fold 2 trumps both of those smartphones.

TECNO managed to include a rather sizeable battery here

Battery capacity on its own doesn’t need to mean much, though if the software and optimizations are not on point. Luckily for all of us, the TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 does offer really good battery life, at least based on my experience. Let me tell you a bit about that experience so that you get a better idea. I use the internal display on foldables quite a bit, but nowhere near as much as the cover panel, especially when it’s this good. It’s just the way we live these days, we are usually on the go and don’t have two hands free for a phone. On top of that, some apps are simply more enjoyable on the cover display, many of them, actually. Reddit, Twitter, and many others are great examples. So, if I had to put a finger on it, I use the internal display one-third of my overall time spent using the phone, approximately.

The battery life was great

Having said that, I use my phone a lot during the day, for various tasks. I send a lot of emails via the main display during the day, while I also message a lot. YouTube videos are also on my list, and the same goes for TikTok and a bit of Instagram too. I use Google Drive for work, and also some apps for image and video processing. I do at times use the WiFi hotspot too, and I do tend to use Chrome a lot. Taking some pictures is also on the list, as are some note-taking applications, and social media networks. I generally do not play games, though, only for testing purposes.

I had no problem getting to the end of the day on a single charge

With that being said, I was able to go through a full day of rather intense use without a problem. Having in mind the battery capacity here, that is not all that surprising. TECNO seemingly also did a really good job with the software too. In terms of screen-on time, that means that I was able to cross the 7-hour screen-on-time comfortably, and I even went over the 8-hour screen-on-time mark once. I generally do not use a phone that much all the time, but on days that I do, the TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 was able to take it without a problem. The phone also did nicely in our battery drain test. You can read more about that the end of this section.

Charging

What about charging? Well, TECNO does include a 70W charger in the box, and this phone does support 70W wired charging. In addition to that, it also supports 15W wireless charging. How fast are these? Well, TECNO says that the phone can charge up to 50% in 20 minutes, and up to 100% in 49 minutes via wired charging. It took a bit more for us, but the difference was not considerable. It took the phone 22 minutes to reach 50% and 51 minutes to get to 100%. Wireless charging is not particularly fast and it will take you quite some time to get a full charge. The phone does support Qi charging, though, of course.

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 Review: Camera

The TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 comes with three rear-facing cameras and two front-facing ones. In regards to front-facing ones, there’s one on each of the phone’s displays. Let’s first touch base on the rear cameras, though, shall we? There are three 50-megapixel snappers back there. The main one uses OmniVision’s OV50H camera sensor, which is a 1/1.3-inch sensor. 1.2um pixel size is used here, and we’re looking at an f/1.9 aperture lens. OIS is supported on this camera too.

There are three 50-megapixel cameras included on the back

The second camera on the back is a 50-megapixel ‘Portrait Camera’. This camera offers a 2x optical zoom and a 20x digital zoom. PDAF is supported. The third camera is a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera with a field of view of 115 degrees, an f/2.2 aperture lens, and PDAF. That’s all the information that TECNO provided. I tried looking for exact camera sensors in the hardware info section, and even installing some apps to get the exact info, but I was unsuccessful. I’ll update the review once more information becomes available. Let’s switch to the actual performance of these cameras, shall we?

The main camera is really good, but I wish that the shutter was faster

TECNO used a really solid main camera sensor here, though I wish that the shutter speed was faster. An f/1.6 or f/1.7 would be much better, but still, the phone did perform really well. Shooting moving objects in anything but great lighting was not the best, but in general, the phone’s main camera did a really good job. It managed to provide details, and sharp pictures, that are usually also vivid too. I’d prefer a bit more details in the darker areas of those images, but they look good like this too. The HDR performance is generally good, though I’ve had several mishaps. The same goes for white balance, but it’s usually great. I’m nitpicking here, but the performance of the main camera is generally really good, even in low light, as you can see in the provided images.

The other two cameras are good, but a level or two below the main unit

The ‘Portrait’ and ultrawide cameras are not as good, though. I mean they do a good job in good lighting, but you’ll see the color shift in low light, and the drop in quality. The main camera does a far better job in anything but great lighting. If you’re shooting during the day, however, the differences will be far less pronounced. Even macro shots end up looking great during the day. Overall, the TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 is not a bad camera performer at all, especially with its main camera. It’s nowhere near being the best foldable in terms of camera performance, but once again… take note of the price tag here. It’s a lot cheaper than the competition, so comparatively, it’s actually more than competitive. There are plenty of camera samples included below.

Main camera samples:

Ultrawide & macro camera samples:

Telephoto camera samples:

Recording temperature (5 & 10 minutes):

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 Review: Software

TECNO’s new book-type foldable ships with Android 14 out of the box. On top of it you’ll find TECNO’s HiOS Fold 14.5 skin. Now, for those of you who haven’t had the chance to use TECNO’s software thus far, it’s really good, actually. This skin looks very flat and nice, modern, while it also adds a ton of customizability and productivity features on top. Some nice animations are also thrown into the mix, and the software is really well-optimized too. I was very pleasantly surprised by the performance of HiOS Fold, to be quite honest. It quickly became one of my favorite Android skins to use.

TECNO’s Android skin strikes a nice balance

This is a nice blend between stock Android and some heavily customized Android skins. All the basic features are here, so no worries there. You do get the option to customize the swipe-down motion on the home screen, for example, which is still not something every Android OEM offers. You can choose between gesture navigation and on-screen buttons, and so on.

One-hand mode is missing

One rather basic thing that seems to be missing, at least I was unable to find it, is the one-hand usage mode. There is no way to lower the rather tall display down when you need to in any way. That could be quite useful to the cover display, especially for notifications. When you open the notification shade, all your notifications are placed very high up.

The OS teaches you how to use some more advanced features that you may be interested in

What I love about this skin is that it teaches you how to use more advanced features as you use it. I’ve been getting tips for days, subtle ones, as they should be. For example, if you’re using the main display, and keep switching between two apps, the system will ask if it should create a multi-window setup for you, and save it as well. It offers a nice explanation and animation as to what that is. I can see this being useful for users who are not as advanced, and a nice way to find out about multi-window too. The system can also pick up the colors from your wallpaper and heavily customize its look, so it’s basically a great implementation of a feature Google brought forth a while back.

The folding display has plenty of features of its own

When it comes to the folding display, there are a number of features that are at your disposal. Other than the multi-window mode, you can also place apps into floating windows. The phone also allows you to choose what happens when you close the main display. It can turn off the cover display, turn it on, or allow you to swipe up on it if you want to continue using it. TECNO’s Flex-Still Mode is also on offer here. That’s basically what happens when you half-fold the phone. It’s limited to some apps, but it works well. And so on, there are several additional features included.

The Always-On Display is good, and there are also some personalization options

In regards to general personalization, you can change the theme, get AI-generated wallpapers, live wallpapers, static wallpapers, or your own. Changing fonts is also an option, as is Always-On Display customization. That Always-On Display also works really well. I loved being able to tap once on the display and the almost all-black AOD display pop up with only new icons if there are new notifications. There is also a game mode included here, the ability to run two instances of the same app (with different logins), and much more. The sheer number of features is quite high. I really enjoyed my experience with HiOS Fold 4.5 and didn’t really notice any bugs worth noting.

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 Review: Audio

The TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 features a set of stereo speakers. Dolby Atmos is also a part of the package, by the way. The speakers are top and bottom-facing. These work really well, even though they’re not as loud as some of the competition. Don’t get me wrong, though, they’re not quiet at all, I just noticed they’re also not some of the loudest amongst speakers on foldables. They do sound really nice, though, and even produce some bass.

There is no audio jack included on the phone, in case you were wondering. That has really become a rarity amongst modern smartphones. You can use this phone’s Type-C port to connect your wired headphones, though, but you’ll need a dongle. There’s Bluetooth support for everything else (wireless), though.

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2: Should you buy it?

Premium foldable smartphones are really expensive, to say the least. The TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 does undercut them in the price sector, as it’s priced at $1,099. Now, that’s still a lot of money, but considering the pricing of other book-style foldables, and the fact that this phone is a lot better than the first-gen model, it’s more than worth considering. I was left rather impressed with the TECNO Phantom V Fold 2, to be quite honest. I expected less, in all honesty. Yes, there is room for improvement, but the jump from the original model to this one is… huge. Well done, TECNO!

You should buy the TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 if you:

…want a book-style foldable, but are unwilling to spend upwards of $1,500
…own the original model and like it, but want to upgrade to something better
…like to use a stylus
…want good battery life on a foldable
…want both displays to be quite compelling
…need a foldable that feels great in the hand

You shouldn’t buy the TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 if you:

…want the best camera on a foldable.
…have a higher budget for a book-style foldable