Blackview Hero 10 hands-on review

Affordable foldables are starting to come up and the Blackview Hero 10 just arrived at our office. This is the cheapest foldable you can get currently at €429 and it offers some enticing specs like a 6.9-inch foldable AMOLED display, 108MP main camera and 45W wired charging. Obviously, some corners had to be cut in order to bring the retail price down. The next few lines will cover our impressions of the Hero 10 and how it stacks up to the competition.

The retail package includes a two-piece plastic case, a 45W charging brick and a double-sided USB-C cable.

Blackview Hero 10 feels solid in the hand thanks to its brushed aluminum frame and the subtle curves around the sides which lend it a great in-hand feel. Our review unit sports the elegant Eclipse Black color, but Blackview is also offering a Sakura Purple variant for a little bit more pop.

The back of the Hero 10 features a leather-like surface that helps with the grip and it will hopefully hold up well over time. While we're here we can mention a few brief observations on the 1.19-inch OLED cover screen. It’s on the smaller side compared to other current clamshell foldables and it doesn’t offer much-added utility outside of notifications, media controls, and a camera viewfinder. You can pick from a wide variety of watch face options and that’s about it.

The 6.9-inch main AMOLED offers FHD+ resolution and decent brightness at up to 1,300 nits. It’s only a 60Hz panel, though, which is disappointing when compared to other foldables. Even the other affordable entries like the nubia Flip boast 120Hz panels.

Blackview is using a waterdrop hinge that’s is rated for 250,000 folds and we’re glad to report that the crease in the middle of the display is barely noticeable. The hinge also allows the phone to close completely flat.

Hero 10 is running DokeOS 4.0 based on Android 13 out the box which is a bit outdated midway through 2024. Blackview is promising an update to Android 14 later this year and an additional 3 years of updates – all the way up to Android 16. We didn't see any extra feature for the folding screen though, which is a missed opportunity.

We're not expecting blazing benchmark scores from the Helio G99 chipset and it’s limited to 4G connectivity when all of its key competitors are running on 5G chips. The main cam uses a 108MP sensor (the 1/1.67” Samsung ISOCELL HM6) and it is joined by an 8MP ultrawide lens and a 32MP front-facing shooter.

So that's the short version of the Blackview Hero 10 story – the cheapest foldable on the market right now. We would have liked to see more software tweaks that take advantage of the foldable screen and the Helio G99 chipset could prove to be a bottleneck down the road. However, even so it's great to see that the barrier to entry in the foldable phone market is steadily dropping and we're certainly excited for what's to come.