vivo X Fold2 review

120Hz LTPO4 OLED panel on the inside, regular OLED on the outside

The new vivo X Fold2 utilizes the latest-generation LTPO4 type of AMOLED panel, foldable one at that. When unfolded, the panel reaches 8.03" in diagonal and square-ish resolution of 1916 x 2160px. The screen runs at 120Hz, but since the panel is LTPO, it supports granular refresh rate control, so it can go from 1Hz all the way up to 120Hz if the scenario requires it. HDR10+ and Dolby Vision are also on the menu.

The external screen, on the other hand, is a standard E6 AMOLED panel, measuring 6.53" in diagonal with a tall 1080 x 2520px resolution. That's a 21:9 aspect ratio. The external panel also boasts HDR10+ and Dolby Vision certifications.

The X Fold2 features two really bright panels. In fact, they are the brightest we've seen on foldable smartphones. The main display can go up to 1,308 nits in auto mode, while the external one gets pretty close to that - 1,278 nits. In manual mode, these values are 516 and 510 nits, respectively. It's needless to say that sunlight legibility is excellent no matter what.

As far as color accuracy is concerned, both displays are pretty okay in the default color mode, but the Pro color preset brings down the average dE2000 of the external display to just 0.9, while the main display got down to 3.1. Both results are excellent.

HRR control

The HRR control is pretty simple - it goes down to 1Hz when the screen is idle and 5Hz if the brightness isn't high enough. During video playback from YouTube, for example, the system would automatically choose the appropriate refresh rate depending on the video's frame rate. It can do 24, 30 and 60Hz.

Interestingly enough, some apps, such as Chrome and the default built-in browser, refused to run at 120Hz regardless of whether we had the phone in the Smart Switch mode or the fixed 120Hz mode.

Battery life

The X Fold2 features a slightly larger 4,800 mAh battery compared to its predecessor, and it's also a tad bigger than your average foldable phone battery. However, battery life is quite impressive. Although the overall endurance score is just 96h, that's mostly due to the poor standby runtime. The 4G talk time and the screen-on tests returned excellent readings with extra-long web browsing and video playback scores.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating denotes how long the battery charge will last you if you use the device for an hour of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. More details can be found here.

As you can see, most competitors drag behind the X Fold2, especially if you are looking at the screen-on tests.

Video test carried out in 60Hz refresh rate mode. Web browsing test done at the display's highest refresh rate whenever possible. Refer to the respective reviews for specifics. To adjust the endurance rating formula to match your own usage patterns check out our all-time battery test results chart where you can also find all phones we've tested.

Charging speed

The vivo X Fold2 features a 4,800 mAh battery that can be charged with a proprietary 120W charger, which is included in the box. So it's no wonder that it's the fastest-charging foldable on the market right now, blowing the competition out of the water. In the first 15 minutes, the handset got 70% of its battery charge back, while a full charge took only 27 minutes. Exceptional results.

Speakers

The X Fold2 employs a hybrid stereo setup, meaning the main loudspeaker located at the bottom of the phone is joined by a secondary one on the top, which doubles as an earpiece as well. There are two openings for the second speaker - an earpiece grille and one at the top side of the frame. The main speaker seems to be a tad louder than the second one, and we are a bit surprised to see a hybrid setup instead of a proper, full-fledged stereo speaker setup, given that there's plenty of room on the foldable form factor.

Loudness-wise, the handset doesn't impress either. It got -25.8 LUFS, which earns the device a "Very Good" score, which is just about average for the foldable segment. But we didn't like the overall quality either. The mids are somewhat hard to catch, and the bass is almost non-existent. All tracks sound rather flat. The good news is that distortion is minimal at higher volumes, with highs and vocals sounding very clean.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.