vivo X Fold3 Pro review
Super-bright displays inside and out, Dolby Vision too
The vivo X Fold3 Pro is equipped with some mighty fine displays, both on the cover and on the inside. The expansive specsheet has a few highlights, among them the DolbyVision certification and the 4,500nits peak brightness - for both panels.
The main display on the inside has an 8.03-inch diagonal (they could have easily called it an 8-inch, but so be it). The resolution is 2,200x2,480px in a squarish 10.1:9 (1.13:1) aspect, and pixel density works out to 413ppi.
In adaptive brightness mode, the X Fold3 Pro's inner display proved to be the brightest large foldable panel we've measured to date. It's brighter than industry-leading flat displays too, the company's own X100 Ultra included.
In manual mode, we recorded a fairly standard brightness of a little under 600nits - the Galaxy Z Fold6 does give you an additional 200nits on the slider if you enable Extra brightness, but the rest of the potential competitors also max out at values in the vivo's ballpark.
Max display brightness test
White test pattern, 75% fill (nits)
- Manual mode
- Auto mode
vivo X Fold3 Pro
vivo X100 Ultra
iPhone 15 Pro Max
Galaxy Z Fold6
Galaxy S24 Ultra
vivo X Fold2
Xiaomi Mix Fold 3
The cover screen stretches 6.53 inches in diagonal and has a fairly standard 21:9 aspect ratio - if we haven't slammed the Galaxy Z Fold lineup for its overly tall aspects, here's another opportunity. The resolution here is 1,172x2748px, and pixel density is a little higher than on the foldable panel, at 457ppi.
The cover display is also spectacular in its brightness capabilities, pushing a little over 1,800nits in adaptive mode and 570nits at the rightmost end of the slider when you're adjusting it manually. Truly impressive stuff inside and out.
Max display brightness test
White test pattern, 75% fill (nits)
- Manual mode
- Auto mode
vivo X Fold3 Pro (Cover display)
vivo X100 Ultra
iPhone 15 Pro Max
Galaxy Z Fold6 (Cover display)
vivo X100 Pro
Galaxy S24 Ultra
Honor Magic V2 (Cover display)
Refresh rate
The X Fold3 Pro has three refresh rate modes - the default Smart Switch, High, and Standard. Neither of the 'fixed' modes is actually fixed and in all three modes the phone will switch down to 1Hz when idling. The Standard mode will impose a 60Hz ceiling, while both the Smart Switch and High modes will behave similarly in their adaptiveness, readily switching down to 60Hz in browsers and such, and to 1Hz when there's no moving content or interaction with the display.
Intermediate steps at various values were observed, including the occasional 24Hz and 48Hz, though we didn't get a steady 24Hz for 24fps content, for example - that is to say, playback looked smooth and with no issues, just the Android tool's readout didn't show one constant value. Somewhat unexpectedly, we couldn't get games to run at higher than 60fps - not in Smart Switch, and not in High mode.
Streaming and HDR
A lot like the X100 Ultra, the X Fold3 Pro supports all major HDR standards, including HDR10+ and, more importantly, Dolby Vision. In contrast, Galaxies and Dolby don't mix so the Z Fold6 supports only HDR 10+.
Here, we got HDR streams in YouTube, as well as Netflix (where the Widevine L1 compliance allows for FullHD resolution).
The vivo doesn't quite play nicely with the Android Ultra HDR standard for capture and display of metadata-enhanced photos with highlight brightness boost. That is, it will show enhanced versions of its own photos in its own gallery app ('extreme dynamic range' they call it), but the magic doesn't work in Google Photos or in browsers with photos captured on other devices.
vivo X Fold3 Pro battery life
Just like the X100 Ultra, the X Fold3 Pro uses silicon cathode tech for its battery, which makes its cells more energy dense, helping keep the phone reasonably thin while still offering a large capacity. At 5,700mAh, it's higher than anything else in the large foldable space, and by quite a wide margin when comparing against some models - the Galaxy Z Fold6, for example, only has a 4,400mAh capacity battery.
In our Active Use testing, the X Fold3 Pro posted excellent results. The overall score is class-leading, and the individual screen-on test numbers are either the best or tied for the best for a handset of this type. Still, the endurance/capacity ratio isn't quite as high as on some of the others.
Our new Active Use Score is an estimate of how long the battery will last if you use the device with a mix of all four test activities. You can adjust the calculation based on your usage pattern using the sliders below. You can read about our current battery life testing procedure here. For a comprehensive list of all tested devices so far, head this way.
We also tested the vivo for endurance on its cover screen, where we got a notable improvement in web browsing (15:34h), some extra gaming longevity (8:25h), and only a marginal increase in video playback (16:40h). The web browsing is particularly impressive, in comparison to both the X Fold3 Pro's main display, as well as the Galaxy Z Fold6's cover screen.
Charging speed
The vivo X Fold3 Pro ships with one of the company's proprietary FlashCharge adapters, rated for up to 120W. The phone itself is only specced to support up to 100W, which is still plenty, we reckon. In our testing, it peaked at around 86W, which is close enough.
With the change in chemistry and the significant increase in capacity, we can understand that the X Fold3 Pro doesn't charge as fast as the X Fold2. Still, the X Fold3 Pro is only marginally slower than the OnePlus Open or the Oppo Find N3, and quicker than other bendy tablets that we've tested. Don't forget that it's also got by far the largest battery capacity around.
Charging speed
- in 15 min
- in 30 min
- Time to full charge (from 0%)
vivo X Fold2
vivo X100 Pro
Oppo Find N3
OnePlus Open
vivo X Fold3 Pro
Honor Magic V2
Xiaomi Mix Fold 3
The X Fold3 Pro supports wireless charging up to 50W. Vivo sells a proprietary 50W Vertical Wireless Flash Charger (possibly other models too) to enable that feat. We haven't tested the wireless charging speed, though.
Speaker test
The speaker setup on the X Fold3 Pro consists of two units, both in the cover screen half of the device. One of them directs the sound through a dotted opening on the bottom, while the other has an outlet in the frame at the top as well as towards a slit above the cover display to serve as an earpiece. Each speaker only plays its own channel - the top gets the left track in portrait, with auto switching in place to account for the phone's orientation in landscape. The Galaxy Z Fold6 is essentially the same.
Bottom speaker • Top speaker • Earpiece slit
The X Fold3 Pro got a 'Good' rating for speaker loudness in our testing, same as its X100 Ultra stablemate and the most recent other tablet-style foldable we've seen, the Galaxy Z Fold6. The Galaxy does sound larger and more dynamic, next to a vivo that is somewhat mid-forward and slightly lacking in bass. The OnePlus, meanwhile, is a bit too boomy for its own good. Overall, a good performance from the X Fold3 Pro, but not a standout one.
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.
Reader comments
- Anonymous
- 11 hours ago
- IWQ
That's because 99% of us tend to use our phone for 4 years and above. I used my note 8 for 6 years, only swapped in 2023 due to lack of storage. You vivo pawns like to assume we are like the techtubers with switch their phone every year. Funny e...
- Anonymous
- 02 Sep 2024
- 3Ai
1Tb white variant... When u open inner screen it's normal to consume more battery... Overall great user experience... Got 8K 30 fps but don't record HDR 10 plus or dolby....I'm not concerning about it.... Video quality is very clea...
- Milan274219
- 30 Aug 2024
- gyg
The Hotspot switch "Always on" function like Samsung has is negligible compared to the super hardware VIVO X FOLD3 PRO which exceeds 10 times everything that Samsung can do. I'm just ending Samsung and switching to X FOLD3 PRO