Tecno Phantom V Fold 2 review: I love cheap thrills

Today, I have the new Tecno Phantom V Fold 2 which costs INR 79,999 and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 (review) which is more than double the price. So… which one should you buy?

‘Cause as much as I love large-screen foldables, and that magical feeling of being able to carry a smartphone and a tablet in one device, the fact that they’re so damn expensive breaks my heart. Seriously. It’s been what? Like 5 – 6 years since the first foldable phones arrived? And most bookstyle foldables like this thing still cost an arm and a leg.

But as I mentioned in the very beginning, the Phantom V Fold 2 wants to change the game. It’s a lot more affordable than all the popular kids on the block, and that had me thinking,

Are affordable foldables actually worth it? And what exactly are you missing out on here compared to something that costs twice as much?

Which is why I tested it alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 6 for a week straight to figure out the truth. And help you make the right buying decision if you are looking to buy a foldable phone in 2024. I’ve got a lot of things to cover so let’s get going.

Tecno Phantom V Fold 2 review: Specifications

• Display:
  • Folded: 6.42-inch AMOLED screen, FHD+, 120Hz refresh rate
  • Unfolded: 7.85-inch AMOLED screen, 2K+, 120Hz refresh rate
• Chipset: MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ (4nm mobile platform)
• Memory: 12GB RAM, 512GB storage (non-expandable)
• Software & UI: Android 14 with HiOS 14 on top
• Rear Camera: Triple (50MP primary, 50MP ultrawide, 50MP telephoto)
• Front Camera: Dual (32MP main display, 32MP cover display)
• Security: Fingerprint sensor (side-mounted)
• Connectivity: Dual-SIM (Nano), WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C, NFC, 5G
• Sensors: Accelerometer, Flicker, Geomagnetic, Gyro, Hall, Proximity
• Battery: 5,750 mAh with 70W fast charging (power adapter not provided)
• Price in Nepal: N/A (Starts at INR 79,999 in India)

Tecno Phantom V Fold 2 review:

Design and build

• IP54 dust/splash resistant, 249 grams
  • Folded: 72.16 x 159 x 11.78 – 11.98 mm
  • Unfolded: 140.35 x 159 x 5.5 – 6.08 mm
• Aluminum frames, Vegan leather back

I wanna start with the design and… do I even need to state the obvious here? It’s almost a little sad to see how a foldable veteran like Samsung hasn’t figured out the “normal aspect ratio” thing yet, while a newbie like Tecno got it right straight away.

There’s really no point in dragging it out so I’ll just say it, the 21:9 cover display on the Phantom V Fold 2 feels a lot easier to use and a lot like a regular smartphone. Whereas that somewhat-narrow aspect ratio on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 still finds a way to bite me in the butt every now and then. Be it with mistypes when I’m writing lengthy messages or with just how the user interface itself can feel a bit stuffy in general.

But when it comes to the actual build quality, I was totally expecting Samsung to walk all over Tecno, to be honest. Mostly since I clearly remember how last year’s Phantom V Fold was pretty disappointing in this regard.

That thing was super heavy, super bulky, its leather back felt kinda cheap, and Tecno hadn’t even worked out how to make the hinge freestand at different angles. I didn’t get to make its separate video but yeah, that was my first impression of the Phantom V Fold after messing around with it for a couple of days.

The second time’s the charm

But I don’t know what the engineers at Tecno have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner ‘cause they have somehow managed to address every one of those design flaws on the second try.

The Phantom V Fold 2 is still slightly heavier than Fold 6 but I’d say it’s mu…ch more manageable now.

It’s got a much nicer vegan leather back this time while its hinge can also open at different angles. Just like the Z Fold 6. Tecno even says this hinge has been tested for 400,000 folds — literally two times more compared to Samsung’s — although I have to say the Fold 6 has a superior hinge by some margin.

So the funny thing is, the Phantom’s hinge is already struggling to stay still if I just open it like… halfway through. And I especially don’t like how it makes this unsettling noise, like you’re squishing a tomato or something, whenever I try to close it.

The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is also the sturdier of the two overall. It’s got armor aluminum frames, stronger second-gen Victus glass protecting both sides, and IP48 dust and water resistance. Instead of the IP54 rating on Tecno’s foldable, which is technically more durable against dust and other debris, by the way.

Displays

• Folded: 6.42-inch FHD+ AMOLED panel, 120Hz refresh rate
• Unfolded: 7.85-inch 2K+ AMOLED panel, 120Hz refresh rate

Okay, so I’ve already talked about how better the Phantom V Fold 2’s cover display is — aspect ratio-wise — and would you believe me if I said this thing has a less noticeable crease too?

Well… it’s true. The Fold 6’s crease is almost like a groove with how deep it is, while I often forget about the crease on Tecno actually. Unless I consciously run my fingers across the middle of the screen or look for it from certain angles for some reason. Once again, I feel like this is something Samsung should’ve figured out a few years ago but it is what it is.

Cover display

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And just like the Fold 6, the Phantom V Fold 2’s main display also has stylus support.

It doesn’t come bundled inside the box and I can’t even stick it around the back of the phone because of this giant, rectangular camera module taking up all the space, although I gotta say it’s quite fun to use. For everything from quickly jotting down notes to doodling my ideas, taking screenshots, and so much more.

A couple of great displays

The actual display quality of both these foldables is pretty great though.

From colors and contrast to viewing angles and touch response, Tecno’s latest foldable keeps up with the Galaxy Z Fold 6 perfectly well. Yet, in one way or the other, I have to give it to Samsung in the display department. It can get much brighter when I need it to and I get to watch HDR-mastered videos on the Fold 6 wherever I want as well. On Netflix, YouTube, or the ones I have downloaded.

Unlike how the Phantom V Fold 2 can only play HDR videos on YouTube right now. I found that its auto-brightness doesn’t work well all the time either, while there’s also this weird bug where the display automatically starts getting dim after some time when I’m shooting videos. Not just that but the Fold 6 has a leg up on Tecno with its tight, crisp haptics and a set of stereo speakers that sound considerably fuller, louder, and more detailed too.

So yeah, it’s not like the Phantom V Fold 2 is lagging behind by a lot but you can clearly see bits of Tecno’s cost-cutting techniques here and there.

Performance

• MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ 5G (4nm)
• 12GB RAM, 512GB storage (non-expandable)
• Android 14 with HiOS 14 on top
• 2 years of OS and 3 years of security upgrades

And that is probably most evident in the performance side of things since this guy is powered by the same Dimensity 9000+ chip as last year’s Phantom V Fold. Which was already a couple of generations older at that point. So I don’t think there’s any room for surprise when I say that the Fold 6 — with its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor — completely wipes the floor with the V Fold 2 no matter what benchmark you look at.

Even in all of my gaming tests, Samsung pulled ahead by a comfortable margin in every. single. game. The Phantom V Fold 2 is perfectly fast enough, perfectly smooth enough, and perfectly powerful enough to keep up with all my work, although I can’t help but imagine how awesome things would’ve been if Tecno had gone with at least Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 this time.

How’s the software?

Alright.

So the main reason why you’d wanna get a foldable is obviously because of what’s capable with that massive display, right? And while I absolutely love how Tecno has pretty much nailed the hardware, I was quite worried that its software wouldn’t be up to the task.

I guess I had pretty good reasons to be worried. ‘Cause as someone who has used foldables from different companies like OnePlus, Honor, OPPO, and Xiaomi, I still find Samsung’s software game to be the best in the business. So Tecno had pretty gigantic shoes to fill if the Phantom V Fold 2 was ever going to change my opinion.

And while Tecno’s “HiOS” skin isn’t nearly as well polished as Samsung’s One UI, I must admit that it’s a lot better and a lot of fun to use than I originally thought. The pre-installed bloatware apps kinda ruined my initial impressions but besides that, I love that Tecno has tried its best to bring every feature I could possibly want from a foldable phone.

I’m pretty sure some of that credit also goes to Google since Android itself has gotten a lot more foldable-friendly over the years but yeah. The Phantom V Fold 2 is a proper multitasking beast with all the features like splitscreen mode, floating window, app pairs, app continuity, and even a taskbar like on Windows and Mac systems.

Of course, the Z Fold 6 can do it all too. And it can do it all better than Tecno.

One UI’s software experience remains unmatched.

So with the Phantom V Fold 2, I can open two apps side by side and also re-arrange their layout if I want. Whereas on the Fold 6, Samsung actually lets me run three apps at a time. This didn’t bother me at all, to be honest, since I’ve rarely had to multitask that bad but the one thing I really hope Tecno figures out soon is where I can save app pairs on this guy.

Multitasking

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You see, I frequently open Chrome, YouTube, and some note-taking applications at once when I’m researching something. And I can easily launch them all at once on the Fold 6 with a simple shortcut on the homescreen, the side panel, or the recents menu. But that is only accessible on the recents page on this Tecno foldable, which makes it a little less intuitive for me.

Anyway, even when it comes to generative AI features, I’d say Tecno has done a pretty fantastic job to keep up with Samsung. And except for that “Circle to Search” thing, the Phantom V Fold 2 has just about all the AI stuff there is on the Fold 6. Just with a different name.

This includes summarizing web pages, making photo edits using AI, transforming simple doodles into “artistic” images, and even real-time call translation. That last one only works with Arabic and French languages for now, and I hope Tecno adds other options like Hindi, Spanish, Mandarin, and so on in the coming days.

… but a terrible software commitment

The only thing about Tecno’s software experience that I’m utterly disappointed with has to do with updates ‘cause… the Phantom V Fold 2 only has two major Android upgrades and three years of security updates to its name. That is worse than some budget Android phones and nowhere near the 7+7 years of updates Samsung promises for the Fold 6.

Cameras

• Triple camera setup at the back
• 50MP main, 50MP ultrawide, 50MP telephoto
• 32MP selfie (cover display), 32MP (main display)

Okay.

I wanna talk about their cameras now and instead of going through all the photos and nitpicking things one by one, I’m gonna give it to you straight:

• the Phantom V Fold 2’s cameras are impressive, but inconsistent.

This thing actually has a fairly capable camera system, including three 50MP sensors at the back and a couple of 32MP front-facing cameras. And in some cases, I definitely prefer its images over that from the Fold 6.

Daytime images

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Despite all this, I often noticed that Samsung’s post-processing game is simply too far ahead of Tecno. Especially in terms of handling things like contrast levels, highlights, dynamic range, sharpness, and also that consistency across the lenses. The Fold 6 does tend to shoot a bit punchier, a bit saturated images as always, but it ends up looking quite pleasing so I don’t mind.

Telephoto images

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And maybe Tecno could’ve gone with a longer focal length for its telephoto camera as well since I don’t find this 2x lens to be versatile enough for anything. Whether when I wanna take some zoom shots out on the street or when I wanna shoot some portraits.

Portrait, selfie images

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That reminds me, the Fold 6 is also much better with human subjects compared to the Phantom V Fold 2. It maintains a nicer subject focus and a more natural-looking skin tone in both portraits and selfies. And I found that it’s pretty much a one-sided battle in the video department too.

The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is the better video phone as well.

Both of ‘em can shoot at up to 4k 60 fps from all three of their cameras. But unlike the smooth and steady videos from the Galaxy Z Fold 6, Tecno’s videos are just too wobbly. Stepping it down to 4k 30 fps does improve the stabilization but the overall video quality is still better on Samsung. By a long shot.

Battery

• 5750 mAh battery (70W charging)
• 15W wireless charging

What’s… left? Oh yeah, the battery life.

So I was honestly super excited and super hopeful about the Phantom V Fold 2 here since it has a gigantic 5,750 mAh battery. That’s literally the biggest battery on a foldable phone, and over 30% larger than the Fold 6’s tiny 4,400 mAh unit.

Then again, I don’t know what’s going on ‘cause I’m still getting only 5.5 – 6 hours of screen time on average under medium to heavy use. Which is just like half an hour more than what I’ve been getting on the Fold 6. I didn’t notice any significant battery drain overnight so Tecno really should figure out battery optimization on this thing.

At least it fills up pretty quickly. The included 70W charger takes it from 1 – 100% in just 45 minutes, while the Fold 6 takes double the time for a complete refill. And besides wired charging, both of them also support 15W wireless charging.

Tecno Phantom V Fold 2 review: Conclusion

So all in all, I guess it’s perfectly clear that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is the better foldable of the two. In almost every single way. It’s built better, it looks better, it has better performance, better software experience, better cameras, and a whole lot more. And it goes without saying that if money is not a problem, then expensive foldables like the Fold 6 still offer the best, most reliable experience overall.

But let me just say that what Tecno has managed to deliver with the Phantom V Fold 2 for almost half the price is nothing short of magical. And what could very well be the start of the “flagship killer” era in the foldable world. It obviously makes a bunch of compromises across the board, although considering the price point, I’m mostly fine with them.

I’m kinda worried about its hinge situation — as I discussed before — while Tecno should be doing a lot better than just “2+3” years of software commitment as well. But if “price” had been holding you back from getting a foldable all these years, I really think the Phantom V Fold 2 is a great place to start.

• Watch our video review of Tecno Phantom V Fold 2

Tecno Phantom V Fold 2 review: Pros and cons