Daily Authority: 📁 X Fold coming

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Vivo X Fold

Ok, the last few days have seen some news about a new foldable out of Vivo. On Friday, Vivo announced it will unveil a new foldable it’s calling the Vivo X Fold, and there’s a little video, and a date: April 11.

• Unfortunately, like a bunch of recent foldables including the Oppo Find N and Honor Magic V, it’ll be a China launch first.
• And like most of those recent foldables, it might be a China-only launch (we don’t know yet, but it’s likely).
• Vivo may unveil other new products as well, including a tablet called a Vivo Pad, with a bunch of specs that sound fairly high-end.

Details:

• Vivo is part of the BBK stable, so it’ll have access to everything Oppo did with the Find N.
• But it seems like it’ll be quite a different device, with Weibo tipster Digital Chat Station posting what it believes are Vivo X Fold specs and renders.
• Specs-wise possibilities: An 8-inch LTPO QHD+ OLED screen with ultra-thin glass (UTG), ultrasonic fingerprint scanning, 66W charging, and 50W wireless charging, and powered by the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC.
• That’s all about par for the course, though Samsung went for the under-display selfie camera option whereas this won’t offer that.
• Otherwise on cameras, a decent list of specs: A 50MP primary shooter (1/1.5-inch sensor size), a 48MP ultrawide camera, a 12MP 2x telephoto lens, and a 5x 8MP periscope camera. The company’s micro-gimbal stabilization tech may or may not appear, as well.
• Renders show a big camera housing for all of that, with quad rear lenses, complete with Zeiss and T* branding for the lens coating Vivo uses in its flagships.
• It also copies the Samsung style of presentation very closely, I’d suggest.

What’s the deal?

I asked our man Hadlee Simons, who’s been following this story and has also reviewed the Vivo X70 Pro Plus, which will be the base template for a bunch of the foldable specs and features:

• “The X Fold looks to match or exceed the Z Fold 3 in some areas, such as the UTG protection, QHD+ screen resolution, an impressive rear camera system, and faster charging. But Samsung has a major head start and I’d expect the Vivo foldable to have a less durable screen and no IP rating compared to the Z Fold 3.”
• “Another major concern is availability. Samsung is still one of the only OEMs offering foldable phones around the world. I’d be surprised if Vivo doesn’t follow Xiaomi, Oppo, Huawei, and others in restricting their foldable to China. What an absolute shame.”
• I’ll also add: If everyone keeps making largely the same foldable, it’s not exactly easy to find meaningful differences other than form factor and price.

Roundup

📈 LG killed its phones and propelled Motorola to the top three of the US market in 2021 (Android Authority).

🚀 SpaceX is pausing Crew Dragon production: only a fleet of four required, parts and components will still be made for maintenance (Reuters).

Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor.

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