For four years, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold series reigned supreme in the big foldable category, partly because the phones were very good, but also because they had almost no competition. This changed last year when Google and OnePlus each launched foldables in the US. The latter in particular stole a lot of Samsung’s thunder, being named the “foldable phone of the year” by several tech publications, including XDA.
While the OnePlus Open being so good may have been surprising to some, it shouldn’t be for anyone who really follows the Chinese phone scene, because Chinese foldables have offered superior hardware than Samsung’s Fold for years. I’ve been writing about this since 2021.
The absolute best foldable phone hardware right now comes courtesy of Vivo, a brand that’s a virtual unknown in the US, but gaining a niche following among Android camera enthusiasts. The company’s latest foldable, the X Fold 3 Pro, basically makes the Galaxy Z Fold 5 look like a generation or two behind when it comes to hardware. Now, to be fair, the X Fold 3 Pro (launched March 2024) technically is a generation newer than the Fold 5 (launched July 2023), but a lot of the jaw-dropping aspects of the X Fold 3 Pro were already in previous Vivo foldables.
But of course, there’s more to a phone than just hardware, so can Samsung make up the difference with superior software? Let’s find out.
Hardware and design
One-sided affair
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro (left) and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 (right)
Let’s just be blunt here: when it comes to hardware, the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro is better than the Galaxy Z Fold 5 in almost every single area.
The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro has a larger main folding screen (8-inch, 2,200 X 2,480) that’s also higher-res than the Z Fold 5’s display (7.6-inch, 1,812 X 2,176). Sure, okay, one can argue the larger size and slightly more pixels do not matter much in the real world. But the X Fold 3 Pro’s screen is also brighter (4,500 nits to 1,750 nits), and has a crease that’s much harder to see. In the below shots, I snapped both phones side by side at various angles, and we can see the Samsung crease is more jarring in every one.
Fold the phone, and Vivos’ foldable is thinner and lighter (11.2mm, 236g) than Fold 5 (13.4mm, 253g). Despite being sleeker, the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro has a much larger battery (5,700 mAh) than Samsung’s 4,400 mAh.
The X Fold 3 Pro also has a pair of in-display fingerprint scanners under each screen, while Samsung’s Fold 5 uses the reliable, but less flashy, side-mounted scanner.
The Fold 5 takes a win in that its main screen supports stylus input, while Vivo’s foldable has no such feature. The Fold 5’s hinge is also a bit “stiffer,” in a good way. It requires a bit of force to pry open the phone or fold close, giving the hinge a very sturdy, not flimsy feel. Vivo’s hinge is also quite good, and far from flimsy, but it doesn’t quite feel as reassuring.
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Still, the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro also features the same IPX8 water resistance as the Fold 5, meaning both phones can survive being submerged in fresh water for no more than 30 minutes.
Despite being lighter and thinner, the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro has a much larger battery (5,700 mAh) than Samsung’s 4,400 mAh
The outer screen is the same story, with Vivo’s boasting more pixels, higher maximum brightness, and has a more conventional aspect ratio too, though the latter is purely subjective. Some people prefer the narrower TV remote form factor of the Fold series.
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro (left) and Galaxy Z Fold 5 (right)
Vivo’s foldable runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 compared to the Gen 2 in the Fold 5, but we won’t hold that against Samsung, since the Fold 5 came out last summer. Plus, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is still more than powerful enough today.
Samsung’s foldable hardware is not bad by any means, it’s still a really well-constructed, premium looking piece of kit, but Vivo’s foldable is just a step ahead in every area except stylus support and hinge “stiffness.”
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Software and features
Differing philosophies on Android 14
Both phones run Android 14, but with very different software skin. Samsung’s OneUI has been widely covered on this site: it’s a functional, practical UI with great multitasking abilities. But in terms of visual flair, OneUI is a bit boring. Animations do not have the extra flourish that’s seen in, say, OnePlus’ OxygenOS, and a lot of features require conventional taps and on-screen button presses instead of gestures. Still, it’s a software that does not stray too far from how Google envisions Android, maybe except for the weird horizontally scrolling app tray.
OriginOS, by comparison, is a much livelier, animated UI. There are lots of visual flourishes, but it departs from Android a lot, to the point that I think most western users may dislike the software. I have grown to love OriginOS, with its giant vibrant icons, app folders, and I particularly love the interactive widgets. For example, I can have a voice recorder widget on the homescreen that I can begin or end recording by just interacting with the widget, without needing to open the actual recorder app. And when it’s recording, you even see the audio wave bar move in real-time on the homescreen.
I’m happy to report that two of the biggest software issues that plagued Chinese foldables for the past three years have been fixed in the OriginOS running here: YouTube can run in horizontal split-screen, and Gboard will also split keyboard on an unfolded screen. These two issues are still on something like the Xiaomi Mix Fold 3, which makes that phone nearly unusable for me as a daily driver.
Samsung’s OneUI has DeX Mode which allows the foldable to display a larger desktop like UI to an external monitor. Vivo’s OriginOS doesn’t have such a trick, but it has a Vivo Desktop software that allows the phone to connect seamlessly with not just Windows laptops, but also MacBooks.
Overall, I think I’d trust Samsung’s software a bit more if I needed a phone to do an entire day’s worth of work. But as a smartphone UI, I prefer OriginOS’s more aesthetically pleasing animations and icons.
Cameras and performance
With more RAM and a newer-gen Snapdragon chip, the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro of course outperforms the Fold 5 in benchmark numbers. It’s not really a fair comparison since they belong to different generations. I can say that the Fold 5 is perfectly fine in day-to-day use and doesn’t feel slow. So if I’m just using the phones for my normal daily tasks like reading emails, checking social media, texting, streaming Spotify and playing the occasional game, the Fold 5 performs just as well as the X Fold 3 Pro.
But there are two areas the Vivo just completely trumps the Samsung. The X Fold 3 Pro’s battery life is significantly better. I’m talking about lasting an extra three hours, which is a major difference for me as I live a very active outdoor lifestyle, meaning I take my phone out in the morning and I may not get home until midnight. The Fold 5 can sometimes last the full 14, 15-hour day, but the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro can do it almost all the time.
The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro’s cameras are also much better. The hardware is better across the board: larger sensors, more pixels, faster aperture. Vivo’s HDR is also far superior (this is not surprising for anyone who’s read my camera comparisons — Vivo is the “GOAT” at HDR). Take for example, the shots below. I snapped those point-and-shoot style, without playing with exposure. Samsung completely blew out the lights; Vivo did not.
Okay, sure, if I take the time to adjust exposure before snapping, I can probably grab a properly exposed shot with the Fold 5 too, but then there are still things like the Vivo cameras producing sharper images with stronger natural bokeh.
The performance gap widens when I move to zoom lenses. The Fold 5 only has a years-old 3X telephoto lens, while Vivo is using a Periscope camera, also 3X, but using a new 2024 sensor.
Here’s a closer crop of the above 10X zoom shots, with Vivo’s image on the left, and Samsung on the right.
Vivo (left); Samsung (right)
The Z Fold 5’s one significant edge
It’s the only one you can buy
I stress again that this isn’t the most direct or fair comparison, because the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro is a 2024 phone and the Z Fold 5 is a 2023 one, and perhaps the Z Fold 6 will catch up (or surpass) the Vivo foldable.
But the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro isn’t going to make a dent in Samsung’s foldable market share much, because Vivo’s device is selling only in China, a market in which Samsung has a small share. For most people reading this article, if they were to buy a foldable, they could find the Z Fold 5 a lot easier than the X Fold 3 Pro.
Still, it would be foolish to just dismiss the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro as not being important simply because it doesn’t sell outside China. For one, the Chinese phone scene is hotly competitive, and whatever improvements Vivo introduced here will be matched or surpassed by a rival brand upon next release. And even though Vivo isn’t likely to launch a foldable outside China, Oppo, OnePlus, and Honor already have, and Xiaomi may do so too. Meaning unless Samsugn’s Fold 6 makes some big leaps to catch up to this level of foldable hardware, it’s likely going to be overshadowed by the next OnePlus foldable to sell in the US.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5
$1760 $1800 Save $40
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 is a further refinement of the Z Fold lineup. The smartphone looks similar to past Z Fold iterations, featuring a 7.6-inch main screen and a tall cover screen. On the inside, it’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip and a 4,400mAh battery.
You can score up to $750 off with trade-ins at Samsung.com.