Vivo already has two foldable smartphones available in the form of Vivo X Fold and X Fold+, although neither has released from China so far.
Now it looks like another device is in the works, this time with a flip phone design that would make it a rival to the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Oppo Find N2 Flip. So what can we expect and will we be able to buy it outside of China?
Here’s everything we know so far about the Vivo X Flip.
When will the Vivo X Flip be released?
There’s no official confirmation yet from Vivo as to whether the X Flip is a reality, let alone when we might see it appear. We saw a post on Weibo from a reliable Chinese tech tipster called Digital Chat Station that flagged “Vivo X Flip SM8475…coming soon.”
Now, that’s not a solid announcement, so it suggests the X Flip might still be a bit off. To see when it might launch, we can only really look at previous foldable schedules.
Here’s when they were released in China:
- Vivo X Fold – April 2022
- Vivo X Fold+ – September 2022
That’s not much to go on, we know, but since foldables are still a new category for most manufacturers, that tends to be the case. The Vivo X90 range was released in November 2022, which represents the other flagship models, so Vivo might be waiting a while before unveiling the X Flip.
Alternatively, with the Fold releasing in April and getting an upgraded model six months later, there’s always the possibility that Vivo decides to have a foldable release window in the first half, while its standard premium models come out in the second. With this in mind, we would keep a close eye on April 2023.
The release of the device outside of China remains a mystery. Vivo’s two foldable phones aren’t available yet, but some of its other flagship phones are leaving China. Rival Oppo has announced that it will bring its first flip phone, the Find N2 Flip, to Europe in 2023 while leaving the book-style Find N2 only in China, so it’s possible Vivo will follow a similar pattern.
How much will the Vivo X Flip cost?
With no announcements from Vivo, we have no idea how much the X Filp will cost. The only clues we can use are those of similar devices on the market. Here’s how the usual suspects line up:
As you can see, there isn’t a cheap one among them. Foldable displays still cost a lot of money to develop and implement, so expect anything from Vivo to be priced around $1,000/£1,000.
What about the specifications and design of the Vivo X Flip?
It’s probably no surprise that at this point we don’t really know what Vivo has in store for its first flip phone. But that’s not to say there haven’t been rumors starting to surface that shed some light on the mysterious device.
GSMArena reports that the new device will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. It’s not quite the top end represented by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but it’s pretty close. Since the latter is so new, it could also suggest that the Vivo X Flip’s launch date is quite close and that the company was too far along in the design process to integrate the new processor.
Another interesting rumor put forward by GizmoChina is that the second screen on the exterior of the Vivo X Flip will be horizontal, as seen on the Motorola Razr 2022. This was backed up by another post from Digital Chat Station which described an exterior panel rectangular, but also a circular camera housing above.
In the stream below, the comment was also a render from another Weibo user called Star Ozawa that showed what the finished Vivo X Flip might look like.
What the camera setup will be is anyone’s guess, although the Vivo X Fold comes with the following:
- 50Mp, f/1.8 main camera with OIS
- 12Mp, f/2.4 2x zoom camera
- 8Mp, f/3.4 5x periscope camera
- 48Mp ultra-wide camera, f/2.2
Vivo has a great track record of high-end hardware for its cameras, so it should be a pretty decent shooter no matter what.
Other than those tidbits, we don’t know anything else so far, but of course we’ll update this article as more details become apparent. Until then, you can check out our guide to the best new phones coming in 2023 to see if you want to wait for the Vivo X Flip.
