TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 review: Cheaper, better, faster, stronger

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of buying a large foldable phone? If it's something along the lines of "they're too expensive for me," then TECNO might have the first large foldable you'll want to consider.

The TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 ushers in a new wave of affordability in large foldables, improving the look and feel of its predecessor in every way, all without increasing the impressive price of that model. Aside from general improvements and surprisingly premium features, TECNO is also launching the Phantom V Pen, an active stylus that looks and feels like an even better version of Samsung's S Pen.

The TECNO Phantom V Fold even matches the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 with nearly every conceivable feature imaginable. Tons of amazing TECNO AI features are included like AI-generated artwork, AI text editing and summaries, and plenty more. TECNO even included impressive call features like the ability to change your voice, swap the background during a video call, or even use Pixel 9-style call summaries for recorded calls.

It's a budget-friendly experience that only gets better as you dig deeper—something you'll regularly need to do as TECNO's HiOS could really use a UI facelift—yet you won't feel like you're missing out on any of the best features from the best foldable phones even though you're saving hundreds of dollars by choosing this one.

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2: Price and availability

TECNO is launching the Phantom V Fold 2 in the company's key regions, which largely includes Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. The phone makes its debut first in Africa on September 23, 2024, while the other regions will receive it throughout September and October.

The TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 begins at around $1099 USD with retail prices varying by region. In the box, you'll find the phone, a 70W charging brick, accompanying USB cable, a vegan leather case that includes a kickstand, and the usual assortment of pamphlets. The inclusion of such a nice case helps further improve the already impressive value of this phone.

TECNO backs the Phantom V Fold 2 with 2 Android OS upgrades and 3 years of security updates.

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2: What I love

From the moment I opened the Phantom V Fold 2, I fell in love with how easy it was to multitask on the big screen. I've been using foldables for years, but not all phones are created equally, and TECNO's default UI is matched only by Samsung's in terms of simplicity of execution without sacrificing powerful features.

Running apps side-by-side is as easy as dragging an icon from the dedicated home bar at the bottom to whatever side of the screen you'd like. You can also float windows by dragging the icons into the middle or save app pairs for even quicker access later. Plus, the dedicated "all apps" button on the bottom right means you never have to swipe home so long as you're using the big display.

While much of this is taken from AOSP, TECNO made a few interesting and noteworthy customizations. My favorite is that recently opened apps appear as thumbnails on the bar instead of just icons. The full range of features on the bar makes multitasking easy and intuitive, helping this large foldable immediately make a lot of sense.

None of this would be possible without a decent processor or enough RAM, and thankfully, TECNO has you covered there. With 512GB of storage and 12GB of RAM, plus a processor that's just as fast as the Google Tensor G4 in the Pixel 9 Pro Fold—a phone that costs $600 more, mind you—there isn't much that you can do to slow this phone down.

Even gaming is nicely responsive and performative, with higher framerates than any of the Pixel 9 series phones and an internal vapor chamber that keeps it under 40C, which is cooler than any Pixel 9 phone. Battery life was killer, too, with the largest battery on any foldable at 5750mAh, 70W fast charging with the included charging brick, and 15W wireless charging for light top-ups.

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TECNO has made some big improvements in hardware design and build quality, and that all starts with how thin the Phantom V Fold 2 is. It's 10g heavier than the Galaxy Z Fold 6—almost certainly because the battery is 1300mAh larger—but it's also 0.32mm thinner than Samsung's latest phone. That's crazy impressive, no matter how you slice it.

It's also easier to open than Samsung's foldables because of the curvature of the sides, giving you a nice little gap to grab with your fingernail. The centered camera island on the back also ensures that it won't wobble when placed down and unfolded on a table, which is a nice touch. Too many phones wobble because of uneven camera notches, but this isn't one of them.

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The displays on the phone are also very good, with ample brightness, excellent color reproduction, deep AMOLED blacks, and a solid 120Hz refresh rate. The outer display even sports a 2160Hz PWM rate at low brightness, but TECNO chose a rather slow 360Hz PWM rate for the inner display. This means that the outer display is more comfortable for me to regularly use, as I'm sensitive to slow PWM rates.

Thankfully, even with the slower PWM rate on the inner display, the modulation rate—that's the difference between the brightest and dimmest points during the on/off cycle—is relatively low, especially for a display that uses PWM dimming at all brightness levels. As such, I didn't experience headaches over the past three weeks, but symptoms could always pop up for me later down the road.

This is a much more eye-friendly display than any of Samsung or Google's foldables, although I would say Honor's are the best available right now.

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2 PWM and dithering tests - YouTube

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The included AI functionality is surprisingly close to many of the new features Google announced for the Pixel 9, as well. Two-way call translation makes it possible to have a conversation with someone in another language, and the phone even supports quick text summary, AI-powered editing tools, and AI wallpaper generation like you'll find in Galaxy AI.

Jumping into the "AI Gallery" app opens up another realm of AI-powered tools, as well. Many of these are similar to what you'll find on a Pixel or Galaxy phone including object eraser. You can long-press on any object in a photo to make a cutout of that object, then turn it into a separate image or sticker to be used on social media.

The built-in ChatGPT-powered Ella assistant powers most of these functions and is also expanding to call summary in a post-update launch. Additionally, Google features like Circle to Search should be arriving sometime in October when Google plans to expand the program to more Android phones.

The new active stylus, called the Phantom V Pen, is another excellent new feature launching with the Phantom V Fold 2. It works a lot like a Samsung S Pen but differentiates itself in a few ways. First, it's charged via the USB-C port on the side instead of magnetically or by docking inside the phone.

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Second, it's got two buttons on it instead of the single button on the S Pen, giving you more ways to quickly switch between tools and options while note-taking. Pressing a button while hovering over the screen will also bring up a menu with quick actions like annotating a screenshot, writing a new note, etc. It's similar to what's on other Android devices with pen support, which is great.

The V Pen itself is ultra-responsive and feels as good as any active stylus I've used on any phone or tablet. TECNO's note-taking software even includes a brilliant AI-generated object feature that will turn your very rough sketches into lovely artwork with a single tap. The app lets you choose from several different art styles after generating the image, too, so you can pick and choose your favorite from the list.

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Given that this phone is several hundred dollars cheaper than the next available foldable option, you'll be surprised at how often its camera trades blows with those phones. In my testing, the Phantom V Fold 2's main and ultrawide-angle cameras hold up nicely against more expensive juggernauts like the Honor Magic V3 in a range of different lighting conditions.

There's an obvious difference between some of the photos in the gallery above, but I wouldn't say most of them are worth spending hundreds of dollars for. During the day, the differences are far more subtle than in lower light, but there's never a time when I'd call the cameras on this phone bad.

I'm also impressed with the launch speed and capture times of the camera. The camera app launches in under a second by double-tapping the volume-down button when the screen is off, and it takes just another second for the camera to focus on what you want. That means the camera is probably ready before you're ready to hit the button, a feat that many phones still cannot claim.

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2: What needs work

My experience with the Phantom V Fold 2 has been generally excellent, but one problem drove me crazy over the past three weeks: notifications on wearables. I tried several different kinds of smartwatches throughout the review—the Google Pixel Watch 3 and Amazfit T-Rex 3—and while I would normally get notifications when I first connected each watch, they would abruptly stop at some point during the day.

The only way to fix this was to reopen each smartwatch's accompanying app, which apparently was killed in the background. I tried locking the app in memory and excluding it from power-saving measures, but none of these tactics worked. TECNO could fix this in a future update, but for now, it was a big annoyance for me.

TECNO's flavor of Android generally looks a bit dated, even if it's ultra feature-rich like a Samsung phone. It's not the end of the world but it lacks some of the pizzazz of a Google Pixel, Samsung Galaxy, or Motorola phone. But the biggest problem isn't the UI look, it's the difficulty in finding and understanding how features work.

This phone is packed with features. So many it might take you weeks to find them all! During the review, I constantly found new things I didn't know about, and it was almost always by accident. On a phone call once, I pulled out the sliding side tray that normally houses quick app shortcuts, only to find a feature called "Social Space" that let me change my voice, touch up my look on camera, and even swap out or blur the background behind me.

I don't recall ever being told about this feature, and Android Central managing editor Derrek Lee even told me that there was a way to answer or reject phone calls with finger gestures—a peace sign to answer and a palm to reject—something that's buried deep within the system settings menu at least 4 levels deep.

I also thought the included Ella virtual assistant was a little slow for my liking and was nowhere near as accurate for voice commands as Google Assistant or Gemini. Asking general questions often took several seconds, and the answer was usually weird.

I also ran across some occasional bugs or odd design decisions. For example, if you want to use the front display as a viewfinder for the rear cameras when the phone is unfolded, you need to start the camera when the phone is unfolded, then tap the "front display" button on the viewfinder. If you start the camera when the phone is closed and then open the phone, this button doesn't appear. It's not the end of the world, but it feels like a level of polish could be applied to these sorts of situations.

It's hard to know if this is intentional behavior or not, but I'd love to see that button on the large display's viewfinder at all times, no matter where I start the camera.

On the hardware side, while the phone looks and feels like a quality product, the hinge could use a bit of work. It reminds me a lot of the hinge on the original Google Pixel Fold, which required a bit of extra effort to unfold completely. By default, unfolding the phone brings it to an almost flat position, but you'll need to push it a bit to get it totally flat.

I also thought the screen protector on the larger display was too shiny for my liking, and the phone's speakers were too quiet. The haptics, too, aren't quite up to par with other large foldable phones, although I wouldn't quite categorize them as "bad." They're just not particularly good.

Like Samsung's foldables, the Phantom V Pen only works on the large inner display. There's also no place to holster or store the pen on the phone, and the included pen sheath is too big to adhese to the phone via the included adhesive strip. That means there's no way to quickly take the phone out of your pocket and jot down a note, and there's no convenient way to take the pen with you on the go without a special case.

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TECNO could improve the cameras in two key areas for next time. First, the telephoto camera really needs to be behind something stronger than a 2x lens. Zooming in beyond 4x delivers blurrier images than I would have expected on an $1100 phone, even if this phone comes with multiple displays.

Second, TECNO could improve motion capture algorithms for moving objects. I tested several different scenarios (including my son jumping) and the Honor Magic V3 took a better image of said moving object every time. To be fair, Samsung's phones suffer from the exact same issues, so only a Pixel or Honor foldable will deliver better results here.

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2: Competition

Every other large foldable phone on the market costs quite a bit more than the TECNO Phantom V Fold 2, making direct comparisons difficult. Of course, any number of deals could lower those prices significantly, though, so let's take a look at the two biggest competitors in the space: Samsung and Honor.

The recently-released Honor Magic V3 is the cream of the crop in mobile foldable hardware, as it's not only the thinnest foldable around—nearly 2mm thinner than the Phantom V Fold 2—but it's still got a giant battery like this phone. The Magic V3's processor is notably faster, and camera zoom is significantly better, especially between 3x and 9x zoom levels. But Honor's Magic OS doesn't make multitasking quite as effortless as TECNO's HiOS does, and the phone is at least $300 more, depending on the market you're in.

Then there's Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 6, which retails for around $600 more than the Phantom V Fold 2. The big draw of Samsung's foldable is that the company guarantees more updates than any other foldable aside from Google, all while having the fastest processor around and some of the most powerful software features. But battery life and charging speeds aren't anywhere near as good as the Phantom V Fold 2, and while the cameras are a tad better, I wouldn't say Galaxy AI features really offer anything different or unique compared to Phantom's.

TECNO Phantom V Fold 2: Should you buy?

You should buy if...

• You want a large foldable phone with superb multitasking and great overall performance, plus pen support.
• You want a fantastic foldable experience without mortgaging your house.
• You want battery life that lasts for days, plus ultra-fast charging.

You shouldn't buy if...

• You need the very best cameras on a foldable phone.
• You want the best, thinnest foldable hardware.
• You need more than three years of software updates and support.

TECNO has blown me away with the Phantom V Fold 2, a large foldable phone that proves you don't need to spend $1,500 to get a great experience. It's got impressively thin hardware—thinner than Samsung's best—plus the biggest battery and fastest charging in any large foldable phone on the market.

TECNO even included all the AI features you expect from a flagship phone like this, including AI-generated wallpaper and art, writing assistance, call transcripts, photo editing, and more.

The hardware isn't the sleekest around, and TECNO's HiOS's visual design feels a bit amateur, but there's no denying how many excellent features make this a wonderful phone to use. Multitasking is second to none—especially on the big screen—and the phone performs just as well, if not better, than the latest Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold. My one big irritation was that notifications on wearables were next to nonexistent, but this is a software bug that TECNO will hopefully fix in the near future.

If you're looking for a large foldable but want to save some cash, TECNO's got your back.