TECNO PHANTOM V Fold 2 Review：AI-empowered folding screen flagship

Preface

In 2023, TECNO's brand PHANTOM launched its first large folding product: PHANTOM V Fold, which received widespread acclaim from users.

Now, over a year after the debut of the first-generation product, PHANTOM has introduced a brand-new product powered by AI: PHANTOM V Fold 2.

As the second product in the series, PHANTOM V Fold 2 has made optimized adjustments in ID design, AI intelligence, and other aspects, making the product more mature and reliable.

Now, let's start with the hardware specifications and see how this product performs in actual experience.

Appearance

In terms of appearance, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 does not inherit the design language of its predecessor, but instead makes significant changes in every aspect, ultimately bringing a look with a more "flagship feel".

The PHANTOM V Fold 2 features a rectangular camera module, with the main camera and wide-angle lens set off against a black glass cover, exuding a high-end feel. The independently placed 2x telephoto lens effectively fills the visual gap in the lower half of the module.

Looking down, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 we have is the Karst Green version. The back shell is primarily a dark ink green color, close to black, and is decorated with an irregular texture resembling marble.

Looking down, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 we have is the Karst Green version. The back shell is primarily a dark ink green color, close to black, and is decorated with an irregular texture resembling marble.

Thanks to the PHANTOM V Fold 2's body thickness of 5.52mm when unfolded, the phone does not have an exaggerated thickness in its folded state.

It's worth noting that, unlike the first-generation PHANTOM V Fold, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 features a curved frame design, which enhances the grip feel of the phone to some extent and gives it a slimmer visual appearance when unfolded.

Furthermore, like most folding screen products on the market, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 also employs a side-mounted fingerprint unlocking solution.

On the front, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 features a 6.42-inch flexible OLED screen and adopts a single-curved design on the side that is farther from the hinge, in order to enhance the grip feel of the device.

Upon unfolding, we are presented with a 7.85-inch 2K flexible OLED screen. This large screen has excellent control over its crease, and after about a month of use, there are still no visible creases at normal viewing angles.

Additionally, this inner screen supports the PHANTOM V Pen stylus, allowing for better utilization of the large screen's potential in scenarios such as note-taking and drawing.

Furthermore, compared to its predecessor, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 features a hinge with better multi-angle stop capabilities, which brings a richer array of usage scenarios to this phone.

Compared to the previously released PHANTOM V Fold, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 has a more mature design and a more refined polish in every aspect.

Performance

The PHANTOM V Fold 2 maintains the same processor as its predecessor, both featuring the MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ chipset.

The Dimensity 9000+ is a flagship processor launched by MediaTek in 2022, utilizing TSMC's 4nm process technology, equipped with a 3.2GHz Arm Cortex-X2 super core, three Arm Cortex-A710 performance cores, and four Arm Cortex-A510 efficiency cores.

In the Antutu V10 benchmark, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 scored 1,157,030 points, with a CPU score of 336,936, a GPU score of 331,316, a MEM score of 225,718, and a UX score of 263,043.

Of course, benchmark scores only represent the theoretical performance of a smartphone. To understand its actual performance, it is also necessary to look at its performance in real-game testing.

In the real-game testing of the PHANTOM V Fold 2, we selected "Genshin Impact," "Honkai: Star Rail," and "PUBG: Mobile" to test its gaming performance under different performance loads.

In "Genshin Impact," we set all options to medium, turned off motion blur, and conducted a 20-minute test in the Fontaine region, which included exploration, puzzle-solving, and combat, covering most of the daily gaming scenarios for players.

During the 20-minute "Genshin Impact" test, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 achieved an average frame rate of 47.74 frames per second, with significant frame rate fluctuations throughout the test, and in some cases, the frame rate dropped below 45 frames per second.

After the 20-minute "Genshin Impact" test, the highest temperature on the front of the PHANTOM V Fold 2 reached 45.5°C, and the highest temperature on the back reached 42.1°C. Fortunately, the heating area does not completely overlap with the hand grip area, so it did not cause a serious impact on gameplay.

In the "Honkai: Star Rail" test, we originally planned to set the graphics to medium and conduct a 20-minute map running test in the Starbound Sea. However, due to the high temperature of the device, to avoid the risk of cold burns, the test was forced to terminate at the 10-minute mark.

During the 10-minute "Honkai: Star Rail" test, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 achieved an average frame rate of 54.43 frames per second. Although there were still noticeable frame rate fluctuations, the performance was more stable compared to "Genshin Impact."

However, the more stable frame rate does not come without a cost. As can be seen from the following graph, during the operation of "Honkai: Star Rail," the PHANTOM V Fold 2 essentially pushed the frequency of all cores of the Dimensity 9000+ to the maximum in order to achieve the highest possible performance output.

Such an aggressive scheduling strategy has a significant impact on the device's temperature.

After the 10-minute "Honkai: Star Rail" test, the highest temperature on the front of the PHANTOM V Fold 2 reached 51.9°C, and the highest temperature on the back was as high as 48.2°C, which has severely affected normal grip and use, and even poses a risk of cold burns.

In "PUBG: Mobile," we set the graphics quality to HDR High Definition, the frame rate to the limit (60 FPS), and enabled shadows and 4x anti-aliasing for a 30-minute match session.

During the 30-minute "PUBG: Mobile" test, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 maintained an average frame rate of 59.83 frames per second, with no significant frame rate fluctuations throughout the session, experiencing only brief, minor frame rate drops during a few intense firefights with multiple opponents.

After the 30-minute "PUBG: Mobile" test, the highest temperature on the front of the PHANTOM V Fold 2 was 41.3°C, and the highest temperature on the back was 39.5°C, which does not significantly impact normal gameplay.

It can be seen that when facing games with extremely high performance requirements like "Genshin Impact" and "Honkai: Star Rail," the PHANTOM V Fold 2 does indeed struggle to keep up.

Especially when running "Honkai: Star Rail," even though the PHANTOM V Fold 2 has squeezed as much performance as possible out of the Dimensity 9000+ processor, it has not been able to achieve a stable gaming frame rate.

However, in games with relatively lower performance demands like "PUBG: Mobile," the PHANTOM V Fold 2 still delivers a fairly good frame rate and visual performance.

If you do not have high gaming requirements, the performance of the PHANTOM V Fold 2 is more than adequate for everyday use.

System and AI

The system and AI are one of the main upgrades of the PHANTOM V Fold 2.

At the system level, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 is more mature compared to its predecessor and has introduced more successful designs from similar products.

Let's take a look at the system.

Compared to the first-generation product, the external screen of the PHANTOM V Fold 2 has more differences in operational logic with the external screen, in addition to the split-screen function.

As shown in the comparison below, within the same application, the external screen of the PHANTOM V Fold 2 follows the same operational logic as a conventional smartphone, while the internal screen introduces a bottom bar similar to the Windows system's "taskbar," allowing users to call up quick applications at any time or directly enter the drawer to choose a new application.

The addition of this feature, combined with the mature app split-screen logic of the PHANTOM V Fold 2, brings greater operational convenience to the internal screen and enhances usage efficiency.

Furthermore, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 has also introduced special display interfaces for several apps when suspended at a 90° angle.

For example, in the camera app, by suspending the phone at a 90° angle, users can quickly view photos in the gallery while displaying the viewfinder, which improves the convenience of use.

Next, let's discuss the newly introduced TECNO AI in the PHANTOM V Fold 2.

Due to limitations in testing time and network environment, this article will primarily focus on the AI summary and AI drawing functions of the PHANTOM V Fold 2.

In any application, by long-pressing to select text, you can invoke TECNO AI and activate the AI summary feature. This function can summarize the selected content item by item, assisting users in reading.

As can be seen from the figure below, with the support of TECNO AI, this feature can quickly and clearly summarize the selected text, effectively improving reading efficiency.

In the notepad application, by clicking on the AI icon, you can open the AI drawing board feature.

After entering this feature, users only need to draw a rough sketch, and the AI can generate a painting.

Under normal circumstances, even if the user's sketch content is vague, TECNO AI can grasp the key points and create a high-quality piece of art.

However, during testing, I encountered a slightly embarrassing issue. Unlike its excellent understanding of abstract sketches, if you provide TECNO AI with a complex sketch that includes certain light and shadow relationships, it may struggle to comprehend, ultimately generating an entirely unrelated image.

This may be related to the development direction of the feature, which is to "help users quickly insert images that meet their needs within notes."

In addition, TECNO AI also brings conversation summarization, translation, and other functions to the PHANTOM V Fold 2.

Undoubtedly, the addition of these features and many system optimizations make the PHANTOM V Fold 2 able to provide users with a more convenient user experience.

Photography

In terms of imaging, the PHANTOM V Fold 2, like its predecessor, has opted for a 50MP main (23mm), a 50MP ultra-wide (14mm), and a 50MP 2x telephoto (44mm).

It must be said that this is a rather unique lens selection—

Generally, manufacturers prefer to use a 3x telephoto and achieve 2x zoom through digital cropping of the main camera.

However, in actual experience, I have to admit that the inclusion of this 2x telephoto lens does indeed offer new compositional choices.

Next, let's take a look at a set of sample photos:

In environments with ample lighting, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 exhibits excellent imaging performance, accurately capturing the light and color conditions of the subject without issues such as chromatic aberration at the edges.

However, in scenes with high contrast light, like the one shown in the following image, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 has a certain degree of overexposure, which may result in the loss of detail in the highlights.

Next, let's take a look at the performance of the PHANTOM V Fold 2's ultra-wide and 2x telephoto lenses.

As mentioned at the beginning, the addition of this 2x telephoto lens provides the PHANTOM V Fold 2 with a broader compositional space, and compared to digital cropping solutions, the image quality is noticeably more stable and solid.

The ultra-wide lens also has good image quality, but there is still some distortion and blur at the edges.

Furthermore, although in most cases, the three lenses of the PHANTOM V Fold 2 can maintain color consistency. If changing the focal length leads to a change in the subject of focus, there will still be differences in color tone due to different exposure strategies.

Finally, as a flagship product, the PHANTOM V Fold 2's photography capabilities in low-light environments are also crucial:

In low-light environments, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 demonstrates excellent noise control.

However, the PHANTOM V Fold 2's algorithm does not strongly suppress lighting, which, while presenting a stronger sense of atmosphere to some extent, may not necessarily be accepted by all users.

Charging

The PHANTOM V Fold 2 features a 5750mAh battery and supports 70W wired charging, which endows it with first-class fast charging capabilities among folding screen smartphones.

However, in actual testing, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 did not fully unleash the full power of its 70W fast charging capability.

In an environment with a room temperature of 26°C, using the original charger to conduct a charging test starting from 5%, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 ultimately took 60 minutes to fully charge.

It is not difficult to observe from the charging speed curve that the PHANTOM V Fold 2 adopts a rather conservative charging strategy, with a noticeable deceleration after 15 minutes.

According to the POWER-Z detection, at the 50-minute mark, the actual charging power of the PHANTOM V Fold 2 was only 25W.

While such a conservative charging strategy does indeed prevent device heating during the charging process, it significantly extends the required charging time.

Summary

If the PHANTOM V Fold of 2023 showcased TECNO's technical prowess in high-end smartphone products, then this newly unveiled PHANTOM V Fold 2 demonstrates TECNO's ability to rapidly iterate and upgrade its products.

Compared to the first-generation product, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 is more mature in both industrial design and system, and the introduction of TECNO AI has made the phone more functional and convenient.

At the same time, we are pleased to see that PHANTOM V Fold 2 has not abandoned the characteristics of the series in its upgrade and iteration, still delivering excellent performance in imaging and texture.

In terms of outcome, the PHANTOM V Fold 2 is a highly competitive and commendable product in the market.