Vivo X Fold, the company’s first flagship foldable smartphone, was unveiled two days ago. The price of this smartphone is USD 1,414. Vivo’s action also marks the company’s entry into the foldable smartphone industry as the most recent Chinese smartphone manufacturer to do so. Many Chinese smartphone makers now offer foldable models. Huawei, Honor, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo are the top five brands whose names you are likely familiar with. The remaining brands on the list, except Huawei, only have one foldable smartphone model.
Even before the series of Huawei bans, the Chinese company was competing with Samsung in the foldable smartphone market. However, it has slowed down the development of mobile phones since then.
Foldable smartphones are now flagship devices that are also highly pricey. The Oppo Find N is now the cheapest foldable handset on the market, with a starting price of USD 1,210. The Huawei Mate X2, which may cost up to USD 3.150, is the most expensive of the group.
Around 9 million foldable cellphones were sold globally in 2021. Samsung will supply the majority of these devices. Other Chinese firms, on the other hand, will enhance their foldable smartphone sales in 2022. This year, sales might reach 15 million to 20 million units.
TOP FOLDABLE SMARTPHONES FROM CHINESE BRANDS
Now, let’s take a look at the top five Chinese smartphone manufacturers.
- HUAWEI
Huawei, the Chinese manufacturing behemoth, is undoubtedly the most well-known Chinese firm with a foldable smartphone. It is the only brand on the list that has a large number of foldable variants. It’s been more than three years since the firm released its first foldable smartphone. The Huawei Mate X was originally unveiled in February 2019, and together with the Samsung Galaxy Fold, it was one of the world’s first foldable smartphones. Huawei Mate Xs, a foldable smartphone, was introduced a year later, in February 2020. The Huawei Mate X2, the company’s third foldable smartphone, was launched in February 2021.
Another foldable smartphone will be introduced by the business in December 2021. This time, though, the gadget is more of a flip phone. Huawei’s first flip phone is the Huawei P50 Pocket. While we had hoped for a new Mate foldable smartphone in 2022, it did not materialize. Despite this, Huawei is the only Chinese company to offer a foldable smartphone. In reality, the corporation is only second to Samsung in terms of global sales.
- Huawei Mate X 5G
Xiaomi Mi MIX Fold is Xiaomi’s first and only foldable smartphone, as well as the first non-Huawei Chinese foldable smartphone from a well-known manufacturer. This gadget was introduced two years after Huawei’s first foldable smartphone, in March 2021. When Xiaomi debuted the Mi MIX smartphone series, it completely changed the smartphone market. The initial gadget was a pleasant surprise, with a stunning bezel-less display. The MIX Fold lived up to the MIX series’ reputation for stunning display design.
The Xiaomi Mi MIX Fold has an inbuilt 8.01-inch OLED display with a 4:3 aspect ratio and 1440p+ resolution. It’s a tablet-sized display, according to Xiaomi, and it’s the largest on a foldable smartphone. Huawei, on the other hand, strongly disagrees. Xiaomi can provide a desktop mode with several resizable windows since the display is large enough.
During dependability testing, the phone was bent 200,000 times before being pushed to 1 million bends. And, It made it! HDR10+ with Dolby Vision is supported by the OLED panel. It boasts a DCI-P3 color gamut and a brightness of 600 nits. The maximum brightness is 900 nits. The phone also includes a 6.52-inch external display. It’s an AMOLED display, but with an unusual resolution of 2,520 x 840. As a consequence, the aspect ratio is 27:9. This panel, unlike the interior display, features a high refresh rate of 90Hz and a 180Hz touch sampling rate. It is somewhat brighter, with a brightness of 650 nits.
To assure the finest experience with this display, the business allegedly committed more than USD 21.9 million in R&D.
- OPPO
The Oppo Find N, the company’s first and only foldable smartphone, was introduced in December 2021, following the March 2021 release of the Xiaomi Mi MIX Fold. Oppo officially produced its first foldable smartphone after years of research and development. The Oppo Find N sports a modest 5.49-inch external screen on the front when it is closed. The Oppo Find N, on the other hand, sports a 7.1-inch super-large screen when unfurled. This display has a resolution of 1792 x 1920 pixels and is made of Samsung E5 material. A high 120Hz refresh rate is also supported by this foldable smartphone. The LTPO automatic refresh rate adjustment between 1 Hz and 120 Hz is also supported. The aspect ratio is 8.4:9 in this case.
This device’s rear shell has a 3D micro curved surface that conforms to the shape of the palm. With 125 technological patents, the Oppo Find N also includes a precise vertebral hinge. Oppo came up with this hinge on its own. It raises the screen’s bending radius by two times and decreases the screen crease by 48%. In fact, it almost removes the creasing problem.
- HONOR
Honor introduced the Honor Magic V, its first-ever foldable smartphone, on January 10, 2022. With the top Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC, this handset is also the world’s first foldable smartphone.
The Honor Magic V employs inward folding on the left and right sides, with a bigger size impact. It has a big internal screen of 7.9 inches with a 10.3:9 aspect ratio. A resolution of 2272 x 1984 and a pixel density of 381 PPI is also supported by the display.
The internal display of the Honor Magic V also supports a 90Hz refresh rate. The display has a global maximum brightness of 800 nits, a peak brightness of 1000 nits, and a DCI-P3 color gamut of 100 percent. Other technologies supported include 10bit color, HDR10+, 1920Hz high-frequency PWM dimming, and more. This gadget offers amazing display effects and is the industry’s first foldable smartphone with IMAX Enhanced certification.
The Honor Magic V comes with a 6.45-inch OLED display on the outside. This display has a 21.3:9 aspect ratio, 2560 x 1080 resolution, 431ppi pixel density, and a screen-to-body ratio of up to 90%. It also has a DCI-P3 broad color gamut of 100 percent, 1 billion colors, and HDR10+ technology. It has a global maximum brightness of 1000nits, a peak maximum brightness of 1200nits, and a refresh rate of 120Hz. Furthermore, the Honor Magic V’s exterior screen is made of curved nanocrystalline glass. The smartphone’s Corning Gorilla Glass surface is more resistant to drops than standard Corning Gorilla Glass.
- VIVO
At the present, the Vivo X Fold is the newest foldable smartphone from a Chinese manufacturer. This smartphone, together with the Vivo X Note and Vivo Pad, was released just two days ago (10th April). The Vivo X Fold is the company’s first foray into the foldable device market. This device’s operating mechanism is similar to that of the Find N and Galaxy Z Fold series.
The Vivo X Fold has a 6.53-inch AMOLED screen on the outside and an 8.03-inch screen on the inside. The inside display has a resolution of 2,200 × 1,080 pixels and is manufactured with Samsung E5 AMOLED technology. It’s an LTPO 2.0 panel, which allows for a truly adjustable refresh rate of 1 Hz to 120 Hz. Both panels support HDR 10+ and have a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. Only the inner, however, has LTPO 2.0 technology because it is the only one that can go down to 1 Hz.
CONCLUSION
Although the firms on the list are the most well-known Chinese manufacturers of foldable cellphones, they are far from alone. In reality, the list excludes the very first Chinese company to release a foldable smartphone. The Royole Flexpai is the world’s first foldable smartphone. This gadget debuted in January 2018, a year before Samsung and Huawei introduced their foldable smartphones. However, it was released in December 2018, just a few months before Samsung and Huawei released their foldable smartphones. Despite its lack of popularity, Royole has subsequently developed the Royole Flexpai 2 and is currently working on the Royole Flexpai 3.
