TECNO Phantom V Flip 5G Long-term Review: A Stunning Foldable Marred By A Few Issues

I have used the Phantom V Flip 5G for 12 months and the biggest issue for me is the battery life.

It has a mostly useless circular cover display that I gripe a lot about, but to be honest, I go about my daily activities not caring or fretting about that.

While flip foldable phones are hailed as compact, the Phantom V Flip 5G is a large smartphone when you flip it open to use the 6.9-inch inner display, and I am not a fan of large phones. That irks me a bit. 6.9 inches is tablet territory. Why am I holding a tablet in my hand as a phone?

Why can’t we just have a flip foldable phone that is compact, closed or open? Why have we become so obsessed with bigger and bigger?

Battery life is its Achilles Heel

Anyway, all of these other issues pale in significance to having to deal with a phone that has a relatively small battery capacity. The V Flip 5G is fitted with a measly 4000mAh battery. Do you realise how small that is?

Samsung Galaxy S24 is one of the most compact smartphones of the day. It has a 6.2-inch display and a 4000mAh battery. Now, consider that the V Flip 5G has a much bigger 6.9-inch display and 4000mAh battery. Battery life is significantly poorer.

Most smartphones with at least 6.5-inch displays today have a 5000mAh battery and that ensures very solid battery life. The V Flip 5G simply runs out of juice much faster than all those guys. In a few hours of fairly regular use, battery percentage is down really fast.

No software update in a whole year

TECNO promised at least two major software updates for the Phantom V Flip 5G. It arrived with Android 13 in 2023; my unit is still running Android 13 a whole year later when some phones are already being updated to Android 15. No update (yet). Will the promised updates come? Maybe.

Things I like about Phantom V Flip 5G

I have spent the first half of this article griping about the things that are not so good about the V Flip 5G. Of course, there are things about it that I like. Let’s look at those.

45W Fast Charging

Look, this is really fast. It doesn’t matter how low the battery is, as long as there is a wall power outlet and the supplied 45W charger available, the battery gets topped up fast. How fast? Up to 50% in about 30 minutes. And about 100% in about one hour. If only it had a bigger battery.

It is eye-catching

No contest, the V Flip 5G is eye candy. It looks great and gets attention wherever and whenever. As a matter of fact, a friend of mine said she prefers the looks of the V Flip 5G to its successor, the V Flip2 5G. It is difficult to argue against that. In terms of looks, this babe is a winner.

But it isn’t just the looks, the material used for the V Flip 5G is vegan leather, a type of eco-friendly plastic that looks and feels like leather. It is nice touch on an already beautiful smartphone. Note that, like the plastic protective case that is bundled with the phone, the vegan leather build is a dirt magnet. You have to put in considerable effort to keep this phone clean.

The auto-focus selfie camera is great

Chances are that the phone in your hand has a fixed focus selfie camera. Most smartphones do, including premium flagship models. The V Flip 5G has an autofocus selfie camera.

What are the benefits of that? For one, the camera is able to focus on multiple subjects in group selfie to ensure everyone is clear and visible.

Secondly, it captures sharper selfies and video selfies because subjects are always in focus. Always. It also means I don’t have to fiddle around to get myself in focus when taking a selfie. Autofocus saves the day.

Lastly, having an autofocus selfie camera means that portrait photos get better depth-of-field.

The selfie camera is not perfect and does not capture flawless photos and videos, but the presence of autofocus makes it a more capable shooter in practice. I love it.

HiOS is not annoying anymore

TECNO’s custom Android skin used to be an annoying experience. The user interface was poorly done and then you were inundated with pesky ads and notifications everywhere you turned. I could not bring myself to use a TECNO smartphone as my daily driver. Why would I use my money to buy a painful experience for myself? I’m a soft life guy, please.

Anyway, the good news is that with HiOS 13.5 which this phone was released with, the user interfaceis a completely different experience. Gone are all the annoying quirks and intrusions. Gone. Nowhere to be found. I didn’t have to tweak and modify anything.

Ladies and gentlemen, I used HiOS for a while year and didn’t feel like throwing the TECNO phone away! This is worthy of a testimony in church. We must do Thanksgiving. HiOS is born again.

TECNO, please, please, please, don’t be tempted to bring back any of those annoying things. Let the dead stay dead.

Yes, there is still room for further improvement in HiOS, and we shall be expecting those improvements. But as it is now, HiOS is finally user-friendly and I cannot talk about it enough.

Decent performance

With a Dimensity 8050 chipset paired with 8GB RAM, the V Flip 5G has decent performance. It does not stutter. There have been a few rare moments that I noticed some sluggishness when I pushed it really hard in testing, but for everyday usage, this is a smooth performer.

My Verdict

On the whole, I like the Phantom V Flip 5G and would be more enthusiastic about it if the battery were bigger.

Unboxing Video

Watch the unboxing video of the V Flip 5G below:

Review Video

Should you be interested in my earlier review, you can watch that here.

Specifications

If interested, you can check out the specifications of the V Flip 5G.

Author: Mister Mobility

Master storyteller and founder of Mobility Nigeria, Mister Mobility, has used and reviewed hundreds of mobile phones since 2001.