Tecno Phantom V Fold: This is Malaysia’s cheapest foldable smartphone

The foldable smartphone scene in Malaysia is quickly heating up, as on top of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the recently launched Honor Magic Vs, the brand Tecno—better known for their budget friendly devices—has now joined the fray with the Tecno Phantom V Fold. It seems to offer some pretty solid hardware and perhaps more importantly at a very good price.

Tecno Phantom V Fold Malaysia pricing and availability

The Tecno Phantom V Fold is now available for pre-order from Tecno’s official store on Shopee and Lazada as well as Urban Republic till the 9th of May 2023. It has a regular retail price of RM5,399, undercutting the Honor Magic Vs’ RM5,999 and the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s RM6,799 by quite a bit.

On top of that, if you’re getting it during the pre-order period, you’ll be able to get it for just RM4,999, together with a free Smart Foldable Electric Scooter worth RM899.

Tecno Phantom V Fold specs

The Tecno Phantom V Fold will certainly look premium at first glance, with a solid 6.42-inch, FHD+ and a 7.85-inch 2296 x 2000p AMOLED displays. Both come with LTPO backplanes allowing for a 10-120Hz adaptive refresh rate, with a 360Hz and 240Hz touch sampling rate on the outer and main display. The two screens are also capable of a peak brightness of 1,100nits with full coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut, along with a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus on the outer display and Schott UTG over the main display.

Under the hood, you’ll find a MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ system-on-chip, which isn’t the latest processor from MediaTek but is still a solid flagship silicon from last year. This comes with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFC 3.1 storage, with Android 13 out of the box skinned with Tecno’s own HiOS13 Fold that comes with some widgets and features designed for foldable use. Tecno did not reveal how many years of software support they’ll be providing though they did previously mention to Android Authority that they’re guaranteeing at least two major OS upgrades.

In the camera department meanwhile the large circular camera bump on the back houses a main 50MP, f/1.85 camera flanked by a 13MP, f/2.2 ultrawide angle shooter along with a 50MP, f/1.98 telephoto camera offering a 2x optical zoom and a maximum 20x digital zoom. You’ll also find a 32MP selfie camera on the outer display and a 16MP selfie camera on the main screen.

Other features of note include a 5,000mAh battery with 45W fast charging, a side mounted fingerprint sensor, stereo speakers and support for WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC and 5G wireless connectivity. Tecno does claim that the hinge will last over 200,000 folds and is made of aerospace-grade materials, but isn’t the free-stop hinge type seen on Samsung’s options.

The Phantom V Fold comes in either black or white colourways, but won’t be a particularly light device weighing in at 299g and measuring 14.53mm thick.