The vivo X Fold6 is the brand’s first foldable sold in the Middle East, and it’s already on shelves in the UAE. vivo used a showcase at the Dubai Polo & Equestrian Club to show the Fold6 alongside the V80 and an early look at the X500 series. It also had new audio products and a hands-on demo of its Vision headset. No prices were announced, and much of the X500 series remains under wraps, so the event was more of a statement of intent than a launch.
The X Fold6 matters most for the region. vivo has sold foldables in China for years. Samsung, HONOR and HUAWEI have had the Gulf foldable market largely to themselves. vivo’s first entry here has an 8.02-inch inner screen that can run four apps side by side. It also has a 6,900mAh battery, which is large for a foldable, and a 200MP main camera tuned with ZEISS. The Prism Black version is about 4.4mm thick unfolded and weighs 228g. vivo hasn’t given figures for the other colours.
The V80 is the more mainstream model and is built for portraits. It has a 50MP ZEISS telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom and a 100mm portrait mode with soft background blur. It also has a flash mode called CCD Flash Portrait. That mode imitates the look of early-2000s digital cameras, a style that has gone from an internet trend to a phone feature in under two years. It’s an easy feature to market, though how well it works will only be clear once people try it.
The X500 Pro and X500 Pro Max were only previewed, and their specs and release dates in the region are still unknown. What vivo did confirm sounds promising for video. Both phones shoot 4K slow motion at 240fps, which very few phones can do. The Pro Max also gets a 200MP ZEISS APO telephoto camera with subject tracking, aimed at concerts and sports.
The audio launches are simpler. vivo says the Buds Clip earbuds last up to 42 hours with the case, use 12mm drivers and filter out call noise in surroundings as loud as 100dB. The Headphones Studio weigh 238g and promise up to 75 hours of battery life with active noise cancellation.
The Vision mixed-reality headset was there to try, but vivo says it has no plans to sell it in the region yet. That fits a wider pattern: brands are keen to show mixed-reality hardware, but slow to sell it outside China and the US. For now, the X Fold6 is the most interesting product vivo has brought here, and its price will decide whether it can take buyers from Samsung.
