The Vivo X Fold 3 Pro is a slightly more slender, bendy mega-bastard boasted Zeiss-branded camera tech, a massive dual battery setup for all-day play, and top-tier specs to effortlessly squat thrust all over the Z Fold 6. I've been testing out Vivo's bendy blower for about a month now, and I gotta say, I really like it. So let's take you on a full-on tour, and also do a wee side-by-side with the Z Fold 6 to see how they stack up. And for more on the latest and greatest tech, please do poke subscribe and ding that notifications bell. Cheers!

Now first up, the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro is a big bugger, of course. It weighs 236 grams, so it's not exactly featherlight, but as far as these phones go, not too terrible at all. Weighs about the same as the Z Fold 6, but it is roughly a millimetre thinner. I was quite surprised that it's only a millimetre, to be honest, because it feels a lot skinnier, probably helped by the fact you've got these rounded edges compared with the big flat iPhone-style ones on the Z Fold 6.

Although, of course, you do have that big old camera bump as well. Both of these blowers have lenses jutting out of the arse end, so that certainly adds a wee bit of girth. Let me tell you, you feel it when you've got either of these phones stuffed into your shorts, that's for sure.

But then, just try having them both stuffed inside of your shorts at the same time, like I have these past few days. One thing I like about the circular camera bump here on the Vivo is the fact that it's pretty stable when you lay it flat on a desk like so, whereas the Samsung shakes about all over the place when you're using it like so, because you've got the camera bump wedged off to the side. Although that said, when they're actually spread open, it's actually the

Samsung that's the more stable of the pair. Now up front, you've got a bit of armour glass here on the Vivo versus Gorilla Glass Victus 2 here on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. Both pretty tough,

I'd say the Victus is probably tougher, but you do get a pre-installed screen protector here on the

Vivo as well, whereas the Samsung is ride and roar. As for the back end, well the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro is constructed from ultra-fine glass fibres apparently, whereas the Z Fold 6 is once again simply

Gorilla Glass Victus 2. Now the Vivo's still in pretty good nick despite a full month of being banged about, although it's starting to get a wee bit shiny in this part here where it just curves slightly. But both pretty rugged and I do like the matte finish as well, which helps to hide the worst of greasy fingerprints and scuffs. Apparently it's available in solar white in China, but outside of

China it's just this one colour option, Celestial Black, apparently inspired by the vastness of the universe, which I don't even want to contemplate because it just breaks my brain and makes me physically ruin my keks. If you want the Galaxy Z Fold 6, that is available in a greater selection of options, including a very snazzy sort of navy, darky, moody, blue effort. I gotta say I really like the construction overall on the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro, feels proper premium, you've got a durable carbon fibre hinge, it doesn't feel quite as stiff as Samsung's hinge, but this bad boy can still be propped up at pretty much any angle you like, easily as you want. Of course opening both of these buggers one-handed is a bit of a challenge, though it's slightly easier I would say here on the

Vivo, because at least you've got those curved edges, it's easier to get your digits stuck in that crevice right there, whereas it's completely flat edges on the Z Fold 6. You could be poking the bugger for ages before you finally achieve insertion. As for water and dust resistance, well the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro is IPX8 rated, compared with the IP48 rating here on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6.

So they can both be fully dunked in water for a good wee while no worries, but only the Galaxy has that certified dust and small particle resistance, so slightly better suited to take into the beach, anywhere where there's lots of dust and crud basically. And one more final design feature I really like here on the Vivo is the fact you've got a wee alert slider up here. It's not a full-on three-way effort like the OnePlus, it's just a two setting jobby, so you can have silent mode on or off basically, but still a very handy addition and something you don't get with the

Galaxy Z Fold 6. Now to unlock the Galaxy Z Fold 6, it's your basic edge-mounted fingerprint sensor, give that a quick tap and you're in, whereas Vivo has actually gone with a bit of in-display fingerprint sensor action. It's an ultrasonic scanner, so super fast, super responsive.

What happens if you want to unlock the phone when it's already unfolded? Well they've actually gone and chucked a second in-display fingerprint sensor on the internal screen. Again, yet another ultrasonic effort. I wouldn't say I prefer one method or the other, but yeah, it definitely works.

And then once you're in there, you've got a good bit of fun touch OS here on the Vivo versus of course One UI on the Galaxy. They're both fairly heavy launchers, pimping their own apps and services, their own web browsers, their own assistants, app stores etc etc. One of the main differences is that the Vivo sadly lacking in a lot of the AI features that you do find stuffed onto Samsung's bendy blower. The likes of circle to search which is incredibly useful, just a good little time-saving effort when you want to look up something quickly. You've got a live translation tool, all kinds of transcription and summarization tools which are helpful, and of course a buttload of random creative arty photo type stuff. Anyway, check out my full Z Fold coverage for more on all of that shenanigans. Now when you're using the almighty internal display, you've got a good bit of dock action with both of these phones, which is a bit more haphazard actually calling it up here on the Vivo. Sometimes it pops up, sometimes it just can't be bloody arsed. This is pretty handy if you want to get a bit of split screen multitasking on the go. Just grab another app, drag it to where you want it, boom. And of course on both phones you can quickly and easily resize the windows. You can swap these windows about the place by long pressing on the wee bar up here, so you can turn them into floating windows, swap which side they're on, the orientation etc.

And as with Sammy's bendy bro, you can access your most recent apps and configurations down here on the right edge. But one handy wee shortcut I really like here on the Vivo which you don't get on the Samsung is just with a quick bit of this, you can conjure up split screen modes, you don't even have to mess around with the dock. And yeah, I still think the OnePlus Open does the software side of things better than both of these massive bendy buggers to be honest, but it's satisfying enough to use because you can really make the most of that big display. And when I spoke with

Vivo, they said they would be offering three OS updates and four years of security updates with the X Fold 3 Pro. Not sure quite how regular these security updates are going to be trickling through, especially towards the end of that 10 year bit here. It's pretty decent, but it's not quite as impressive as the seven full years of OS and security updates that Samsung's offering with its Galaxy Z Fold 6. So if you want something to see right the way through to the 2030s, then yeah, job done. My Vivo X Fold 3 Pro review model came with half a terabyte of storage space, you got a choice of 256, 512 or a full terabyte with the Galaxy Z Fold 6. Now the Vivo X Fold 3

Pro sports a 6.53 inch LTPO OLED cover screen, the 2748 by 1172 pixel resolution and it's an absolute beaut. It's a bit more spacious than the Galaxy Z Fold 6's effort. Samsung stopped on a 6.3 inch

LTPO Dynamic AMOLED display with the 2376 by 968 pixel resolution. So Vivo's cover screen is quite sausage like, it's a 21 by 9 aspect ratio similar to the old Xperia's, not quite as ridiculously skinny as Samsung's. And the Vivo's aspect ratio is certainly better suited to most apps and when you do pinch to zoom in a bit of video action, not quite so much cropping, don't slice off quite so much of my baldy head, but both of these cover screens are nice and crisp, they're reasonably poppy as well, you can change up the color output in the display settings and although the Vivo's is technically brighter on paper versus the Samsung, I found that even when it was proper sunny I could clearly see what was going on on both of them, no worries. Oh and while Vivo offers up both HDR10 plus and Dolby Vision streaming support, you've only got the HDR10 action here on the Samsung. Now unfurl these mighty mobiles and you've got a huge 8.03 inch OLED internal screen on the Vivo, 2480 by 2200 pixel resolution versus the still pretty bloody large 7.6 inch dynamic AMOLED panel on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 with a 2160 by 1856 pixel resolution, not quite as crisp but still sharp enough for checking out some photos, kicking back with a bit of gaming action, whatever you fancy. And both of these mighty flexible mobiles have a protective cover on that internal display, it's actually less reflective though here on the Vivo versus the Samsung, you can more clearly see what is going on on the X Fold 3 Pro versus the Z Fold 6, although both of them are bright enough to counter the worst of the glare anyway.

So even on a sunshiny day you can generally clearly see what's going on, the caveat to that being that I live in the UK and what might be an incredibly sunshiny day here might just be a grey drizzly overcast day in say California. And certainly that crease action is less obvious here on the Vivo versus the Samsung, it's incredibly subtle, you can only just about make it out when you tilt this phone at an angle and it catches the light just so.

However when it comes to the stereo speaker setup the Vivo isn't quite as impressive as the Samsung has to be said, I'll just do a little side by side so you can hear it for yourself.

So I don't know if my mic would have picked that up particularly clearly but basically the Vivo not quite as loud as the Galaxy and also the audio pretty tinny and not particularly impressive.

That said the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro does offer Bluetooth 5.4 support versus 5.3 on that Z

Fold 6. You've got support for basically all of the codecs, aptX adaptive, lossless, got a bit of LHDC, all that good stuff. It's well and truly sorted for all of your wireless streaming shenanigans. And what about the performance? Well both of these big bendy buggers are powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and that's backed by a hefty 16 gigs of RAM on the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro versus 12 gigs on Samy's blower. So yeah everyday action, silky smooth on both of these efforts. And then I did a good bit of gaming as well on

Zenless Zone Zero and that was again a beautifully fluid experience on both the Vivo and the Samsung.

I maxed out those graphic settings set it to 60 frames per second and I didn't notice a dip in the frame rate on either of these handsets even when I was gaming for a good hour or so.

That's helped along by the coolant type situation, you've got a bit of vapour chamber action, some graphite layers to help keep these bendy buggers from heating up too bad. Although that said they certainly do get a bit toasty still up around the top end. So gamers should be happy enough with what they see on both of these handsets although the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro does offer up a wee bit more when it comes to the gaming mode. Got a few extra bonus tools and features chucked in there versus the Samsung which basically has its priority mode for blocking notifications and keeping the handset running as smoothly as possible. Now many foldables have to make sacrifices when it comes to the battery tech but in this area Vivo is well and truly waving its willy all about at the competition. See despite its relatively slender chassis Vivo has somehow managed to cram a dual cell 5700 mAh capacity battery setup inside of this thing which is really huge compared with what most other rivals offer up. It certainly makes the Galaxy Z

Fold 6's 4400 mAh battery look proper piddly in comparison. And yeah certainly in my everyday testing I found the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro unsurprisingly can last a full day no worries even with tons of screen on time even if you're making a fair bit of use of that internal display playing with the cameras quite a bit doing a good bit of video streaming all that good stuff it'll happily last a day quite often stretching to a full weekend of use as long as you don't go too crazy with it.

In comparison Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 the battery life ain't bad but if you're a more demanding user you will be getting it down to the dregs by the end of just a single day.

That said when I put these phones side by side for a video streaming battery test I found the results were much closer than I expected they both ticked down at around sort of five to six percent battery drain an hour when streaming that video. So Samsung clearly a lot more efficient when it comes to just simple tasks like that. It also just further emphasizes that battery tests are just a complete waste of time. But then when it comes to the recharging the Vivo once again joyously spaffs its load all over that Samsung because you've got 100 watt fast charging when you bung a cable in the X Fold 3 Pro versus 25 watts on the Galaxy. Absolutely world of difference despite the fact you've obviously got a higher capacity battery here so there's more to fill it's just it's just so much quicker. Same story when it comes to the wireless charging as well 50 watt wireless charging as long as you've got a supported charger versus 15 watts on the Galaxy.

And then I also really like that Vivo hasn't compromised when it comes to the camera tech either. You've got Zeiss branded optics here as always, a 50 megapixel OmniVision OV50H sensor as also found in the Honor Magic 6 Pro, the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra, quite a few recent flagships. You've also got Zeiss's T-Star lens coating to help prevent lens flaring and other shin diggery. And that's versus the 50 megapixel main shooter here on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 which is Samsung's own in-house developed tech. And both camera apps are what I would call quite dense, quite a lot of different features and modes to play around with. All the usual obvious stuff, portrait mode, night mode. You've got scene optimization type shenanigans on both as well which basically just boost the vividness of colors, make everything look a bit brighter, a bit less natural. But thankfully you can knock this off and have the Zeiss natural on the go here on the Vivo. Just turn off the scene optimizer here on the Galaxy and you'll get a more realistic looking image. And that primary shooter on the Vivo on the whole is a capable and dependable shooter. If I had anything to grouch about it would be that the Vivo does tend to oversaturate, brighten up images a bit too much. So you do lose some of the color and tonal detail.

This is especially evident in some of the indoor shots that I took. But then in high contrast scenarios you do get better results than what you do on the Samsung usually. And certainly at night time the Vivo is right up there with the Samy again, still capturing lots of good detail if not quite accurate colors. But yes, very eye pleasing snaps all of the same. And certainly if you are shooting your holidays or your family or whatever you'll get some good looking pics to tuck away in the old digital album. You also have a dedicated pro mode on both of these bendy buggers. So you can't mess around with the lack of shutter speed, the white balance, the focus, etc. You can shoot raw images for easy editing on the fly.

When it comes to the secondary lenses, well again the Vivo impresses more. So you've got a 50 megapixel ultra wide angle shooter here on the X-Fold 3 Pro using Samsung's GN1 sensor in fact, versus a more basic 12 megapixel ultra wide shooter here on the Samy. And the Vivo is definitely far superior for shooting dramatic up close macro style shots. And Vivo's gone with a 64 meg telephoto shooter using the OV64B sensor with three times optical zoom. Samsung's again gone more basic, you've just got a 10 megapixel sensor here. Same three times optical zoom, so you can still get some pretty decent zoom action on the go when needed. The Z Fold 6 does max out at 30 times combi zoom, thanks to the more basic sensor. Whereas the Vivo can go all the way up to 100 times zoom if you like. Doesn't over sharpen things either, but you certainly want to be capping yourself off well before that 100 times limit, because otherwise just everything just looks a bit blurry and cack. And then for your home movie type shenanigans, you can shoot 8K resolution footage at 30 frames per second on both the Vivo and the Samsung. Otherwise, if you drop it to 4K, you can capture it up to 60fps. And Samsung usually excels when it comes to home movies. But I thought the Vivo was really solid in this area, strong competition. Most of this footage I shot at 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. And I've got to say, picture quality, nice and crisp. The stabilisation is solid if you're moving and shooting at the same time.

Audio capture also proper good as well. Vocals come through nice and crisp and clear. There's not too much wind feedback when things get rather blustery. And Vivo's also hoisting its own V3 imaging chip, which helps the X-fold 3 Pro to pump out some pretty decent looking 4K cinematic portrait style videos. A bit of bokeh style blur in action. And then on that cover screen, you've got a 32 megapixel selfie shooter here on the Vivo versus a basic 10 megapixel selfie shooter here on the Samsung. Although the Samsung can shoot at up to 4K resolution, the Vivo tops off at full HD for some reason. And then the Vivo also squirrels away a secondary 32 megapixel selfie cam on that internal display, just wedged away in a corner there. When I was on the Samsung, it's a much more basic 4 megapixel resolution camera, but it is actually an under display effort. So it is hidden away. You can still clearly make it out when you look for it, but it is mostly masked. And again, on the Vivo and on the Samsung, this can capture up to full

HD resolution video. It's fine for, you know, your bit of Skype and or whatever, if you want to do that. And of course, with both of these phones, you can just unfurl them and flip them around like so, and then use the actual rear camera to take a selfie using the cover screen as a kind of view finder. It is slightly awkward and not very comfortable, got to admit. Anyway, there you have it, my lovelies. That in a nutshell is what I reckon of the Vivo X-fold 3 Pro after using it for about a month or so, and how it stacks up against Samsung's fresh new Galaxy Z-fold 6.

So the general everyday experience, I've got to say, I do probably prefer the Vivo overall.

You've got that excellent battery life, the super fast charge, and you still get that same slick performance. The display tech is absolutely banging. That internal display is just fantastic, not very reflective at all, and practically crease-free. Overall, it's an absolute banger.

Still not a massive fan of FunTouch. It's a bit of a heavy, clunky launcher in general, but the general dock experience and everything on here is fine. There's some nifty little shortcuts on here which you don't get on the Samsung. Then I guess on the flip side, you also don't get all of that AI-type shenanigans, some of which is actually pretty bloody helpful. Samsung offers the far superior software support, and of course, it's just much easier to find a Z-fold 6, as Vivo's phones tend to be a bit more elusive. So that's what I think. Anyway, it'd be great to hear your thoughts on the Vivo X-Fold 3 Pro down below. Stay tuned for my full Galaxy Z-Fold 6 review.

That'll be coming in the next week or so, hopefully. In the meantime, have yourselves a bloody wonderful rest of the week. Cheers, everyone. Love you!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai