Is this the foldable phone that has Samsung most worried?

Competition in the folding phone market is heating up. While Samsung is the dominant player with some of the best folding phones, there are an increasing number of rivals. From the OnePlus Open to the Honor Magic V3, there are plenty of alternatives to consider. One such rival to the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is the Tecno Phantom V Fold 2, which has just been announced.

The new Tecno folding phone is now official, following on from a recent leak when the phone briefly appeared for preorder in Ghana. But what we can fully appreciate now is the full result of the Loewe design that has gone into it.

Tecno isn't a well-known brand, but in recent years it has muscled in with low-cost devices. The recent pairing with Loewe is designed to give the brand some more prominence and by the look of the vegan leather finish to the rear of this phone, it has done exactly that.

Loewe is widely known for its premium TV and audio design  – recently teaming up with football megastar Kylian Mbappe  – and the brand's design skills can certainly be seen on this Tecno phone. In fact, the rear of the phone eschews any mention of Tecno, instead just carrying the words "Designed by Loewe" and the Phantom name.

The hinge of this phone doesn't appear to be quite as flush as it's on Samsung's phone, but Tecno has kept to curved edges around the frame, rather than the square finish that Samsung has adopted. But it's that vibrant Ripping Blue vegan leather that speaks to me. I recently mentioned how much I loved the vegan leather finish on Motorola's affordable phones and it has the same effect here.

Tecno Phantom V Fold 2 specs

The Tecno Phantom V Fold 2 is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ with 12GB of RAM, with 512GB storage. The main folding display is a 7.85-inch AMOLED 120Hz panel with a 2296 x 2000 pixel resolution, while the cover screen is 6.42-inches, with 2550 x 1080 pixels.

The phone weighs 249g and is only 5.5mm thick at its thinnest point when open. The rear camera system is comprised of a top of 50-megapixel cameras, with the main camera supported by a portrait lens (with 2x optical zoom) and an ultrawide. There are a pair of 32-megapixel cameras for the front, one of the cover screen and one set into the main display.

There's 5750mAh battery supporting 70W fast wired charging or 15W wireless charging. The phone also claims an IP54 rating. That's quite a lot stuffed into a phone that would cost around £810/$1,055/€955 if it was available to buy. Instead, Tecno is likely to focus on core Asian and African markets, and it's not known if it will be available in the UK.

It all sounds great, but there's perhaps one area that will make Samsung shrug and dismiss this Tecno phone: it's only offering two Android upgrades and 3 years of security updates, whereas Samsung offers 7 years.