Blackview has promised to release the world’s cheapest foldable, the Blackview Hero 10. The launch will be in May, but the phone has already appeared on AliExpress with specs and images – however, there is no confirmation of the expected price.
The Hero 10 is supposed to cost €400 (around $425/₹36,000), which will undercut the current cheapest foldable, the nubia Flip, by some margin (it made its debut at the MWC at $600). With that in mind, let’s look at the hardware.
The Blackview Hero 10 features a 6.9” AMOLED display with 1,080 x 2,560px and 10-bit colors. It has a peak brightness of 1,300 nits (1,920Hz high frequency PWM dimming). When opened, the phone measures 169.0 x 75.7 x 8.1mm and weighs 198g. This display folds with a waterdrop hinge and is rated for 250,000 folds. The hinge can hold it partially open at at 30° and 150°.
6.9” FHD+ OLED display with a teardrop hinge design
As you can see, it has a circular cover display next to the dual camera. Impressively, that camera includes a 108MP sensor (the 1/1.67” Samsung ISOCELL HM6). Next to it is an 8MP ultra wide (120°), the selfie camera inside has a 32MP sensor.
108MP main + 8MP ultra wide cameras • 32MP selfie camera
So far, so good. However, something had to give to stay within the budget and that something is the chipset – it’s a Helio G99. Blackview specced it with plenty of RAM (12GB, LPDDR4X) and storage (256GB, UFS 2.2), but this is still a slow chipset with a 4G-only modem.
On the plus side, the company will deliver 3 years of updates – labeled as just “OTA updates”, so it’s probably not 3 OS updates. Android 14 is coming later this year, the phone will launch with DokeOS 4.0 based on Android 13.
3 years of software support • Helio G99 with 12GB of RAM, 256GB storage.
The chipset is certainly less than ideal, but the Blackview Hero 10 ends on a high note. It has a large (for a foldable) 4,000mAh battery and supports fast 45W charging (20 minutes gets the battery to 48%). Other goodies include stereo speakers, NFC and a dual-SIM slot.
The aluminum alloy frame of the phone is covered with vegan leather. It is coming in Sakura Purple and Eclipse Black.
Aluminum alloy frame (matte finish) and vegan leather
You can find the Blackview Hero 10 over on AliExpress – note that the currently listed price is just a placeholder.
Blackview Hero 10 highlights
