Skip to main content

Vivo X3 crushes world’s thinnest smartphone title, measures just 5.75mm thick

vivo x3 worlds thinnest smartphone bbk

It wasn’t so long ago that Huawei grabbed the title of World’s Thinnest Smartphone with the Ascend P6, which measures just 6.16mm thick, after the title had been stolen by Alcatel at the beginning of the year with the 6.45mm thick One Touch Idol Ultra. Now, Huawei has lost it again, this time to the Vivo X3.

How thin are we talking? Just 5.75mm. It’s not cheating either, as the X3’s chassis measures the same all the way along, with no unsightly bumps for the battery or camera lens. Just so you get an idea of how incredibly thin the Vivo X3 is, a Galaxy S4 is 7.9mm thick, and the iPhone 5 measures 7.6mm.

Chances are, unless you live in China, the Vivo name probably isn’t very familiar. However, it’s owned by BBK Electronics, which also owns Oppo, a company which has been making waves in the smartphone market all year, most recently with news the Oppo N1 camera phone will be announced next month.

So what has BBK managed to squeeze inside the X3‘s tiny frame? The screen is 5-inches and has a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution, while the processor is a quad-core chip with a 1.5GHz clock speed. Android 4.2 is installed as the OS, and there’s an 8-megapixel camera on the back of the phone. Surprisingly for such a thin phone, the X3 is quite heavy at 150 grams, and the battery is as feeble as you’d expect at 2000mAh. Also, if you want the super thin Vivo X3, you’re stuck with a blue color scheme, as the white model is 5.95mm thick.

The Vivo X3 will go on sale in China next month, when it will cost the equivalent of $410. So, who’s going to be next to make a play for the, clearly coveted, title of world’s most ridiculously slim phone, and just how much thinner can they possibly get?

Editors' Recommendations

Andy Boxall
Senior Mobile Writer
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
The world’s thinnest smartphone is about to get even thinner
Gionee S55 Rear Tilt

Read our full Gionee Elife S5.5 review.

According to documentation filed with China’s version of the FCC, Chinese manufacturer Gionee is preparing to launch the GN9005, a smartphone which measures a mere 5mm thick. Gionee holds the current record for producing the world’s thinnest smartphone with the Elife S5.5, which measures just 5.5mm thick. However, as no other challenger has arisen, Gionee has decided to go head-to-head with itself.

Read more
Sony adds the SRS-X2 and SRS-X3 to its growing family of portable speakers

Sony today unveiled a few new wireless toys to add to its rapidly expanding portable speaker lineup, the SRS-X2 and the SRS-X3 Bluetooth speakers. The two models join three other siblings in the SRS-X family, including the SRS-X5, the feature-rich SRS-X7 (reviewed here), and the patriarch of the brood, the SRS-X9.
Flaunting Sony's “Definitive Outline” design, the SRS-X3 offers a distinct flare of Rubik's Cube styling to its stretched frame. The $150 speaker hopes to fill the needs of those looking for a Bluetooth blaster in the extremely popular mid-tier segment, alongside offerings from the likes of Bose, JBL, Klipsch, and a myriad of other names in the market, both large and small.
Beneath its sleek edges, the SRS-X3 packs dual active drivers powered by a respectable punch of 20 watts, and supplemented with passive radiators at the front and back for enhanced bass response. The speaker offers Sony’s proprietary "ClearAudio+" DSP, as well as other features common in the genre, including one-touch NFC pairing for compatible devices, and a built-in speakerphone for hands-free calling. Battery run-time for the X3 is estimated at 7 hours - not bad, but definitely not anything to write home about. The speaker comes in black, white, and red versions.
At $100, the SRS-X2 sits at the bottom rung of the lineup, offering an extremely affordable way to take your sound on the go. Like the SRS-X3, the X2 is powered with 20 watts of digital amplification, though in a smaller, rounded frame, separating it from the rest of its more straight-laced brethren. Features stack up almost exactly with its older brother, including NFC pairing and an onboard speakerphone, but battery life comes in at a fairly pedestrian 5 hours. The SRS-X2 also comes in black, white, and red.
Both new speakers are available for pre-order at Sony’s website today, and will be available this June. If you’d like a detailed look at an offering from Sony’s new SRS-X lineup, check out our full review of the SRS-X7.

Read more
At 5.5 mm thick, Gionee’s Elife S5.5 is a smartphone with supermodel proportions
Gionee S55 Front

Anything deliberately engineered to be incredibly thin sometimes turns out to be flimsy at the same time. Following a hands-on test at Mobile World Congress, we’re pleased to say the world’s thinnest smartphone, the Gionee Elife S5.5, manages to avoid the latter. However, it is almost impossibly thin at a mere 5.5mm.
Gionee will probably be a new name to many of you. However, after playing with the S5.5, it’s one I’ll remember. Before picking up the phone, I was shown how the aluminum unibody chassis had been milled down from a solid block to almost nothing, and the almost invisible sheets of glass used on the front and rear. It’s amazing to see the process in such detail. It’s not just the phone that’s a record breaker either, as these components - the Super AMOLED screen, circuit board, and rear glass cover - are also the thinnest of their type.
In hand, the Elife S5.5 feels far more solid than one would expect from such a thin phone. The aluminum edging has been shaped to make it comfortable in your hand, while the rear glass panel is cool to the touch. The 13-megapixel camera lens is mounted in a slightly raised section in the top right. At the most it adds 1mm to the overall size of the device, but in a section measuring less than half-an-inch square.
Gionee's phone is a thing of beauty
It’s a beautiful thing to see and hold, and spinning it round emphasizes not only how slim it is, but also its high build quality. The screen is a 5-inch, 1080p Super AMOLED Plus panel, and it looked fantastic. It displays Gionee’s own version of Android named Amigo, which is based on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Like Huawei’s custom UI, all app icons are shown on the homescreens. It’s bright and full of little graphical flourishes, such as a “flex” to the menu when they reach the end, but the odd stutter did show up occasionally.
A MediaTek octa-core processor with 2GB of RAM runs the Elife S5.5, plus other features include a wide-angle 5-megapixel front camera, 16GB of internal memory, and a 2,300mAh battery. Gionee says the S5.5 will cost $370 when it goes on sale, and it’ll be released in 40 unspecified countries. A Gionee rep told us at least one European country would see the Elife S5.5, and that even though there are no solid plans, it would love to offer the phone for sale in North America. Whether it’ll happen or not, we’ll have to wait and see. Additionally, a 4G LTE version will come in June.
Phones produced in China by manufacturers of which we’re unfamiliar often have a reputation for being poorly constructed, but the Gionee Elife S5.5 proves at least in this case, it’s simply not the case. In the brief time I used it, Gionee’s super slim phone seemed as if it could hold its own against most other top-of-the-range smartphones.

Read more