Chinese smartphone brand Vivo has announced the X5 Max, which claims the title of World’s Thinnest Smartphone. There have been many pretenders to this throne throughout 2014, and Vivo’s attempt is not only decisive, but very innovative in places – proving the race for ultimate slimness isn’t just about bragging rights.
How thin is the X5 Max? A mere 4.75mm, or about half the size of the LG G3 or Nexus 5. It’s not the first time we’ve heard about the phone. Vivo teased its arrival at the beginning of November, and rumors gathered prior to this suggesting the phone would measure a ridiculous 3.8mm thick. Whether the firm attempted this, and met with problems, isn’t known.
Vivo has adopted an internal design standard where critical components are gathered to one side of the battery. It says this alone reduced the thickness of the phone by 1.77mm, but did make the device slightly wider than other, similarly sized phones. The X5 Max has a large, 5.5-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen with a 1080p resolution, which it claims is one of the world’s thinnest panels at 1.36mm. The phone is powered by an octa-core, Snapdragon 615 processor with 2GB of RAM, and runs Android 4.4 with Vivo’s own user interface.
The 16GB of internal memory may not seem like much, but despite the tiny frame, Vivo has found a way to include a MicroSD card slot. Cleverly, it has made a multi-purpose SIM tray, which can take either a MicroSD card up to 128GB in size, or a second SIM card if you’d prefer. It hasn’t forgotten about the camera features either. A Sony produced, 13-megapixel camera sits inside a slightly raised housing on the rear panel, and there is a 5-megapixel selfie cam on the front.
A 3.5mm headphone port is fitted to the chassis – just – and inside the phone is a specially designed, 2.45mm speaker, along with Yamaha’s YSS-205X DSP chip. The only worrying part is Vivo hasn’t talked about the size of the X5 Max’s battery. We’ll update here when we find out more. The phone will go on sale at the end of December, at a cost of around $485, but a U.S. or wider international release outside China is unlikely.
CONTINUE TO PAGE TWO FOR ALL THE RUMORS CIRCULATING BEFORE THE VIVO X5 MAX’S ANNOUNCEMENT
Vivo, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer, will announce a new smartphone named the X5 Max soon, and if the latest rumors are correct, it’ll measure a mere 4.75-millimeters thick. This eclipses the 4.85-millimeter thick Oppo R5, and the 5.1-millimeter thick Gionee Elife S5.1, to potentially take the hotly contested title of world’s thinnest smartphone.
The company has started publishing teaser images of the device through its social networking channels, but hasn’t given away any details. However, a set of spy photos published by the MyDrivers.com website allegedly show the phone being measured, apparently confirming the 4.75-millimeter thick chassis.
Vivo tagged images on its Weibo page with the name X5 Max, and talked about how it was creating the “ultimate slim mobile phone,” by spreading the 786 internal components around the side of the metal device. The pictures show the astonishingly slim phone in profile, and it looks very similar to the device measured by MyDrivers’ source.
The X5 Max’s rumored spec sheet should include a 5-inch, 1080p touchscreen, a MediaTek octa-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage space. A 13-megapixel camera could be fitted to the rear, and there’s no evidence of a bulge to house the lens in the teaser pictures either. It may be joined by a 5-megapixel front camera, while the operating system is expected to be Android 4.4 KitKat.
We first heard about an unfeasibly thin phone from Vivo at the end of October, when rumors suggested it would be 3.8-millimeters thick. Whether this proved to be impossible, or was just inaccurate, isn’t clear.
Vivo doesn’t sell its phones internationally, so unless it opens an online store in the near future, there’s little hope of picking up this sliver of a smartphone outside China. The official announcement is expected in December.
Article originally published on 11-12-2014
