Vivo V5 Plus Review

Vivo V5 Plus Review: Vivo indeed appears to be a winner nowadays. It has beat Xiaomi in its home market and after sticking to budget smartphones for long and has now begun to introduce fascinating mid-range devices in India. The first of those devices, (we expect some more to show up) is the recently launched Vivo V5 Plus. We Reviewed the Vivo V5 which took some great selfies. However, the rear camera was not precisely up to the mark. Once more I was not completely satisfied concerning the price tag either, that provided a plastic-bodied smartphone. With the arrival of the Vivo V5 Plus, I anticipated a lot better with the ‘Plus’ tag. A week after using this smartphone, my opinion about it has changed completely. Here is our Vivo V5 Plus Review.

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Vivo V5 Plus Review – Specification

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Vivo V5 Plus Review – Design

Because the Vivo V5 was the first smartphone to be launched in India in the V5 series, it’s simple to identify how the Plus model picks a lot of its design traits from. Oddly, the design also appears to be much like Apple’s iPhone 7 models, with the antenna gaps on the back stretching towards the top and bottom edges. Certainly, the re’s nothing special right here, and that smooth gold finish makes it look much like other smartphone offerings coming from China.

The quality of the body and the overall finish of the smartphone is commendable. This must be the first premium smartphone from Vivo, and its quality can only be compared to the OnePlus 3/3T which also occurs to fall in the same price bracket. However, I would have preferred a beveled finish for the iPhone-like camera bump on the back.

While the re’s a 2.5D glass on the front, it usually feels flat because of the thick white plastic clipping that kills what would have in any other case been a seamless look from the front to the edges of the smartphone. On the front, you’ll also see something unique on the top, the two camera units on the front followed by a ‘moonlight glow’ selfie flash on the right of the receiver. The fingerprint reader sits on the bottom and also doubles as a home button which can be pressed down.

Vivo V5 Plus Review – Display

The display on the V5 Plus is another much-needed enhancement in case you are coming from the Vivo V5’s HD display. The V5 Plus features a 5.5-inch (1080p) Full-HD IPS In-cell LCD protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 5. I had no issues with its brightness ranges, and the display was readable in direct daylight. Indoors, the text seemed fairly sharp contemplating that the screen tops out at 401 PPI and the same can be stated for pictures.

The display appears to be well made and showcased colors with some added saturation. Certainly, these are calibration settings hard at work right here, however sadly Vivo doesn’t provide any customizations for the same like one can discover on a OnePlus 3T for adjusting hue and saturation levels.

Viewing it at an angle showcased minimal color shifting and a slight drop in brightness ranges, but surely isn’t something I would complain about contemplating the price tag of this device. With Gorilla Glass 5 on board, there little room for scratches and the display also appears to have an oleophobic coating. Thus it attracts the fingerprints which can surely be wiped off.

Vivo V5 Plus Review – Software

Coming from an Apple iPhone 6s owner, the Vivo’s FunTouch OS seems to be like a copy of Apple’s iOS software. There are many similarities from the icons, to the native apps, and to the Settings menu. You even get a Control Panel that pops up on the bottom and a stacked up multi-tasking menu with a side scrolling cards layout.

It’s a good factor because it brings a degree of consistency to the device’s software. The icons look good, the fonts are sized correct, and while you still need to deal with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, you also get split-screen multi-tasking, the Smart Split, that works for a limited set of native applications.

However, the implementation clearly isn’t native, which is why it operates in a somewhat weird method. You can’t use the Smart Split feature whenever you choose to, but only if a notification from a supported app arrives. Tap on the notification and the display splits into two. Oddly, this only works for a short list of apps, so I didn’t end up using it in any respect.

The Battery section of the Settings menu can’t show you the Battery statistics together with the usual battery chart. So you’ll never know how much up time you’ve with the given battery life. Then the re’s the format of the Settings menu, which isn’t your regular stuff and can be irritating to search out a particular item since there isn’t any search bar in it either.

What I did admire was how the software ran buttery smooth with 4GB RAM and a low-powered Snapdragon 625 onboard with no hiccups in any respect, typically making me neglect that the re’s a chipset from a budget smartphone that’s operating inside. Nougat, however, I did miss contemplating that even a budget smartphone like the Asus Zenfone 3S Max comes with the update.

Vivo V5 Plus Review – Hardware and Performance

Being powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 2.0 GHz octa-core chipset, 4 GB RAM and 64 GB of internal storage, the re’s nothing to fret about as the interface is buttery smooth. The V5 Plus didn’t showcase any heating issues either, apart from when it was being charged and then too just a little bit.

Gaming efficiency is usual stuff and what we’ve come to anticipate from the 625. It’s similar to the Asus Zenfone 3, and I had no issues playing video games at the highest settings, though there were minor drops in frame rate. At medium settings, most video games like Dead Trigger 2 to Real Racing 3 and Asphalt 8 ran superbly with casual video games running very smoothly.

Voice quality was fairly good. However, it could have been clearer. The loudspeaker output was sharp and clear, and I had no issues enjoying games and even listening to music in outdoor areas. Audio quality by the headphones was fairly balanced and good. Enjoying downloaded music using the built-in Music app was a fair better experience with rich sound quality that had loads of depth but was again well-balanced.

Vivo V5 Plus Review – Camera

The Vivo V5 packs in a 16MP sensor on the back with a f/2.0 aperture. While a 16MP sensor looks as the downgrade in comparison with the 20MP set up on the front, it’s not. The primary camera produced some nicely saturated pictures with loads of depth and low noise in daylight and low-light or twilight situations. While the colors are well-balanced, it’s spectacular how the camera controls the noise as you shoot in dim lighting situations or twilight. Take a look at the picture shot in the hall, and the digicam retains little or no noise (simply the correct quantity) to make them look real looking.

While the camera was fast to focus in daylight, it was equally good in low light or night time capturing. Taking pictures a bit after Twilight, however, showcases a few of the drawbacks of the camera setup. The re’s luminance noise, and the camera tries to suppress it, which ends up in the lack of details. The pictures produced are nonetheless commendable contemplating what you get in this price range. In brief, better than those you get from Asus Zenfone 3.

Moving on to the front camera, and you get a 20MP, f/2.0 unit plus an 8MP, f/2.0 unit dual selfie camera setup. Vivo uses an IMX376 picture sensor which the company claims have been co-engineered with Sony. The 20MP unit captures picture data whereas the 8MP unit is there solely to capture depth-of-field info.

The depth data makes a lot of a difference and is ready to determine the subject and blur just the background. The camera was good enough to pick out two subjects and hold them in focus while the background gets blurred, which is pretty spectacular for a selfie camera. The function only worked when both subjects were in the same plane or distance from the camera. In brief, it might not be able to isolate two subjects at different distances from the lens and then defocus the background.

The aperture can be adjusted in Bokeh mode, which is pretty useful in case your picture seems a bit too dreamy. You may also modify the aperture, and the refocus occasion after the picture has been clicked. The n, you get a moonlight selfie flash which makes clicking selfies in the dark or low light pretty easy as the flash discharges a gentle glow as an alternative of the standard vibrant LEDs.

Vivo V5 Plus Review – Battery Life

A 3,160mAh battery backs the Vivo V5 Plus, but surprisingly out does the OnePlus 3 and 3T. The battery life nearly appears unbelievable, but then it’s easy to identify that the FuntouchOS packs in a great sleep mode. The smartphone consumes very little power when locked and can rarely throw up notifications until you have added them to the list of apps which are allowed to stay on.

With that stated, I managed to get more than a day of average use and a full day of heavy usage which is not bad for a smartphone with a 3,055mAh battery. We have been unable to get our typical PC Mark battery life tests with this one as the app saved shutting on the finish of the check. We did, however, handle to open up an outcome zip file that confirmed us 42,857 seconds, which interprets to about 11 hours, which is fairly good.

Vivo has also included Dual Charging Engine technology that should provide a safer charge, and also make it faster. The charging speeds, however, did not impress me, as the OnePlus’ dash charge was way quicker (almost twice as fast). It does, however, charge at the speed that’s above average while charging the first half, so it makes the technology worthwhile for individuals who want to quick short charge on the go.

Vivo V5 Plus Review – Connectivity Options

WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, WiFi Direct, DLNA, hotspot

Bluetooth:  v4.0, A2DP

GPS:  Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS

USB:  microUSB v2.0, USB On-The -Go

NFC:  No

Sensors:  Fingerprint (front-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass

Gallery

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Conclusion

All-in-all, the Vivo V5 Plus, is an excellent package that can appeal to those who are serious about their selfies. It packs in the appropriate balance of power, performance, battery life and provides a pretty good camera to the mix, making it a lot better offering in comparison to the Asus Zenfone 3. It still falls short of the OnePlus 3T in some areas like performance and the primary camera. The Huawei Honor 8 is also a pretty sensible choice, for those who wants a dual camera set up on the back, but it surely’s not so spectacular in the selfie department. One other competitor in this section is the Oppo F1 Plus. When it launched in April last year, it was certainly the king of selfie smartphones. However, with so many new opponents offering better, the phone has now gotten a bit outdated with its MediaTek Helio P10.

Review Score

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