Vivo has just strengthened its selfie-focused V series with the addition of Vivo V5s smartphone. The device comes with a price tag of Rs 18,990 and will be available in Crown Gold and Matte Black colour variants. The latest smartphones banks heavily on the selfie camera which comes loaded with a 20-megapixel sensor. But will it be enough to make a long-lasting impression on the customers? We got the chance to use for a while and here is our first impressions.
Design and Display
Vivo has played it safe when it comes to design language there are no noticeable changes in it. The device looks a tad similar to its elder sibling, the V5 Plus, which again resembles a lot to the Apple iPhone 7. The U-Type Antenna lines running across top and bottom of the rear panel is similar to what we have seen in iPhone 7. But that’s not a bad thing, as the list is pretty long when it comes Apple doppelgangers. That said, the device sports a unibody design with the metal finish (and not a real metal) and is pretty lightweight when you hold it with just 154 grams of weight.
The front features some narrow side bezels coupled with 2.5d curved glass protection, which surely gives a premium look. We typically liked the black edition, which gives a sturdy look and the device is just 7.55mm thick making one of the sleekest options available in the market. There is a home button at the base, which also acts as a fingerprint sensor, while at the top you will the selfie camera along with moonlight flash and earpiece. The right houses volume controls and power on/off button, while the left is bare. At the bottom, you will find 3.5mm Audio Jack coupled with microUSB port and speaker grille.
At the back, there is a primary camera along with LED flash and at the centre, you will company’s logo. Overall, the device looks identical, but the black colour variant is an eye grabber.
Coming to the display, the device sports a 5.5-inch HD screen with a screen Resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. At a time when all the other manufacturers are providing Full HD display, Vivo is still stuck with an HD screen, which is quite disappointing. However, the screen looks sharp and well-lit during our brief testing period and we hope it would a good job during our testing period.
Hardware and Software
On the hardware front, the smartphone is powered by an octa-core MediaTek MT6750 Processor clocked at 1.5GHz along with Mali T860 GPU. It comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal memory, which can be further expandable up to 256GB via microSD card. That said, the specifications look promising, though there smartphones vendors like Xiaomi and Motorola, who are offering a much better specs sheet in terms of processor and similar RAM and storage option at a lower price point. It would be interesting to see who well does it perform or will it be able to compete with the competitors in our detailed review.
Vivo V5s runs on an older version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow with company’s own FunTouch OS 3.0 running on top of it. Again, on one hand, many manufacturers are giving the latest flavour of Android 7.0 Nougat, on the other, Vivo is still not ready to give up on Marshmallow. The user interface is quite different from what you have seen in other devices and the company has added new features like smart screen-split, App clone and more. The user interface has its hits and misses and we will be discussing it thoroughly in our review, so keep a tab on this space.
Camera
The major highlight of the smartphone is the 20-megapixel front-facing camera with Aperture f/2.0 and Moonlight Flash for taking better selfies in the dark. The front camera comes with Face Beauty 6.0, a feature which is omnipresent in most of the smartphones these days. Then you have a group selfie option, where you take wide photos by moving the device while clicking a selfie, just like you do when you take a panorama shot from the rear camera. For the rear, you have a 13-megapixel shooter with PDAF and LED flash. During our testing period, we found out the camera do take some good selfies, however, it would be interesting to the overall performance of the camera in different lighting situations.
Battery and Connectivity
On the battery front, the smartphone is backed by a 3000mAh battery and support connectivity options like 4G LTE, WiFi (802.11 b/g/n), Bluetooth 4.0, GPS/GLONASS, OTG support, a microUSB port, Accelerometer, Light sensor, Digital compass.
The company has always talked camera and music. For music, the company has added Hi-Fi audio system with an AK4376 Hi-Fi audio chip, which the company boasts will enhance the music experience.