Vivo V11 Pro first impressions: Big screen, good camera, promising hardware

The Vivo V11 Pro has been announced in the Indian market and the marquee feature of the device has to be the gorgeous ‘Halo FullView display’ (that’s what Vivo wants to call it) and also the in-display fingerprint sensor. This is the first time we are seeing an in-display fingerprint reader on a V-series smartphone. The device has been priced at Rs 25,990, making this the cheapest phone in India to have such a fingerprint sensor technology. I had only a few minutes with the device at the demo area and here are my first impressions. [caption id=“attachment_5131161” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”] Vivo V11 Pro. Image: tech2/Kshitij Pujari[/caption] Build and Design

Nothing makes a display more appealing than the lack of bezels around it and the V11 Pro delivers on that front. The waterdrop-like notch which was also a part of the **Oppo F9 Pro** seems to be the new design trend. Seeing the notch shrink to the bare minimum is quite good to see as it makes for a good viewing experience on the device.

The phone’s rear is made from glass while the front is covered by Gorilla Glass 5. There’s a dual-camera system aligned vertically and no physical fingerprint sensor on the back or the front. The small notch in the front has a front-facing camera along with a slit of an earpiece directly above it. [caption id=“attachment_5131141” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Vivo V11 Pro. Image: tech2/Kshitij Pujari[/caption] In all honesty, it is hard to discern the design differences and build quality of the V11 Pro from the Oppo F9 Pro. The former even has the two-tone gradient colour on the back like the F9 Pro. A full review will definitely shed more light on the subtle differences between these two devices. The **Poco F1** , in comparison to both the phones, looks very bland and distasteful to look at. Display As mentioned before, the Vivo V11 Pro has a Halo FullView Display and as per Vivo, it has a 91.26 percent screen-to-body ratio. Vivo has upgraded the IPS LCD display on the V9 to an AMOLED on the V11 Pro. While the massive 6.4-inch display is certainly very pleasing to look at, a review will show how good or bad it is. Chipset, RAM, and Storage The phone has a Snapdragon 660 SoC powering it, which is an upgrade from the Snapdragon 626 on the Vivo V9. The V11 Pro also increases the RAM to 6 GB and now has 64GB of internal storage, which can be expanded to 256 GB using a micro-SD card. I managed to open a few apps and tried switching between them and the experience was quite smooth. A full review should reveal the performance aspect of the device in greater detail. [caption id=“attachment_5131171” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Vivo V11 Pro.[/caption] Software and Battery The Vivo V11 Pro happens to run on Android 8.1 Oreo which is overlayed with Vivo’s custom ColorOS. While I’m certainly no fan of the custom skins running on top of Android and the unacceptable amount of bloatware they bring, it would seem that my initial impressions with it weren’t too bad. The UI seemed responsive and good and it looked more Android-like than iOS, which is a good sign. The phone has a 3,400 mAh Li-Po battery which has “Dual-Engine” fast charging capability, whatever that means. A review will show how long the phone will last and how fast it charges. Camera The selfie camera on the phone packs in a massive 25 MP sensor and that certainly didn’t disappoint. I’d have to say that Vivo looks to have considerably reduced the massive beautifying effects it applies on any photo clicked. The back camera has 12 MP + 5 MP setup with dual-pixel technology. I didn’t have time to take a lot of photos, but what I took looked crisp and sharp, given the absence of proper lighting. More on that in the full review. [caption id=“attachment_5131191” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Vivo V11 Pro. Image: tech2/Kshitij Pujari[/caption] Verdict My fleeting impressions about the V11 Pro is that it is quite similar to the F9 Pro, minus the fingerprint grooves on the back that the latter has. The camera looks good, the Snapdragon 660 chipset should make for a smooth experience and the phone also has some kind of IR face recognition tech which I didn’t get to test. As of now, this looks like a promising device, but with the POCO F1 looming large over everything in the Rs 20,000 price bracket, Vivo had better have come up with something special.