Vivo V5 first impressions: Has the makings of a perfect selfie smartphone

Vivo thanks to its good marketing strategy is now a well-known brand in India. Although it’s another Chinese smartphone maker, Vivo has some accolades that it can brag about. While selfie smartphone buzz may be long dead, manufacturers are still gunning for the perfect selfie smartphone that appeals to the youth. With that said, the Vivo V5 is here to achieve just that, click the perfect selfie. But at a launch price of Rs 17,980 it does sound a bit pricey. Build and Design  The phone does not feature a revolutionary design, but it is pretty slender considering that it packs in a 20MP front facing sensor. It features a unibody design that is made of metal with rounded edges and a rounded 2.5D screen that’s made of Gorilla Glass 3. However, the front glass was a fingerprint magnet.  I got hold of the Crown Gold version of the device after the event and the construction quality of the device was up to the mark. With a 5.5-inch screen, the device is quite large but did not feel too heavy at 154 grams.   The left side consists of the dual SIM card slots, while the right side features the volume rocker and power buttons. The speaker and standard micro USB port sit at the bottom. Display The HD display was pretty large. So I did expect it to be horrible when the HD resolution was spread out on a 5.5-inch screen. But upon inspection, I did not showcase as much pixellation as I expected it to. Also, it did not dim out under the bright spotlights which makes for a good initial impression. Viewing angles were good but Vivo should have gone in for a Full HD display considering the high price tag. Chipset, RAM and Storage While rumours pointed to a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 chipset clocked at 1.8GHz, Vivo at the event did not reveal any details about the same. From what we know, it is a same Mediatek 6750 chipset from the Oppo F1s. The device packs in 4GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage which can be expanded up to 128GB using a microSD card slot. With a price set over the Rs 15,000 bracket, many will expect the V5 to pack  in a proper mid-range processor and nothing else. Let’s hope that Vivo confirms the same before the roll out which would give it plenty of brownie points. OS and Software Being a Chinese smartphone maker, I did not expect much from the software apart from the usual heavy skinning that we have all grown used to. With Android 6.0 as the base, Vivo’s Funtouch OS 2.6 keeps things refreshed, but those coming from a pure Google (Nexus-like) experience will find the Settings menu thoroughly confusing.  One things that I did not notice on this smartphone was lag. No matter how many apps I opened up, the processor and software provided a buttery smooth experience. Camera There is a 20MP camera on the front and a 13MP unit with Phase Detection AutoFocus (PDAF) at the rear. The front facing unit uses a 1/2.78 inch Sony IMX376 sensor with an f/2.0 aperture to deliver detailed selfies. This along with the special Moonlight Selfie flash is supposed to deliver a soft flash that should mimic professional lighting set ups.  Since the focus is on the camera, there are plenty of modes to choose from. The rear camera packs in Face Beauty, Panorama, HDR, Night, Ultra HD, PPT, Motion Track, Professional, Slow, Fast, Voice Shutter, Touch Capture, Palm, Timer, Gender Detection, Filter, Watermark modes. The front-facing selfie camera features Ultra HD, Night, Voice Shutter, Touch Capture, Palm, Timer, Gender Detection, Filter, Watermark. Connectivity, Battery  The Vivo V5 features a Hybrid Dual SIM (micro + nano/microSD) set up with support for 4G LTE bands. As for the regular connectivity options, it features WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS + GLONASS and also includes a regular micro USB port with USB OTG support. All of the above is powered by a 3,000mAh battery.

Conclusion In a sea of selfie smartphones from both local and international brands, we will need to do some extensive testing to check whether Vivo’s claims of the perfect selfie shooting smartphone are genuine. It offers an extensive feature set and the right hardware along with right software, but falls short when it comes the lack of the Full HD display, standard charging with a standard microUSB port and much more. Should you buy one? Check back for our full review to see whether the price tag justifies its feature set.