Vivo Y27L review: Smartphone packs in some cool features, but appears a bit overpriced

Vivo is the latest Chinese vendor to enter the fierce Indian mobile market and has been quick at launching a range of devices here. In September, it launched the Y series in India with Y27L, Y31 and Y15S priced between Rs 6,000 and Rs 13,000. The higher-end model Y27L in this price bracket at Rs 12,980 has reached our labs and here’s what we think about it. Design and build: 7/10 The Vivo Y27L can easily termed as ‘good looking’. The Silver unit we received looks quite classy. Its a blend of silver and white. The bezel space above and below the 4.7-inch display is white. The rear side is similar in terms of sporting the two-toned look with the silver metallic non-removable rear flap and white strips above and below it. You’ll also find the rear camera and LED flash fitted on the upper left side and speaker grills on lower end.  On the front side, you will find Vivo etched on the upper left side while three touch buttons will be seen on the lower side. Then there’s the front-facing camera and earpiece.  The power button and volume rocker are on the right edge, SIM slot on the left edge, microSD card slot and audio jack on the upper edge. The lower edge comes fitted with a microUSB port.  It’s slim at 6.99mm with a metallic back cover, and the rest is plastic. However, it doesn’t look plasticky or cheap. The unit we received already had too many scratches on the screen , pointing towards the need of a screen saver as soon a you buy it.  Features: 6/10 Vivo’s Y27L comes powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 64-bit quad-core processor, coupled with 1GB of RAM. It is disheartening, as there are many phones carrying lower price tags but come with 2GB RAM.  On the storage front,  we received the 16GB model (out of which roughly 9GB is available to user) with expandable storage up to 128GB via microSD card slot. It’s a dual SIM phone, and you will be glad to know that unlike some phones these days, the dual SIM ability doesn’t leave you short changed for expandable memory.  It runs FunTouch OS 2.0 based on rather older Android 4.4.2.  On the camera front, it gets 8MP rear snapper and a 5MP front-facing camera. For audio, it comes integrated with a Hi-Fi chipset DAC AK4375. Finally, a 2260mAh battery fuels the device, along with support for Battery Stamina mode. Software: 8/10 The Vivo’s FunTouch 2.O OS gives the device a refreshing touch. The user interface gets a flat look and comes with some really cool features. Firstly, it looks bright with colourful icons. The notifications can be viewed by swiping the screen downwards. However, just swipe upwards from the touch button onto the screen, and a series of shortcuts will appear to choose from. Swiping from downwards will show you the recently used apps, display brightness control along with access to Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, Airplane mode, Power saving, vibration and so on. Tap on the three-dots and the shortcuts will appear on the display.  It comes pre-installed with several apps such as Lock, File manager, Shareit, WeChat and more. The company also adds some of its proprietary apps such as Vivo Cloud (you need to set up an account to save contacts and other content), iMusic, iManager and iTheme. The iTheme lets you choose from several themes for your device available online such as Candy colour, Monstor Android and more, and you need to download them. Then there’s iManager with options such as Phone clean to clear the RAM and cache with a single tap, Data monitor to set a data limit and keep a tab on it, App manager, power manager to opt for extreme performance, saving mode and so on. It also offers a shortcut to set a passcode/pattern for the device. FunTouch 2.0 also has its own anti-virus, which is probably missing in the Indian version, at least we couldn’t spot it. Another interesting feature  is S Capture that lets you go beyond mere screenshots. The S Capture gives you options such as Long screenshot, Screen recording, funny screenshot and rectangular screenshot. With long screenshots you can capture an entire page, even the part not visible on the screen. The funny screenshot option lets you select a part of the screen in any shape and then doodle on it with various colours. You can take screen grabs in rectangular shape and also record a screenshot.  You will also find the audio interface quite interesting with a widget in the form of a circular bubble that appears even on the locked screen. The bubble will show the graphics of the music, if any, and you can browse and play songs easily. You can even set a timer for songs, but song recommendations depending upon the mood seems missing. Vivo’s FunTouch is true to its name and has created some really smart touch gestures. Smart motion is the feature to look out for. It includes Smart Wake with a list of shortcuts. Slide upwards to unlock the device, draw c or e to wake dialer, r to go to browser and more. You can try them on a locked screen, and once you unlock, the screen will directly take you to the specific function. These gestures worked wonderfully, we must say.  For privacy, Vivo Y27L comes with the Visitor mode, which the company also calls the Guard mode in China. This mode lets you set another password pattern apart from the usual. Once you unlock the device with the visitor passcode, others wont be able to view your contacts, albums, videos and whatever you don’t want them to view. Well, it doesn’t end here. Vivo Y27L also comes with some cool ‘Smart Call’ functions such as if you are on a conversation thread or a specific contact name in the dialer list or likewise, just hold the phone closer to your ear and it will automatically call up that number. Smart mute will let you mute a call just by placing your hand on the screen and covering it. If you’ve opted for swipe to unlock, the ‘Air Unlock’ feature lets you unlock the device just by sliding your hand above the display. There are ‘Smart Light’ options too, and most interesting is that the screen will light up when you pull out the device from your pocket. You can even turn on flashlight by simply shaking the phone. However, if you are using most or all these features, do expect slightly more battery drain. Then there’s Smart Remind that will remind you about missed calls and unread messages each time you pick the phone.  A super power mode has been included, but that will restrict your usage to only phone, messages, contacts and clock. Display: 6.5/10 The Vivo Y27L comes with a 4.7-inch display with 65.3 percent screen-to-body ratio. The 720 x 1280 pixels of resolution means the pixel density goes up to 312ppi. While Vivo has not gone with a 5-inch display which we are beginning to see commonly in this price range, it does bring a decent screen experience. You won’t be complaining about the quality as the screen reproduces vivid and bright colours. The viewing angles are good and we didn’t face any issues using it in direct sunlight too. [caption id=“attachment_290701” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  Screen grab of a 720p video[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_290702” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  Screen grab of a 1080p video[/caption] Performance: 6.5/10 Starting with the most basic functionality, the call quality is good and the dialer app is easy to use. While browsing we could open several tabs, though moderately quick to load, we did notice some lag at times. It played stutter-free videos, but the device did start warming up mildly when watching 1080p videos saved on the device as well as when streaming content. The Vivo Y27L did let us multitask to some extent with browsing, social media and music, but it wasn’t a very smooth experience. [caption id=“attachment_290723” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  From L to R: AnTuTu: 20899; Quadrant: 11574; Geekbench 3: 471 (single core), 1389 (multiple core)[/caption] Switching between apps wasn’t speedy and 1GB RAM may not really be enough to handle all these apps. We did play some casual games effortlessly. These were really light and fun games, and the device could handle them well. The device comes with a Hi-Fi chip, but the audio isn’t really loud to fill a medium-sized room. Below are some more test results and it should be noted that the GFX benchmark gave us only the low-level tests. If you take a look at the scores, it lags behind the Moto G  that comes at a similar price tag and almost at par with the Yuphoria  priced at Rs 6,999. [caption id=“attachment_290762” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  From L to R: 3D Mark Ice Storm Unlimited: 4367; 3D Mark Ice Storm Extreme: 2650; GFX Benchmark: 6.4FPS[/caption] Camera: 7/10 The Vivo Y27L comes armed with an 8MP rear snapper and a 5MP front-facing camera. The images in bright light look good, but the snapper wasn’t able to capture minute details. Low light photography was quite noisy. The front camera did a decent job with selfies. Coming to the camera app, the interface is neat and simple. The three dots on the upper right side will take you different modes such as - Night, Face Beauty, HDR, Bokeh, Night, Panorama and PPT. It offers beauty enhancing options and also filters such as vintage, film, and others. There are artistic options to turn your photo into a classic sketch, a canvas look and so on. One interesting feature is Bokeh that will let you focus on the subject by blurring the surrounding area. Please note: Click on the images to see the high resolution uncompressed images Battery life: 8/10 Vivo has fitted the device with a  2260mAh battery. The PCMark test gave us a good battery result of 8 hours 37 minutes. We used it with a single 3G SIM and with 3G data, social media, music and some web surfing, it easily squeezed through a day.  Verdict and Price in India The Vivo Y27L is a good looking device with a decent display, cool features, camera and 4G ability. However, at Rs 12,980, the specs do not justify the price tag. There are many phones similarly or better speced devices priced under Rs 10,000 such as the Yu Yureka Plus, Lenovo K3 Note, Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G, Asus Zenfone 2 Laser, to name a few. On the other hand, Vivo has put in a lot of thought when it comes to the FunTouch OS. It is packed with features that will appeal to younger audiences. The Vivo Y27L has a fair share of pros and cons at the price point. A price point under Rs 10,000 could certainly make it more appealing.