Vivo V15 Review
Recently, Vivo wants to make its mark by bringing new features to the mid-range segment, from high-range smartphones. The company's latest offering - VivoV15 - brings innovative pop-up selfie cameras to even lower brackets.
Table Of Content
On paper, the Vivo V15 appears to be a solid device with an attractive design, three rear camera, a large battery, fast charging, and a high-resolution 32-megapixel front camera.
HIGHLIGHTS
- The Vivo V15 is powered by the octa-core MediaTek Helio P70 SoC
- The new Vivo smartphone runs FunTouch OS 9 based on Android Pie
- Vivo V15 features triple rear cameras and a 32-megapixel selfie camera
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| Vivo V15 is powered by the octa-core MediaTek Helio P70 SoC |
Vivo V15 is certainly not a tough task to face the fierce competition from Samsung as well as price-for-money champions like Xiaomi and Asus, a Behemoth, whose new Galaxy M-Series and A-Series smartphone waves Are making. Now in the market.
Can Vivo V15, get out of the shadow of its Pro Sibling and emerge as a truly capable smartphone in its price bracket? Can this justify the rupee's asking price? 23,990 and wow potential buyers? Let's learn in our extensive review of VIVO V15.
Vivo V15 design
VivoV15 is a bit bigger than Vivo V15 Pro, but there is a similar design. At 161.97 × 75.93 × 8.54 mm, it is not the smallest device there, and it suggests a scale of 189.5 grams. To reach the touch control at the top of the screen, it will need a little stretch.Curved edges give this phone a comfortable in-hand feel, but the rear panel can be easily scanned. Within a few days of use, we noticed that there were small scratches on the bottom and sides of the back panel. The finish is also quite shiny and easily raises fingerprint marks and smoothing.
There are three color options - Royal Blue, Frozen Black and Glamor Red. We have a Glam Red Edition for review and its gradient pattern is with shifting between Magenta's deep shadow and deep maroon, with lower dots of bright silver in it.
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| The Vivo V15 flaunts a gradient texture and comes in three colour options |
The gradient finishes all the way in this frame of the phone for an equal look. This is not top-bottom color shift effect in the frozen black variant.
Whether it was not for their different color schemes, it would be impossible to explain V15 through V15 Pro. This equality is not necessarily a bad thing, because VivoV15 inherited the solid build quality of its Pro Sibling.
Beginning with its look, Vivo V15 finishes a gradient on the rear panel - spectrum ripple design in the company's Lingo. Although Vivo uses the same description for both models, but the gradient texture on Vivo V15 lacks a wave-like microphot pattern which makes Vivo V15 Pro out.
For build quality, the rear panel of Vivo V15 is made from polycarbonate and similarly there is a curved strip frame around the edges. The device feels solid, and we did not see any flex on the strength of the rear panel.
Fingerprint sensor position is convenient. The huge camera bump is an eye-opener because it stands prominently. The pop-up module for front camera corresponds to rear cameras, how it is similar to Vivo V15 Pro.
The Motorized Selfie Camera module pops inside and out smoothly within a second. It is left to see how the system will hold after the extended use, so we would recommend taking some precautions while using it.
On the right side is the place where the power button and volume buttons are located. They are easily deployed and provide satisfactory touch feedback, although the volume buttons are slightly rigid.
A 'smart button' is located on the left side, and it can be customized to trigger Google search or activate a Google search with a press.
Double-press and long-press actions trigger triggers such as launching the image-recognition tool and opening the Google Assistant Visual Snapshot page. These shortcuts can be customized according to users' choice.
On top it has two nano-SIM cards and a tray for a MicroSD card. Thankfully, this is not a hybrid tray, which means that you do not have to discard dual-SIM functionality in favor of more storage.
Micro-USB ports, 3.5mm headphone jacks, a microphone, and speakers are located at the bottom. There is a cutout for another microphone and pop-up camera module at the top.
The front is almost completely captured by the 6.53-inch ultra-flower-in-cell full-HD + (1080 × 2340 pixels) display. According to Vivo, this phone has a 90.95 percent screen-to-body ratio and it is covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 5.
Excluding chin in the lower part, Bezal is very much non-existent for almost all screen designs. The earpiece is located at the top in the center.
In addition to the Viva V15 unit, the box includes a micro-USB cable, a 18W charger, a hard silicon case, a headset, a sim ejector tool and some paperwork.
Vivo V15 specifications and features
Vivo V15 has an interesting mix of hardware. As mentioned above, it packs a 6.53-inch ultra-fullview in-cell full-HD + display (1080 × 2340 pixels). |
| The Vivo V15 runs FunTouch OS 9 based on Android 9 Pie |
We have a favorite AMOLED panel like Vivo V15 Pro, especially considering that the Samsung Galaxy A50 A 19,990 (review) and the Galaxy A30, 7 16,780 (review) are super AMOLED even though the price of both is very low.
The VivoV15 Octa-Core MediaTek is powered by the Helio P70 SOC which has been seen at 2.1 GHz, with four ARM Cortex-A73 cores and four other four-powered Cortex-A53 Corps to lift all heavy loads.
While this is a very capable processor, the Viva V15 price tag warrant is some beef. For reference, Realme 3, 10,888 (review) packs the same MediaTek Helio P70 processor, but almost one-third of Vivo V15 is asking price.
With this SoC, you get 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, which can be increased to 256GB using MicroSD card. Vivo V15 is available in single configuration and is priced at Rs. 23,990
In addition to its eye catching aesthetics, the highlight of the Vivo V15 Pro is its imaging hardware, especially its 32-megapixel f / 2.0 selfie shooter, which is similar to the Vivo V15 Pro.
There is a main 12-megapixel camera in the rear setup, with 1 / 2.8-inch sensor and f / 1.78 aperture. It has an 8-megapixel wide-angle camera with f / 2.2 aperture.
It has been described as a 120-degree field scene, however, it actually captures 108-degree wide shots after factoring in lens distortion. There is also a 5-megapixel depth sensor with F / 2.4 aperture.
For connectivity, you get 4G VoLTE, Bluetooth 4.2, a micro-USB port with OTG support, GPS / A-GPS and 3.5mm headphone jacks. The battery is a unit of 4,000mAh and this phone supports Vivo's dual-engine fast charging.
The use of a micro-USB port on Vivo V15 is surprising, as well as disappointing, because even the phones which have a low cost, have already embraced the USB Type-C standard.
Vivo V15 Pro's in-display fingerprint sensor does not make it a more affordable model, and therefore there is a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor on Vivo V15.
In the software side, Vivo V15 runs FunTouch OS 9 based on Android 9 Pie, and our review unit had Jan Safety Patch. If you are coming from stock Android, then there is a learning curve, especially when it comes to finding what you are seeing in the Settings app.
There is no app drawer, so you have to swipe on your home screen to see all your apps. Swiping right on the first home screen will open a Smart Launcher where you can find Task Cards, To-Do lists, App Shortcuts and News Headlines for the weather.
There is a universal search bar that can be used to find an app, jump into system settings, or do a quick web search.
The Vivo V15 comes with a ton of apps that are already installed, which includes in-house and third-party such as songs, Facebook, Chatm, Newson, UC Browser and PhonePoint. FunTouch OS 9 also has some of its cleanest features.
For example, the Message Screen Segmentation feature shows incoming message notifications as floating bubbles, which you can tap to open the message immediately in a split screen view for multitasking.
Smart NIFT, Smart Mirroring and Smart Motion are the host of other nifty features. There are also two power saving modes in the Function OS 9. "Low power mode" optimizes CPU and GPU speed, automatically reduces the brightness of the screen, disables Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and takes other measures like this to reduce the power usage.
Is "Extreme power-saving mode" closes all activities and apps except phones, messages, contacts, and watches. You can read about the FunTouch OS 9 in more detail in our Vivo V15 Pro review.
Vivo V15 performance, cameras, and battery life
Before we engross in Vivo V15's performance, talk about performance. Unlike super AMOLED panels on Vivo V15 Pro, Vivo V15 has a 6.53 inch in-cell LCD display, but the resolution is at 1080 × 2340 pixels. |
| The Vivo V15 comes equipped with a 32-megapixel pop-up selfie camera |
The color is good production and the text looks crisp on it. The viewing angles are decent with minimum color changes when viewed from different angles.
Thanks to all the screen designs of this phone, playing games and watching full-HD 60 FPS videos was enjoyable. The default color profile of Vivo V15 is slightly cooler, but you can tweak the color temperature according to your choice.
There is also an option to adjust the color tone to reduce eye fatigue, which can be either manually activated or scheduled.
While the full-screen design looks good, the rounded corners are meant to hide some screen content, especially in those apps that do not support scaling.
You can either live with it or disable full-screen scaling based on per-app, but by doing this, ugly black bars will be added on each side while watching the video and in landscape mode.
Vivo V15's display could also have been better in terms of brightness. There is no problem using the device inside the house, but the ease of the sun was not as good as we would expect. The videos and photos looked dull, even glow cranked up to 100 percent of all points.
Another disappointment is the lack of Videvin L1 authentication, something that was missing from VivoV15 Pro too. This means that you will not be able to stream HD video to Netflix or Amazon. It's too low for a phone's price. 20,000
We found MediaTek Helio P70 a capable processor. In our day-to-day use, we have not come to any reduction. The normal social media and productivity app was quick to launch, and switching between them was also easy. 6GB RAM definitely helps in running many applications in the background.
Coming to Vivo V15's performance in synthetic benchmark, AnTuTu scored 1,46,753. It was successful in achieving 1,511 and 5767 points respectively in single-core and multi-core trials of Geekbench.
For more graphic-intensive tests, 35fps was conducted in the latest Vivo smartphone GFXBench T-Rex test and placed 11fps in the GFXBench Manhattan 3.1 test.
These scores are similar to the Oppo F11 Pro, which is not surprising because both smartphones are powered by the same processor and have the same amount of RAM.
However, gaming performance was not as effective. We tested Vivo V15's gaming chops with PUBG Mobile, Asphalt 9: Legends and Modern Combat 5. PUBG Mobile was set by default with Medium Frame Rate and Balanced Graphics in Medium Presets.
While the experience was mostly comfortable, we had to deal with sporadic intervals and stutters. Asphalt 9: Legends were running without any issues, but amplifying High to the visual quality was full of frame drops and stunts.
FunTouch OS 9 has a feature named Game Cube, which claims to enhance the in-game experience, but we did not see any noticeable gameplay improvements before or after adding a title to the game cube list.
Is another gaming-focused feature game assistant, who claims to optimize the CPU and RAM for better experience, and provides instant access buttons for blocking notifications and controlling call behavior.
Is an escort mode that allows users to close background apps and block notifications while playing games and disable touch gestures by accidentally preventing notification shades from opening.
There is also an option called "Smart Temperature Rising Strategy", which, despite being active, keeps the performance stable despite generating additional heat.
A noticeable lapse is the lack of face recognition. Both the Vivo V15 and Vivo V15 Pro feature 32-megapixel selfie cameras placed in both motor-driven pop-up modules, but later support recognizing face, while previously unnecessarily missed.
A Vivo spokesman confirmed with Review Techie that VIVO 15 does not support this security feature, and there is no word on whether or not it can be enabled with a software update in the future. On the other hand, the fingerprint sensor is impressive and unlocks the device in less than a second.
For camera display, Vivo V15 proved to be quite capable. Camera UI is literally the same as VivoV15 Pro. Shortcut for Document Scanning Mode, Pro Mode, AI Beauty, and AR Sticker are given below, while wide-angle mode.
Control for scene selection and portrait mode are arranged above the shutter button. At the top, a setting section can get control for portrait light effects, live photos and HDR modes.
The 12-megapixel main camera gives 1.28-micron pixels with 1 / 1.28 inch sensor and aperture value of F / 1.78. Vivo claims that the main camera has 24 million photosynthetic units and uses dual pixel focusing techniques to give brighter photos with high clarity. The images captured by Vivo V15, in fact, came out quite wide, which showcases punch colors and admirable surface details.
Vivo V15 really shines when it comes to macro shots. Topics with rich color profiles were captured with great detail. Shades went live, the gradient was decent, and surface traits such as ridges were different when they were zoomed in.
Even though the close-up shots captured by Radmi Note 7 Pro, are better, which can be captured by VivoV15. Hold their own Daylight shots also became crisp with good dynamic range and sharpness.
There are some drawbacks too. We saw colored bleeding sometimes with macros in the macro shots, especially if the object in the focus was bright colored. In addition, photos of the daylight display a little silent and washed colors, especially captured under strict lighting.
Users may miss a particularly special night mode. The shots we showed in low light showed granular texture and a lot of noise in them. HDR mode tries to make it with high saturation and contrast, but it softens the details. In comparison, the Redmi Note 7 Pro Review worked much better in maintaining details and bringing out colors.
For portrait shots, they came out well, with good depth. We liked the ability to adjust the strength of the blur effect before and after taking the photo. Vivo V15's camera locking focus and detection work well, but edge detection can be better.
We often found the extreme of an object when accidentally increased when the intensity of the effect increased. Especially the blurred effect with complex subjects like vines turned out to be particularly uneven.
A dedicated Wide-Angle camera is definitely a clear advantage of Vivo V15, which helps users capture detailed panoramas. Thankfully, we did not see any barrel distortion like we did with some Wide-angle shots captured by V15 Pro.
Instead, we found that the objects look a bit flat, as if they tilt inwards. It was only worth mentioning with items that had a sharp outline.
Video recording resolution is maximized on full-HD with fixed frame rate for maximum 30fps. It is a little disappointing that VivoV15 can not shoot 4K or full-HD 60 FPS video.
The recording becomes decent, but the lack of stabilization on this phone means that there is a lot of shaking and vibrance in the video. Slo-mo video is also on the recording table, which has a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at 30fps.
32 megapixel front camera removes the shortcomings of the rear cameras to some extent. The selfie captured by the front camera had impressive amounts of good color reproduction and sharpness.
Edge Detection was also quite accurate, and studio lighting effects help you to make shots-social-media-ready with the help of adding filters and color effects.
AI Beauty Mode provides a ton of beautification options such as skin smoothing, skin lightning, jolton slimming and eye surge. There are also full-body beautification tools that work like reducing the waist and keeping the feet slim and long.
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| The Vivo V15 can shoot slo-mo videos, but it is incapable of 4K video capture |
While facial beautification works according to the filter promise, they change the color profile of the whole image. For example, the skin lightning filter ups up the ISO which affects the entire frame.
Battery display is an area where VivoV15 rises above its pro sibling. The 4,000mAh battery lasted a day of easy use. During our regular use - which was connected to the Wi-Fi network all day, listening to music with wireless headphones for at least a few hours
About an hour of gaming and some calls using the social media and productivity app - In VivoV15, still around 30-35 percent of the charge was left at the end of the day. In our HD video loop.
Verdict
The Vivo V15 impressed us with its long battery life, beautiful design, solid build quality, and a capable front camera. However, it has its fair share of shortcomings too.
It is still stuck with a Micro-USB port, can't stream HD videos from services like Netflix, and its UI needs some refinement. Moreover, low-light photography is sub-par for a phone at this price.
Unfortunately for Vivo, its competition has more to offer at significantly lower price points. The Redmi Note 7 Pro (Review) has a more powerful processor, better rear cameras, larger battery, USB Type-C port, impressive build quality, and more for Rs. 13,999.
Even the Realme 3 (Review), starting at just Rs. 8,999, is powered by the same processor as the Vivo V15, and is a good budget offering.
The Vivo V15 also faces stiff competition from the Samsung Galaxy A50 (Review) which flaunts an eye-catching design, a beautiful Super AMOLED display, triple rear cameras, and an in-display fingerprint sensor.
Then there is the Oppo F11 Pro (Review), which offers similar specifications including a pop-up front camera, but better camera performance, for a slightly higher asking price.
The Poco F1 ₹ 20,630 (Review) and Asus ZenFone 5Z (Review) also offer flagship-level specifications at around the same price point.
To round things up, the Vivo V15 has a few things going for it but it goes up against numerous competitors that offer more bang for the buck. Even if you really like the idea of a pop-up camera, you can get much better hardware and overall performance elsewhere.
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