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Published on March 18th, 2019 | by Abdullah Sulehri

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Vivo V15 Review

Vivo is a Chinese brand known for its innovation and best value smartphones. They recently launched V15 and V15 pro in Pakistani market. Telecompk.net received a Vivo V15 smartphone for review, Let’s start with the unboxing of V15.

Unboxing

You will find following items in the Vivo V15 box:

Build & Design

Vivo has released two colours of V15 in Pakistan Topaz Blue and Glamour Red, I received the blue one and it looked quite elegant. It’s blue back has darker shades at the upper and lower part and lighter in the middle. There is a beautiful subtle dotted pattern forming a Spectrum Ripple Design on its back which gives a waves like impression. It has a camera bump on the left side of its back, it features 3 AI cameras with a LED flash.

V15 has a plastic back but the material seems to be sturdy and fortunately gives a premium feel in hand. It has an elegant design with embossed Spectrum Ripple Design. It’s not as good as a glass back but you can expect better at this price range. Its body is a fingerprint magnet so it can be annoying to use it without back cover. There is also no wireless charging support available and no waterproofing.

The finger print scanner is featured at the back of phone, Micro USB port is placed at the bottom along with the 3.5 mm jack. Volume rocker is at right side which took me some time to get used to. Power button is just below the Volume Rocker. There is a dedicated button for Google assistant on the left side.

Screen

One of its significant features is its Ultra Full-View Display. Its marvelous Ultra Full-View Display with round corners and no notch is an eye-candy for the users. I loved playing games and watching videos on its magnificent bezel-less screen. It has an impressive 90.95% screen-to-body ratio, 6.53-inch and 1080 × 2340 screen resolution with Corning Gorilla Glass 5^th Generation protection. The screen is bright enough for outdoor use in sunlight.

Camera

Front Camera

The Elevating Camera

Vivo has successfully resolved the dilemma of placing selfie camera without compromising on body to screen ratio. They have introduced an out-of-the box solution by using an elevating 32 MP front camera which takes stunning selfies. The camera module pops-up mechanically when you turn on the front camera from mobile app and moves back instantly by itself as soon as you close, it also moves back if pressure is applied on camera module from the top.

Durability

The obvious concern of most of the potential
customers is regarding the fragility of the elevating front camera. Vivo claims
that they have tested the elevation 300,000 time, it works fine even after so
much use. For elaboration if you use camera 100 times daily for 8 years it will
be approximately 300,000 time. Regarding its endurance, it can endure up-to 15KG
of pressure according to the manufacturers. I hope it survives well.

Features

AI Face Beauty mode identifies your gender and helps slimming your face and altering your facial features making your selfies better and your skin smoother. There is a wide range of portrait lighting effects adding an alluringly artistic touch to the pictures. Live Photo feature is available on the front camera. AR Stickers are also available which recognize your face and add various stickers to it.

Following are the screen modes HDR, Face Beauty, Panorama, Live Photo, Filters, Palm Capture, Voice Control, Portrait Bokeh, Bokeh Mode

Primary Camera

Specifications

Vivo V15 Primary camera has spectacular specifications. It has a 12 MP back camera with 24 million photosensitive units and Dual Pixel Focusing which enables you to capture every moment instantly. It has 1.28μm pixel size and f/1.78 aperture which ensures high quality and bright pictures. The 5 MP sensor ensures the pefect Bokeh effect.

Features

Vivo V15 camera has some really useful features which can even replace a few essential 3^rd party applications. Following are the Scene Modes available in rear camera: HDR, Professional, Face Beauty, Slow, Time Lapse, Panorama, PDAF, Live Photos, Filters, Palm Capture, Voice Control, Bokeh, AI Body Shaping, Wide-Angle Photo, 60fps, AI Super Wide-Angle Camera

Performance

The camera has a really great result, the larger pixel size ensures better pictures in low light conditions. The Bokeh effect also works well but obviously, it has its limitations. You can select to blur foreground or background after capturing the picture which is quite interesting. I am not a fan of the AI Mode as its performance is not consistent, in some scenarios it performs really well but fails in others. Overall I am impressed with the camera results.

Super-Wide-Angle
Camera

Vivo V15 is equipped with an 8MP AI Super-Wide-Angle Camera which expands your view to 120 degrees (108° after accounting for distortion). It enables you to include a greater number of people in your shots and capturing wider landscapes. The items at edges of the picture get a little de-shaped due to the Fish Eye Effect.

Performance

V15 has a 2.1GHz octa-core processor, with 6GB RAM and 64GB storage. It features Android 9.0 and Funtouch OS 9.0 to optimize energy management and smooth user experience. With its wonderful specifications, multitasking is not an issue at all. It never got stuck at any point during my use.

Gaming

Smartphone gaming is becoming selling point of many smartphones, many games require phones with extra ordinary performance to run smoothly.   

V15 has Game Mode 5.0 allocates system resources that prioritize your game’s performance. When it comes to speed, Dual-Turbo is the lightning-fast feature gamers need. It both increases smooth gameplay and reduces frame-drop by 300%, giving you the most enjoyable gaming adventure imaginable.

I have tested some of the most demanding games on this smartphone and I was really impressed by its flawless performance. V15 was able to play graphically demanding games like Shadowgun Legends, PUBG & Asphalt 9 without any problem.

Battery

V15 is equipped with a huge 4,000mAh battery and supports Vivo’s Dual-Engine Fast Charging. V15 re-juices quicker than ever. Vivo claims it to be safer too, with nine different safety technologies protecting both your battery and the charging process. I tried using Samsung’s Adaptive Fast charger with it and to my surprise it too supports Dual-Engine Fast Charging. The battery can last for 1.5 to 2 days depending on intensity of use.

User Interface

Overall the user-interface is smooth and seems to be highly inspired by iOS. The quick toggles can be accessed by swiping up from the bottom of screen. Swiping down from the top will only show notification bar and application search bar. Unfortunately, there is no app drawer, this is what I really missed while using this smartphone. Gesture based navigation is also available but it does not allow you to switch back to previous app which is sometimes pretty annoying. Easy touch button is also an iOS adaptation which is available on every screen and allows you to access your favourite apps from any screen.

Verdict

V15 is a powerful device with an impressive feature mix. The price tag of the product is totally justified by its features.

Pros

• Powerful Cameras
• Ultra Full-View Display
• Huge Battery
• Great Performance
• Value for money

Cons

• Camera Bump on back
• Can be fragile

Tags: OPPO, Selfie, Selfie camera, smartphone, V15, vivo, Vivo V15

About the Author

Abdullah Sulehri is a Chartered Certified Accountant by profession, loves gadgets, technology, sleeping, movies, food, and poetry. He is a tech-blogger and can be reached at abdullah (at) sulehri (dot) com

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