The Vivo V5 Plus is the company’s newest mid-range smartphone with a Dual Front Camera setup, and few hours before yesterday’s launch, we had a chance to play around with it to see how it is as a phone in general, and what it can do. Here’s what we think.
Design
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The V5 sports the elegant look excellent build quality that Vivo phones are known for. Â The back has been re-designed, removing the lines at the top and bottom sections, and replacing it with minor accents, which gives the phone a more solid identity (finally, shying away from the look of that other phone), and the Home button can now be physically pressed, unlike on the V5.
Display
The 5.5-inch Full HD display is vibrant and certainly brings out the beauty of Vivo’s Funtouch OS. We would’ve liked a bit more brightness though.
Performance
Vivo V5 Plus Specs:
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 Octa-Core Processor
- 4GB of RAM, 64 GB of Internal Storage
- 5.5-inch Full HD Display with 2.5D Gorilla Glass 5 Protection
- Rear Camera: 16MP, f/2.0, 5P Lens
- Front Camera: 20MP Sony IMX376, f/2.0 + 8MP f/2.0
- Selfie Softlight Flash
- LTE, Dual SIM
- Funtouch OS 3.0 on top of Android Marshmallow
- 3,160mAh Battery
- AK4376 Hi-Fi audio chip
- Fast Charging
We weren’t able to do any benchmarks for the phone, but it didn’t show any signs of slowdown when we were using it. No lags, no stutters, UI navigation was buttery smooth. It did noticeably heat up a bit after taking a few pictures, but that’s just normal for most Android devices.
Camera
Here are some shots we took using the 16MP rear camera. What I liked the most was how fast it was able to continuously take photos and focus on subjects. In general, shots came out vivid, bright, and with accurate colors. Sharpness could use some work though, and we’ll have to see how this performs in low-light.
Of course, we can’t leave the best part out, the Dual Front camera. We took some selfies to try it out, and were impressed with the amount of detail that is present in the photos. The Bokeh effect can easily be achieved by tapping on a dedicated icon in the camera interface.
Initial Thoughts
The V5 Plus is shaping up to be an excellent mid-range device. Its well-built, beautifully designed, takes good pictures, and seems to have all the horsepower you’ll need for general use. We’ll be doing more tests in our full review, so stay tuned.
The Vivo V5 Plus is priced at PhP19,990Â and is now available for pre-order until January 28, 2017.
Emman has been writing technical and feature articles since 2010. Prior to this, he became one of the instructors at Asia Pacific College in 2008, and eventually landed a job as Business Analyst and Technical Writer at Integrated Open Source Solutions for almost 3 years.
