Vivo V5 is the latest phone in the Chinese company’s V-series. Earlier, Vivo V3 (Review) and Vivo V3 Max (Review) were launched. V3 and V3 Max can be considered good in terms of performance and battery life. But the camera, awkward user interface and price disappointed. Now it remains to be seen whether Vivo has improved in this department through Vivo V5 or not.
Vivo V5 Design and Build
The design of Vivo V5 seems to be a mix of many popular phones in the market. The influence of iPhone 6 is clearly visible on the back of the phone. And looking at the front panel, you will be reminded of OnePlus 3 or any Oppo phone. All this goes in favor of Vivo V5. We were not disappointed with it. Build quality is good. Corning Gorilla Glass protection is present on the display. We also liked that the phone is slim as well as light. It weighs only 154 grams. We would have liked it more if real metal was used.
The 5.5 inch IPS display is bright and the color saturation is also good. Due to this, it looks like an AMOLED panel. The screen resolution is HD but it does not affect the performance. Text looks very sharp. Vivo V5 comes with capacitive navigation buttons. And the fingerprint sensor is integrated in the home button. The sensor works very fast. It works accurately almost every time. Apart from unlocking the phone, you can also lock apps with it.
There is a lot of harmony in the design of Vivo V5. Despite being slim, its grip is good. The bottom part of the phone is a bit full. The headphone socket, micro-USB port and speaker grill have been placed here. The back panel has been given a matte finish. However, during the review, we found that fingerprints or other stains appeared very easily. There is a dual-SIM tray on the left side. It is also possible to use a microSD card up to 128 GB in its second slot. You will also get a 10 watt charger in the box, which we found to be more than necessary. Along with this, you will get a data cable, silicone case, headset and SIM ejector tool.
Vivo V5 specifications and features
Vivo V5 uses an octa-core MediaTek MT6750 chipset. Oppo F1s also comes with the same chipset. You will get 4 GB RAM and 32 GB storage. This is enough for a great Android experience. We have no complaints with its performance. Talking about benchmark tests, it scored 40,916 in Antutu and 21 fps in GFXBench.
Other features of the Vivo V5 include Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, USB OTG, GPS, and FM radio. The Vivo V5 comes with the company’s Funtouch OS 2.6 which is based on Android Marshmallow. Other features include Now on Tap and battery optimization. Due to Vivo’s UI customization, it is not easy to tell which version of Android is on it. The look and functionality of the software on the Vivo V5 is similar to what we have seen on other V-series phones.
First time Vivo phone users may be a little confused by the iOS-like look. The recent apps screen and toggle switch can be accessed by swiping up from the bottom. A long press of the capacitive button on the left brings up the homescreen customization menu. The problem is that the menu is very small. So it is not easy to find the widgets of some apps. The drop down shade can be used only for notifications. Other features of the Vivo V5 are the same as the Vivo V3 which we mentioned in our review. This includes being able to see notifications on the lockscreen and split screen.
Vivo V5 performance
As soon as you get familiar with Vivo’s Android avatar, there will be no problem in using this phone. We used this phone for a few days and are happy with its general performance. Apps do not take much time to load in Vivo V5. Performance does not slow down even during multi-tasking. You will also be able to play games. However, you will have to make some changes in the settings while playing high-end games. One thing we liked very much is that the phone never heats up. Even during benchmarking, this phone got slightly heated. Call quality was good and 4G network worked fine. Vivo V5 has support for Voice over LTE.
Like other Vivo phones, the company has worked hard on audio quality. Vivo V5 has an AK4376 audio chip which has been made by the company itself. You can activate it by going to the Settings app and using the Hi-Fi option. It starts working when headphones are plugged in. Apart from the default music and video players, third apps like MX Player, YouTube and Google Play Music will be able to take advantage of this feature.
The most important feature of Vivo V5 is the 20-megapixel front camera in which Sony IMX376 sensor has been used. It is equipped with f/2.0 aperture and fixed focus lens. It supports full-HD video recording and also has a face beauty shooting mode. In daylight, the front camera takes pictures with a lot of detail and very good color reproduction. However, indoor shots in artificial light were a bit grainy. The lack of quality is clearly visible. The shutter also lags. Due to this, there will be difficulty in taking pictures of moving objects.
In Vivo V5, the company has provided Moonlight Flash which works to give more light to your face. If you are taking a selfie by keeping the phone a little far away, then it is not very powerful. However, it works better than the common LED flash and screen flash. The performance of the selfie camera in low light was sometimes good and sometimes bad. You will be able to improve your selfie through the one-tap makeover feature.
Click to see camera samples of Vivo V5
While using the primary camera of Vivo V5, we felt that the company has not paid as much attention to it as the selfie camera. This camera produced very average photos. Landscape photos taken in daylight lacked details. Macro shots do not look sharp. Color reproduction is decent. Photos taken in low light are worse than average. There is color noise in it and there is a huge lack of details.
You will be able to record 1080p videos. Its quality was good. Shooting modes include Panorama, HDR, Night, Professional, PPT, Slow-motion and Hyperlapse. The influence of iOS is visible in the camera app. In fact, the old Siri logo has become the shutter button in this app.
Vivo V5 has a 3000mAh battery which lasted 11 hours and 41 minutes in our video test. In normal use, we could easily use it for more than a day. The standby of the phone’s battery is excellent. If you are not an active user, then it will last for 2 days. Fast charging support is not available. But the 10 watt charger charges the battery 25 percent in an hour. This is slower than we expected.
Our verdict
There is no doubt that the Vivo V5 is better than the company’s previous V-series phones. But it does not beat its competitors. The most important feature of this phone is the 20 megapixel front camera which is attractive but it is not revolutionary in any way. So many megapixels for a selfie camera do not seem worthwhile, if you do not want to print out your selfie on A4 size paper.
The Vivo V5 also has some great features, such as the display, battery life and beautiful Android performance. However, at Rs 17,980, the Oppo F1s (Review) is a better option for you as it has good build quality and excellent cameras. The Gionee S6s is also a good option if you have less money to spend. If you are willing to wait, you can buy the Oppo F1s variant with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage in December for Rs 1,000 more.
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