Design of Vivo Z1x
Contents
Vivo’s latest smartphone Vivo Z1x has a flashy design. The rear panel of our review unit comes with Phantom Purple, with a lighter shade of purple visible at the top and center. The surface of the back panel is glossy and slightly reflective, which makes the phone prone to dust and smudges. The frame is made of polycarbonate and blends seamlessly with the flat rear panel.
There is a small waterdrop-notch on the front panel of the phone, just above the notch is the earpiece which is quite thin. The display of Vivo Z1X is protected with Schott Xensation 3D glass which is an alternative to Corning Gorilla Glass. The volume and power buttons are placed on the right side of the phone while the Google Assistant button and dual-nano card tray are placed on the left side of the phone.
The speaker, USB Type-C port, 3.5mm headphone jack, and mic are located at the bottom of the phone. Despite being smaller and lighter than the Vivo Z1 Pro, the Vivo Z1x is still big and heavy (189.6 grams). The phone is not easy to use with one hand unless you have large hands, you have to stretch your hand to reach content at the top of the display. The exterior of the phone is a bit slippery.
Some people might like the contrast provided by the gold branding instead of a shiny rear panel, but we don’t like too much shine on a phone. The build quality of the Vivo Z1x is good, but the ergonomics could have been better. The Vivo Z1x has been launched in two color variants, Fusion Blue and Phantom Purple.
Vivo Z1x specifications and software
Vivo Z1X has a 6.38 inch full-HD + Super AMOLED (1080×2340 pixels) display, it comes with 430 nits brightness. Its aspect ratio is 19.5: 9 and screen-to-body ratio is 90 percent. This latest smartphone of Vivo brand uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 processor.
Let us remind you that this chipset was also used in Vivo Z1 Pro. Vivo Z1X has two storage variants, one with 64 GB storage which is priced at Rs 16,990 while the other variant has 128 GB storage and its price has been fixed at Rs 18,000. It is worth noting that there will be no option of microSD card to increase the storage, so in such a situation it would be better to buy the 128 GB storage variant.
The most important feature of Vivo Z1x is the triple rear camera setup. On the rear, there is a 48-megapixel primary camera which is equipped with Sony IMX582 sensor, along with this there is an 8-megapixel super wide-angle camera with 120.4 degree field of view. And a 2-megapixel depth camera is also provided.
Vivo Z1X has a 32-megapixel sensor for selfie and video calling, its aperture is F / 2.0. To bring life to the phone, a 4,500 mAh battery has been provided which will support 22.5 W FlashCharge technology. You will get a 22.5 W charger in the retail box. For security, the phone has an in-display fingerprint sensor, it has been claimed that it unlocks the phone in just 0.42 seconds.
Funtouch OS is a heavily customized version of Android that changes the aesthetics, location of tools in the Settings app, icons, etc. It also moves all the quick settings buttons to an iOS-like shortcut center that can be accessed by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.
Some UI elements that annoy users are the high brightness and sound profile bars that take up a lot of space, forcing users to scroll down to find the location, low-power mode, and airplane mode buttons. The custom Funtouch OS navigation gestures seem half-baked. Surprisingly, the phone also comes with Android navigation buttons if you don’t want to use gestures.
While the phone doesn’t have an app drawer, swiping left on the home screen opens the Jovi Smart Scene page where you get shortcuts to tools like the calculator and voice recorder, plus news headlines, weather updates, a to-do list widget, etc. Funtouch OS also has some nifty tools. For instance, you can quickly create a second app (say, a dual-app) of a compatible app on the home screen and easily capture scrolling screenshots.
Apart from this, you will get File Safe feature in the phone with the help of which users can hide media files, documents and other things. Dark mode has also been added to the phone, usually black background is useful with AMOLED panel but Funtouch will provide you a dark shade of gray.
Apart from this, Smart Motion Tool and Split Screen Shortcut are also provided. However, the phone has many bloatware such as in-house apps which cannot be uninstalled and some third-party apps like Gaana, WebNovel, PhonePe, Paytm, Facebook and Opera. Some gaming tools are also provided in the phone.
The Game Picture-in-Picture tool opens a floating window for messaging apps without closing the game. Ultra Game Mode is the phone’s gaming hub and gives quick access to notification controls. Off-screen autoplay ensures that the game continues to play when the screen is off. We did not see any ads or spammy notifications while using the phone. Our review unit ran on the July security patch but we expect the company to roll out the update before the phone goes on sale.
Vivo Z1x display and performance
The Vivo Z1x has a Super AMOLED panel, it is bright and crisp and the colours look vibrant. But the colour mode and temperature can be adjusted by going into the Settings app. Viewing angles are also quite good. In daylight, we did not need to increase the brightness more than half to use email and social media apps smoothly.
Vivo claims that the phone has a low brightness mode, which is similar to DC dimming. The in-display fingerprint sensor is quite fast. During the review, we did not face any problem with the accuracy of fingerprint recognition. The Vivo Z1x has a Snapdragon 712 processor which proved to be a reliable performer. It easily handles all day-to-day tasks, heavy multitasking and games.
Benchmark scores show that it is faster than the Snapdragon 710 when it comes to CPU performance. Talking about media performance, the sound from the phone’s speakers is fine but distortion is felt when the volume is more than 80 percent. The headset that comes with the phone has a design similar to the design of Apple EarPods, it is good for calls and listening to music but do not expect good bass response or vocal clarity from it.
PUBG Mobile and Asphalt 9 were set to Game Boy default high graphics and the Vivo Z1x delivered a smooth gameplay experience. Mortal Kombat and Injustice Gods Among Us games also ran quickly. We were surprised by the thermal performance of the Vivo Z1x as there was only minimal heating on the phone even after playing for 30-50 minutes.
Vivo Z1x cameras and battery life
The Vivo Z1x has a 48-megapixel primary camera on the back that is equipped with a Sony IMX582 sensor. It is accompanied by an 8-megapixel super wide-angle camera with a 120.4-degree field of view. And a 2-megapixel depth camera is also provided. The rear camera captures vibrant pixel-binning photos in daylight.
The phone was quick to focus and was fairly accurate. Landscape shots, however, looked overprocessed and lacked detail. The Redmi K20 (Review) also has the same 48-megapixel camera sensor, and it captures better photos with accurate colours and more detail. The native AI beauty mode helps with the dynamic range issue to some extent, making images more vibrant.
On the other hand, low-light photos show some noise and grain. The Night mode adds some color to the frame and elements look a little sharper. The Redmi Note 7 Pro and Motorola One Vision (Review) perform better in low light.
With the help of the wide-angle camera, more people and objects can be captured in a scene. Wide-angle photos appeared dim and less sharp. If the user wants, he can also capture 48-megapixel photos in 4:3 aspect ratio. Full-resolution photos captured more detail than 16-megapixel photos with pixel-binning.
Portrait shots had decent differentiation between the subject and the background but the blur effect was unstable. The blur effect can be adjusted even after capturing a portrait photo in the pre-loaded Album app. There are also portrait lighting effects along with features like scene modes, AR stickers, dynamic filters for short videos, and live photos.
The 32-megapixel front camera takes crisp selfies with accurate colors. Selfies with bokeh effect came out well. Now let’s talk about the video. The phone is capable of making videos in 4K and 1080 resolution at 30 frames per second, which can be a bit disappointing. Because phones coming at a lower price record full-HD videos at 60 frames per second.
Talking about the video quality, the video is stabilized at 1080p resolution and the color reproduction was also good. The wide-angle camera records videos at 1080p resolution. The Vivo Z1x is powered by a 4,500mAh battery which comfortably lasted for a day. Even after playing PUBG Mobile for two hours on high graphics settings, calling, social media usage and listening to music through wired headphones for three hours and internet connectivity for the whole day, the phone had about 30 percent battery left at the end of the day.
In our HD video loop test, the phone lasted for 18 hours and 52 minutes before shutting down. The bundled 22.5W charger charges the phone from 0 to 50 percent in just 38 minutes and takes about an hour and a half to fully charge the phone.
Our verdict
The Vivo Z1x has a very attractive design. The build quality is solid but the phone is quite big. The AMOLED display on the Vivo Z1x is quite impressive. There are no issues with the general performance of the phone either, and graphics-intensive games ran without any stutters. The camera output was decent considering the price, but the Realme X (Review) and Redmi Note 7 Pro (Review) deliver better results. The battery life is good and the phone performed quite well in our HD video loop test.
The Vivo Z1x is a meaningful step up over its siblings but outperforms in the camera department despite commanding a premium. The lack of expandable storage could also be a problem if you are considering the base variant. Customers buying the base variant of the Vivo Z1x could face issues as the phone does not have an option to expand the storage.
With a starting price of Rs. 16,990, the Vivo Z1x is certainly an attractive option. However, at this price point, the Vivo phone will compete with smartphones like the Realme X, Redmi Note 7 Pro, Oppo K3 (Review).
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