Vivo V15 Pro Review: Spearheading Pop-up Tech with Great Hardware and Performance

Vivo V15 Pro is quite an interesting smartphone for the company due to plenty of reasons. For one, it's one of the firsts to package the shiny Snapdragon 675 SoC. The processor may not be at par with the flagship-worthy Snapdragon 855 variant but Qualcomm says that it is optimizing this chipset for gaming and other intensive tasks. Moreover, Vivo offered a lot of new tricks with the V15 Pro - it comes with a very premium design, first smartphone to sport a pop-up camera, a triple camera system, and more. It's a visually appealing smartphone in terms of construction and design. On paper, the Vivo V15 Pro is a great phone; but will it be a great choice for its price range?


Vivo V15 Pro Review: Spearheading Pop-up Tech with Great Hardware and Performance
Vivo V15 Pro's box breathes "basic" due to its similarities with the previous releases. However, you don't have to worry about essential accessories left in the cutting room since the standard Vivo V15 Pro box includes a VOOC 3.0 charger, a microUSB cable, and standard headphones. You'll also have a pre-installed screen protector and a sturdy transparent case.


Vivo V15 Pro Review

Vivo V15 Pro Review

Design-wise, the Vivo V15 Pro is one of the best looking handsets I've seen from the company so far. It definitely sticks out in the wild. The back panel is made of glass which uses a gradient royal blue-to-metallic blue transition. This hue is layered with diagonal accents on top that seals its premium look. The side is an aluminum frame that continues the smartphone's seamless gradient tone.


Vivo V15 Pro Review: Pop-up Camera, Great design, Hardware & Performance
The Vivo V15 Pro has the power button on the right side together with the volume rocker. No visible antenna bands can be seen on the handset's body nor its frame. The bottom side is a home to the speaker grill, microphone, microUSB port, and the SIM tray. The left side has the microSD card slot and the dedicated Google Assistant button.


Vivo V15 Pro Unboxing & Review
Bottom: speaker grill, microphone, microUSB port, SIM tray

Left side: microSD card slot, dedicated Google Assistant button

We can't help but notice that it comes with almost zero bezels. The infamous notch is nowhere to be found with the phone's receiver pushed at the edge-center of the almost non-existing forehead. The top side houses the 3.5-mm audio jack and the secondary microphone. At the back, there's a protruding camera module which causes the phone to wobble when placed on a table or on a flat surface.

Display


The Vivo V15 Pro is framed with a 6.39-inch Super AMOLED display. Vivo calls it an "Ultra FullView" screen. Upfront, you can tell that the handset pushed its bezels all the way to the edge of the front panel. The display preserves more screen real estate that results to it being an amazing device for multimedia consumption. On top of that, everything is pleasing in the eyes.



Vivo V15 Pro Review: Ultra FullView" Display

On paper, the screen has a 19.5:9 aspect ratio with a generous resolution of 2340 x 1080p. In real time use, the display is definitely stunning. Just like any other AMOLED panels in the market, Vivo V15 Pro's screen is very vibrant and has great contrast. Colors are very accurate and texts are crisp. Blacks are deep and whites are papery white; it could now hold a candle against Samsung's displays.

Performance

The Vivo V15 Pro also breathes performance when we talk about its hardware. You'll have an upper mid-tier chipset inside, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675. This is smacked in the middle of the higher-end Snapdragon 710 and the Snapdragon 660. It is packed with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. 

The V15 Pro may have a microSD slot, but I think the 128GB configuration could be more than enough for an average consumer. Though most its specs hit the premium mark, we could still consider the handset in the mid-range category - a premium mid-range at that.



Vivo V15 Pro Review PH

In our day to day use, the Vivo V15 Pro chews everything thrown at it with ease. It performs well in launching apps and even in multitasking activities, thanks to 8GB of RAM. It always feels like I'm using a flagship smartphone whenever I take the handset out for a spin. 


Watching YouTube and Netflix on Vivo V15 Pro is definitely a great experience. There's a non-existent notch that does not distract your viewing experience unlike other smartphones with rectangular or water-drop cutouts. Likewise, the bottom-firing speaker is also very good.



Vivo V15 Pro Gaming Review: Mobile Legends

Playing titles like PUBG which uses intensive graphics is smooth. Other games like Ragnarok Mobile and Mobile Legends run like butter with the Vivo V15 Pro.

Camera

Vivo V15 Pro's camera is one of the most interesting cameras I've seen so far. The rear module is made up of 3 sensors. The main shooter is a 48MP sensor with f/1.8 aperture. The second camera is an 8MP ultra-wide shooter with f/2.2 aperture, and the last is a 5MP depth sensor with phase detection autofocus. 



Vivo V15 Pro Camera Review
Image quality is on point. Plus, Vivo has also tailored this handset to AI. The V15 Pro is quick to categorize scenes, e.g. buildings, greenery, etc. It will then optimize the images for the best output possible. Images are sharp with good color reproduction.


The Night Mode impresses me more than its regular AI scene detection. When using this mode, the camera produces brighter images and reveals details that were mostly concealed by shadows. You'll have to hold the camera steady for 2 to 3 seconds to get better shots. In a way, this feature uses long exposure to get more light in your photos. While most of the shots are great, I could tell that colors tend to be over-saturated. But all in all, this feature is still cool.

The ultra-wide angle mode is also quite an interesting feature if you wanted to get a wider field of view in your photos. Unfortunately, the quality of images also drops when shifting to this mode.
The selfie camera is still the popular 32MP elevating sensor with f/2.0 opening. As expected, selfie shots are still great as ever. Color tones are good and natural-looking.

Sample photos:



Outdoor Shot

Lowlight Ultra-Wide

Selfie Shot

More sample photos in Full Resolution Here: https://bit.ly/2Q9c2H8.

Battery

Vivo V15 Pro's battery is also a winner. This handset carries a 3700 mAh battery which supports fast charging branded as "Dual Engine" fast charge. For a single charge, I could get through the the whole day with no hassle. 



Vivo V15 Pro Review: Battery

This consists of almost 6 hours of on-screen time. I covered common activities like sending and reading emails, occasional gaming, made a few dozens of photos using the camera, social media, Netflix and YouTube streaming.

Software

The Vivo V15 Pro boots with FunTouch OS 9 based on Android 9 Pie. You can still see some iOS-like icons with controls pulled up while swiping from the bottom of the screen. Gone are the slider controls for Volume and Brightness. They are replaced by an all new iOS-like slider bar just like what you see in an iPhone's Control Center.



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The FunTouch OS overall feel is fun and bubbly. The icons are placed in a nifty manner. I also loved the fact that you can set your app grid to 5x6 array if you don't feel like having bigger icons. Notification shade is also one of the software's strongest suits. It's clean and easy to interact with. You can also invoke Google Assistant by simply using the dedicated button on the left side of the device.





The software is very intuitive but there's still the problem of bloatwares - you'll have two browsers, email apps, apps store, etc. right on the fly. Most of them you can't uninstall. The latest update signals that Vivo is doing something with regards to its software, I hope they allocate more resources in this area.


The Wrap

Vivo V15 Pro is a celebration for the company's another intuitive approach to the mobile industry. With this release, Vivo is spearheading a new route to a bezel-less and notch-less display. Though being the best in the selfie game still holds true for the V15 Pro, this smartphone stands out in many different ways.

It's a killer smartphone when it comes to design with its flashy 3D arc glass philosophy. The triple camera system is also promising with its gems, like the ultra-wide camera and the night-capturing capability. Its new Snapdragon 675 proves to be one of the best chipsets in this segment.

There's also no overlooking the fact that Vivo's in-display fingerprint sensor is now in its 4th generation. This offers faster and safer biometric authentications that definitely adds to a great user experience. The sub-Php 25K segment is a competitive price range for upper mid-tiers and affordable flagship handsets, but the Vivo V15 Pro definitely solidifies its place in this stage.

Highlights:

1. Pretty Nice Rear and Front Camera

2. Solid Battery Life with Fast Recharging
3. Light-weight premium 3D arc glass design
4. Immersive notch-less display
5. Balanced Performance
6. Dedicated Google Assistant button

Lowlights:


1. MicroUSB port

2. Software needs to be polished

Follow this link for Vivo V15 Pro specs.
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