JOIN USVivo V23 Pro 5G review: Stylish feature-rich smartphone
Five years ago, the upper mid-range segment (Rs 25,000 and Rs 45,000) was once dominated by two or three established players but not anymore. With the increased buying capacity of people in India, this budget category is lately seeing an influx of new players such as iQOO and the popular brands such as Vivo, who used to lead the under-30,000 have begun exploring the new territory. In this quest, the company has introduced the premium phone V23 Pro 5G.
On paper, it comes with a truckload of features for the asking price of Rs 38,900 (8GB RAM + 128GB storage) and is worth giving rivals a run for their money. But, does it deliver? let's check it out.
Design, build quality and display
As said in the preview story, Vivo has borrowed the design elements of the premium X70 Pro series in the new V23 Pro. The stardust black looks great and does an exceptional job of keeping itself clean from fingerprint smudges.
Also, the company offers a transparent silicone cover in the retail box and a pre-fits display guard that will ensure the device serve the customer for long. Both will keep the device from cracking during accidental falls and scratches from articles such as coins and pens in the pocket.
The shell cover doesn't add much weight to the phone and also, it doesn't obstruct the visual aesthetic of the device.
I have to note that V23 Pro also comes in the sunshine gold variant and is very special and unique in the industry. Unlike competitors, which reflect different colours when looked at from a different angle, the Vivo mobile is capable of changing colours from glossy gold to emerald green when kept in the sunlight for a few minutes. If given an option to choose between stardust black and sunshine gold, I'll pick the latter.
Due to the limitation of the slim profile of the device, Vivo has let go off the audio jack port in the V23 Pro. On the bright side, the company offers a Type-C-to-3.55 mm jack accessory with the device's retail box.
On the front, the V23 Pro sports a 6.56-inch full HD+(2376 × 1080p) AMOLED with up to 90Hz refresh rate, support for HDR10+ content and 240Hz touch sampling rate. It is one of the few premium phones, which can offer peak brightness of up to 1,300nits and delivers a decent viewing experience when reading the content under direct sunlight.
One thing you instantly notice is the dual-cameras on the top, which brings back the big notch at the top, we used to see in Android phones soon after the Apple iPhone X in 2017. Unlike others, I am okay with this design as long as the camera delivers good selfies as promised (more on that later).
The colours on the screen when watching nature documentary videos come off rich and also black look natural and never came across any issues of saturation. The touch response of the screen is fast and by the way, the in-display fingerprint sensor works smoothly with the less false rejection rate.
Performance
It is powered by MediaTek's powerful new silicon Dimensity 1200-AI octa-core ( 3.0 GHz Cortex-A78 x 1 ultra-core + 2.6 GHz Cortex-A78 x 3 super-cores + 2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 x 4 efficiency cores). With a maximum CPU speed of 3GHz, the device, no matter how much resource-intense apps are, can perform smoothly without any lags. The device's chipset also comes integrated with ARM G77 MC9 GPU
The device comes in two configurations 8GB LPDDR4x RAM + 128GB storage and 12GB LPDDR4x RAM + 256GB storage. Our review unit is the former, and it should be noted that the V23 Pro support virtual RAM this means, if the device has enough storage space, the user can extend the physical memory by another 4GB. This means Vivo V23 Pro with 8GB RAM can be increased to 12GB and the top-end model with 12GB RAM, can go up to 16GB. With this, the device will become more responsive to touch inputs, loading apps and operating the phone becomes smooth than ever before.
Also, it boasts new Vivo vapour cooling technology that makes the device dissipate heat better when doing heavy-duty tasks such as 4K video recording or playing graphics-intense games such as Asphalt 9 series.
By the way, the device did exceptionally well while playing the aforementioned car racing game.
Furthermore, Vivo V23 Pro comes with an Android 12-based Funtouch OS out-of-the-box. A couple of aspects I loved about the new software is the privacy dashboard and users will be able to easily track apps that use mic and camera and the phone will show notifications, whenever they are actively used by the apps.
Also, the Android 12 will enable the phone's interface to match the colour of the theme or the wallpaper used on the home and lock screen.
Vivo's new device does a good job delivering a full day (12 active hours) under normal usage. Also, most of the time, it had more than 15-20 per cent battery left before I could retire to bed. I am more than happy with the battery life of the V23 Pro. And, with the 44W charger, it can fully charge the device from zero to 100 per cent capacity in around 60 minutes. In a half-hour of charging, it can reach a little over 60 per cent mark.
As far as 5G support is concerned, it supports seven bands and whenever the infrastructure gets ready, the device users can experience super-fast internet download speed up to 4.7Gbps and upload speed up to 2.5Gbps.
Photography
On the back, it houses triple-camera module-- main 108MP (f/1.88) + 8MP(f/2.2) ultra-wide camera + 2MP (f/2.4) macro camera with LED flash. Vivo V23 Pro takes really good photos in the sunlight. The phone does a decent job of capturing details even under the shadow of the subjects.
The pictures shot in the evening and early morning too, come off good.
The device's camera process the bright colours of the flowers with less saturation to the extent such as orange-hued Hibiscus, but I noticed pink flower variant came-off little brighter than natural. However, I don't complain as it really good to share on social media platforms.
In the night mode, the photos show the subjects sharp and very detailed on the compact screen. But, when seen on a PC screen, the background seems to have a lot of grains. But, it should be noted that this is a common issue in other phones too. Most of the users view photos posted on social media platforms through phones so, there is less chance of complaints.
As far as the macro-shots are concerned, the photo samples as you can see, are average at best. It takes a bit of effort to get the focus on the subject in close. With patience, we were able to some decent pictures.
There are phones with more than 120-degree FoV (field-of-view) options, but they tend to bend objects at the fringes of the frame. But, the V23 Pro, despite with 108-degree ensures they are straight and look natural in wide-angle mode.
On the front, Vivo V23 Pro 5G features a dual-camera-- main 50MP autofocus camera (f/2.0) + 8MP (f/2.28) 105-degree ultra-wide camera with dual-tone spotlight flash.
It takes fantastic selfies and thanks to value-added flash support, the photos come really good in low-light conditions compared to any of its classes of phones. It is a compelling option for those who spend more time on social media channels.
Another notable aspect of the Vivo V23 Pro is the Bokeh flare portrait effect and it does a good job in terms of segmenting the subject from the background. There are several filters and editing tools to beautify the face too.
Both the front and the primary main camera on the back can record up to 4K videos at 60fps and they do a decent job of delivering stable clips with less shaking.
Final thoughts
Vivo V23 Pro 5G fares well in terms of performance, be it day-to-day tasks or playing games and during photography sessions; it works smoothly without much fuss. Also, I love the premium matte finish of the device and does an excellent job of repelling sweaty fingerprint smudges.
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