Vivo V25 Pro 5G review: Premium mid-range phone

Vivo earlier in the month unveiled the brand new V25 Pro 5G with prices starting at Rs 35,999 in India.

. On paper, V25 Pro comes with a good set of hardware, supports 5G modem, and more features, to call itself a future-ready phone, but does it deliver the goods? Let's check it out.

. Design, build quality and display As I noted in the first impression article, V25 Pro is undeniably one of the best-looking phones in the sub-Rs 50,000 segment. The design language is quite generic, and the premium material used on the back makes it a special phone.

. It boasts changing Fluorite AG Glass cover on the back. It carries on the legacy of the predecessor V23 Pro sunshine gold. When left in the sun, it turns to a different colour.

. Here, the V25 Pro sailing blue model changes to a cooler shade with a glowing aura when sunlight hits the shell on the back. I sound quite cliched, but the transformation is quite magical.

. Once you return indoors, the phone's rear-side cover returns to its original shiny colour.

. And, I have to appreciate Vivo for a remarkable job with the phone's rear case. It aces in terms of repelling sweat-induced fingerprint smudges. It should be noted that Vivo offers a pure black colour variant and looks great too.

. On the front, Vivo V25 Pro flaunts a dual-edge 6.56-inch (2376×1080 pixels) full HD+ AMOLED screen, which cascades up to the middle of the rim on the right and left sides.

. It perfectly blends with the rail around the edge. It supports HDR10+ content, and this ensures, you can watch multimedia content with the highest quality on OTT apps such as Netflix,

. Amazon Prime, Disney+Hotstar and other OTT apps. Also, with support for 120Hz refresh rate and 300Hz touch sampling rate, you will have better browsing and gaming experience on the phone.

. As far as the in-display fingerprint is concerned, it works fine. But, ensure, your fingers are dry and clean from sweat. Or else, you have to try multiple times to unlock the screen. This is normal among all phones with such bio-metric. It is better to go for a side-mounted sensor, which is more reliable than the face unlock feature.

. Performance Vivo V25 Pro 5G houses a 6nm class MediaTek Dimensity 1300 octa-core processor, which can clock CPU speed up to 3GHz. It is backed by ARM G77 MC9 GPU, 8GB/12GB LPDDR4x RAM, 128GB/256GB storage (UFS 3.1) and runs Android 12-based FuntouchOS 12.

. The device in two configuration options-- 8GB RAM + 128GB and 12GB RAM + 256GB storage. Our review unit is the former.

. The device worked smoothly while performing daily tasks such as loading apps, operating the camera, scrolling the newsfeed on the web, watching videos on YouTube and switching to other apps.

. The phone supports Extended RAM feature, which allows users to increase the physical memory from 8GB to up to 16GB RAM. This ensures, that the phone works smoother.

. While playing games, the phone did get warmed up, but it never went out of control. I have to note that, I played the game indoors. If played outdoors in the sunlight, the display will get heated. It is common problem among all phones from low-end to the top-of-the-line models.

. I did not face any pressing issues to complain about in terms of day-to-day performance.

. It houses a 4,830mAh cell with 66W FastCharger. The device consistently offers a full day battery life under normal usage. If you stream content with just the cellular data, it will drain a bit faster. So, users have to be wary of this aspect.

. It also boasts Smart Charging Engine tech that decreases the speed of battery deterioration and heat generated during charging. This way, the phone serves you for a long and don't have to visit service centres for battery replacement for at least two or three years.

. It supports eight 5G bands-- NSA/SA: 1, 3, 5, 8, 40, 41, 77, 78. Domestic players Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone have announced to bring 5G service to India in the coming weeks.

. Photography Vivo V25 Pro 5G boasts a triple-camera module-- main 64MP (with f/1.89, OIS: Optical Image Stabilisation) with LED flash backed by an 8MP ultra-wide camera (f/2.2) with a 2MP macro camera (f/2.4).

. The primary triple-camera takes really nice photos in the natural sunlight. The subjects, particularly flowers in the colours purple, blue, and white come naturally beautiful. However, the flowers with Red/Orange/Pink, colours get overprocessed to come off more vibrant than how they appear to our eyes. This is not a complaint. They are just brighter and some may prefer the colours to look closer to nature. And others might find it impressive. So, check out samples and decide whether to go for the V25 Pro or not.

. The Wide angle shot and the close-up 2X optical zoom is decent too. The latter has less loss of photo quality.

. As far as the night mode is concerned, it is good. The phone manages to absorb the right amount of light from lights be it street lamps or from other sources around. Very importantly, it never blows up the area around the lamp post with excess light.

. But, I did not notice that colours don't get captured well enough in the photos. Here in the sample shot, the coconut tree looks a shade darker compared to samples taken in other phones in the same price range.

. The new phone can also record 4K at 30/60fps (frames per second) video recording. It can also record 720p (HD) and 1080p (full HD) videos at 30/60 fps. The video quality in terms of stability and autofocus feature is decent at best.

. On the other hand, the front selfie camera is good. It has 32MP autofocus sensor (with f/2.4). The native camera app offers numerous filters and editing to adjust facial skin tone and even physical features such as smoothening acne scars, altering the shape of the jaw bone, eye and nose size, to make the face photogenic.

. It does a good job with that and I can't blame the company for offering such superficial features, as there are significant numbers of consumers in India who want them, to appear good on social media platforms.

. Final thoughts As V25 Pro 5G comes under the upper mid-range segment, it faces tough competition from rivals. Besides having formidable internal specifications, it is imperative for a company to have something unique to draw the consumer's attention.

. Here, Vivo has exactly that. It has done a fantastic job on the design and builds quality of the V25 Pro 5G. The colour-changing aspect of the device is magical and makes it truly stand out among its peers.

. Of course, the new entrant Nothing has impressed a lot with the see-through design and Glyph interface-based LED notification feature in Phone(1). But lately, it has been getting panned for buggy software and some hardware defects related to display. And, Android 13 is coming only in the first half of 2023.

. In other key aspects such as performance, and camera, Vivo V25 Pro comes off a decent phone and on par with any other upper mid-range rival brands. I am happy with the battery life. It can easily last a full day under normal usage and the fast charging is a big value-addition to the phone. Lastly, it would be great, if Vivo brings Android 13 as soon as possible.