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Vivo V7: Best mid-range selfie smartphone till date

Vivo V7: Best mid-range selfie smartphone till date

Vivo V7

Vivo V7

By Sourabh Kulesh,

New Delhi : When it comes to the selfie-focused smartphones market in India, Chinese smartphone players Vivo and Oppo clearly rule the mid-price segment.

Expanding its selfie-focused series, Vivo has announced two devices — V7 and V7+ — with the latter being made available in November.

Launched now, the Rs 18,990 V7 is the scaled-down version of V7+ — the Rs 21,990 device that lured the selfie-loving generation in India with a 24MP front camera (f/2.0 aperture) and bezel-less display.

V7 has the same camera as V7+ but has a bit less battery capacity, on-board memory and display size.

Vivo V7 directly rivals the Rs 19,990 Oppo F5 which has a 20MP selfie shooter.

Let us see if Vivo V7 can become a mid-segment selfie winner.

Design-wise, the trimmed antenna lines running on the upper and lower edges at the back are a differentiating factor, giving a premium look to the device.

Encased in metal-finished plastic body on the back and 2.5D glass on the front, the device is light and fits well in the hand.

The key highlight of V7+ was its edge-to-edge 5.99-inch IPS “Full View” display that is similar to Samsung’s “Infinity Display” and LG’s “FullVision Display”.

The V7 display has similar 18:9 aspect ratio as the V7+. It has very thin bezels on the side and enough space on the top for the 24MP front camera and sensors.

The 24MP front shooter has a selfie portrait mode and supports HDR.

The “live photo” feature creates a moving image, instead of capturing a moment in time with a still photo.

Users can use voice command or hand gesture to trigger the camera. Selfies had nice details under good lighting conditions. In low-light situations, the fill flash helped click a good image.

At the back, the device has a 16MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture. The processing is quick thanks to a well-balanced hardware.

Vivo V7 is fitted with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 chipset with 4GB RAM. The on-board memory, however, has been reduced to 32GB.

It has 3,000mAh battery that was enough for a day’s run. Vivo V7 has Funtouch OS 3.2 on Android 7.1.2 Nougat with bloatware. The device has iPhone influence on the user interface.

The navigation keys can be altered depending on preference and can be hidden — just like we can do in Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8.

The V7 also has a face-recognition feature, something that Apple is banking upon in its “super-premium” iPhone X to unlock the device.

For a regular user, Vivo V7 is a very good performer and can handle tasks without puting much burden on the hardware.

We didn’t notice any issues related to the device getting heated up despite prolonged gaming, and it worked lag-free with multiple apps running in the background.

A larger display means we had more space for content consumption. Audio output through earphones was good.

What doesn’t work?

The quality of the photos depend on the lighting conditions. Well-lit areas gave good output, while photos taken under bad light from the rear camera struggled a bit with quality.

The competitors are offering Full-HD display in similar price bracket while V7 has HD screen.

The speakers too were not loud enough to do justice to the content being played.

Conclusion: Vivo has been successful with its devices solely on the camera quality and the amount of details they put in to make smartphones with balanced output. For a price tag of Rs 18,990, the device is a good choice for selfie-lovers.

(Sourabh Kulesh can be contacted at sourabh.k@ians.in)

—IANS

Vivo V7: Best mid-range selfie smartphone till date

Vivo V7+: Superb 24MP ‘selfie’ camera with bezel-less display

Vivo V7+By Krishna SinhaChaudhury,

Mumbai : To lure the selfie-loving generation in India, Vivo V7+ is now here, offering a 24MP front camera with an aperture of f/2.0 and an aspect ratio of 18:9 for more viewing space and a better immersive experience while browsing videos and playing games.

Bezel-less devices began gaining popularity with premium smartphones such as Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+ and LG G6. At Rs 21,990, V7+ joins the bandwagon with slimmer top and bottom bezels.

The key highlight of the V7+ is its edge-to-edge IPS “Full View” display that is similar to Samsung’s “Infinity Display” and LG’s “FullVision Display”.

Vivo has positioned the device as a “revolutionary selfie camera” smartphone, but is it enough to entice buyers in the fiercely competitive Indian market?

Let’s find out.

Talking about the design, there is no fingerprint sensor at the front. On-screen buttons are placed above the thin bezel at the bottom while above the top bezel sits the ear piece, the selfie camera with flash and the proximity sensor.

Vivo has been riding on the success of its selfie-focused smartphones and V7+ too delivers impressive selfies. The camera produces images with “bokeh” effect sans a dual-camera setup. With bokeh, users can blur the background with sharper contrast and visual appeal of the subject.

The device sports a 24MP selfie camera with “selfie softlight” which is a significant upgrade from 20MP front cameras on V5 Plus and V5s smartphones.

An interesting addition to the camera is the “live photo” feature that is similar to what we saw on iPhone 6S and 6S Plus.

The “live photo” feature creates a moving image instead of capturing a moment in time with a still photo. The user has to select the feature to capture an image with the moments just before and after the picture is taken having sound and movement.

The camera interface is fairly simple and comes with handy modes such as group selfie, face beauty, HDR and portrait.

The device, with a 16MP rear camera, sports dual antenna bands at the rear. The metal unibody design makes the phone extremely sturdy and feel premium. The power and volume keys are placed on the right with good tactile feel.

A dual-SIM slot and a dedicated MicroSD card slot to expand memory up to 256GB are located on the left.

The bottom of the device houses a speaker grille, a Micro-USB 2.0 port and a standard 3.5-mm audio jack.

In terms of connectivity, the V7+ offers 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, and GPS.

The 5.99-inch IPS display (1440×720 pixels) offers decent sunlight legibility and colour reproduction. The screen is topped with a 2.5D curved-edge Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection.

Like many other smartphones in the market these days, there is an “eye protection” mode to cut out blue light.

The almost 6-inch edge-to-edge display makes for a great video browsing experience.

In terms of software, Vivo V7+ sports 1.8Ghz Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 chipset with 4GB RAM and 64GB onboard storage, which is a good combination for multi-tasking.

Vivo V7+ is powered by a 3,225mAh battery, which lasted over a day-and-a-half on a single charge.

The Snapdragon 450 processor is known to be power-efficient which reflects on the battery life of V7+. It lasted over a day on moderate usage during our review.

Vivo’s custom “Funtouch OS” that is based on Android 7.1 Nougat, offers smooth performance despite being a heavy Android skin.

There was no noticeable stutter when we browsed the internet (opened multiple tabs), watched videos and used WhatsApp simultaneously.

The fingerprint sensor is very responsive in unlocking the device.

What does not work?

Its edge-to-edge display is not full-HD — which is a disappointment. V5 Plus came with a 5.5-inch full-HD display.

The 16MP primary camera struggled a bit in low-light conditions. There is no fast-charging support either.

Conclusion: V7+ is the first smartphone to feature a 24MP front camera and edge-to-edge “Full View” display — a great package. Its dual selfie cameras and availability in the offline market make it an impressive selfie smartphone your hard-earned money may love to buy.

(Krishna SinhaChaudhury can be contacted at krishna.s@ians.in)

—IANS