The typically boring upper mid-range market has gotten a little more exciting thanks to Vivo's new V25 Pro.
Unlike other phones, it does not bombard you with specifications. It instead tries to allure you with its style. Is Vivo’s approach viable?
Design
The V25 Pro banks quite heavily on its design. It is the only phone under 40000Rs with a curved edge display. The rear glass panel of the phone is also curved and it makes the phone appear to be slimmer than it really is. It is also pretty lightweight at 190g and the weight is pretty evenly balanced as well.
In fact, from a distance, it does look like a flagship smartphone from a popular Korean brand, and it does so without costing an arm and a leg.
The rear glass of this phone has a wonderful matt finish which is quite resistant to fingerprints. But that is not all. It is also sensitive to UV light, which means that it is light blue indoors, but after you expose it to sunlight, it turns much darker.
Now that’s quite a neat way to spice things up, but, if this colour-changing sorcery is too much for you, then you can opt for the available black colour option which is not UV sensitive.
However, Vivo has been so focused on nailing the aesthetic part of the design that it did overlook durability. The back panel on this phone is not made of gorilla glass or another type of toughened glass. And the fact that the phone is quite slippery also doesn't help.
Utility
Both the power button and volume rocker are situated on the right side of the phone and feel quite tactile to use. Because the V25 Pro tries to mimic flagship phones, it does not get a headphone jack, because that has somehow turned into a budget phone feature.
Another seemingly budget phone feature that’s absent on this phone is expandable memory. However, you do get up to 256GB of internal storage.
There is an under-display optical fingerprint scanner here which works really well.
The single bottom-firing speaker on the V25 Pro is quite loud, but dual speakers are a reasonable expectation from a phone in this price range. Also, there is no form of water or splash resistance here.
Display
The 6.56-inch AMOLED display on the V25 Pro is undoubtedly one of its highlights. It is vivid and crisp with excellent sunlight legibility. The small bezels and the curved edges also make the V25 Pro appear more expensive than it really is.
The max refresh rate of 120Hz ensures that navigating through the UI is a smooth experience. In fact, the refresh rate is also adaptive which helps with battery saving.
Palm rejection is there because it is a curved edge display, and it typically works fine, although it is not failproof as I did experience a few accidental touches.
Cameras
Vivo’s V-series primarily consists of camera-focused upper midrange phones and the V25 Pro is no different.
Do note that when I say camera focused in this case, I do not mean something that’s meant to accompany the professional camera of a pro photographer. But what I mean instead is a feature-rich camera phone that outputs vivid photos to keep the social media addict in you extremely happy.
The V25 Pro has a 64MP primary camera with OIS. It outputs contrast-rich photos that appear to be social media-ready.
Night mode photos do come out to be alright, but I was expecting the highlights to be better controlled.
The 12MP ultra-wide camera does produce impressive results with minimum barrel distortion. I particularly liked the fact that the colour science of the main and ultra-wide cameras are quite closely matched.
Also watch: Google Pixel Buds Pro Review
On top of all this, you get a host of features built into the camera like a template-based vlog mode and a long exposure mode. Then, you’ve got loads of filters built into both photo and video modes that make the camera experience quite versatile and fun.
On the other hand, the main camera didn't output very impressive videos. Even though the sensor is optically stabilised, the 1080p 30fps footage was very shaky, but, to its credit, the dynamic range was quite good. You can film a max of 4k at 60fps with the main sensor.
Selfies and selfie videos from the 32MP front camera did come out to be impressive, though.
Quick question: Do you think a 2MP macro camera should belong in an upper midrange smartphone? Let me know your answer in the comments.
Performance & Software
The V25 Pro is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 1300 chipset and gets paired with 8 or 12GB of RAM. My review unit has 12GB of RAM which is quite overkill, but hey, numbers do sell, so I cannot blame Vivo for capitalising on it.
The Dimensity 1300 is a very capable chipset by itself, but things do become interesting when you consider that Vivo's own sister brands from BBK Electronics sell phones with the more powerful Dimensity 8100 chipset in the same price bracket.
So, raw performance is definitely not the V25 Pro’s forte but it works perfectly fine for your day-to-day stuff.
On the software front, this phone runs on Vivo’ FunTouch OS 12 that’s based on Android 12. FunTouch OS is quite a peculiar Android skin. It is feature-rich and very customisable, but I'm not a big fan of its general appearance and feel.
But, whether you like the UI’s aesthetics or not, it does work incredibly well as the user interface, in my experience, was quite fluid.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of bloatware on the V25 Pro. While it is easy to get rid of the third-party bloatware, Vivo’s own apps cannot be uninstalled.
Battery Life
The 4,830mAh battery on this phone will easily give you between 6-7 hours of screen time depending on your usage. The V25 also comes bundled with a fast 66W charger which can fully charge the phone in under an hour.
Verdict
The V25 Pro’s starting price of 35,999 Rs does seem slightly inflated when you consider its chipset and the lack of certain features like stereo speakers.
However, it has a great display and it packs loads of camera features for the avid social media user.
Also, it looks the part and feels much more premium than its price tag might suggest. Now that alone should lock the deal for a lot of buyers.
