This Vivo smartphone gives the privacy features of Android 12. Small audio and video indicators appear in the notification area when the phone’s microphone or camera is in use. Apart from all this, it also includes some Funtouch widgets inspired by Origin OS. The notification tray and quick settings menu don’t look like the Google Pixel running stock Android. It doesn’t have the powerful search function in the app drawer, but the notification history makes up for it and you can use it by scrolling the notification tray to the bottom (it has to be activated first by going to Settings).
The company has added a new Game Space app to the phone, but it doesn’t do much and only tells you what games are on your phone, and how long you’ve played them.
Vivo V23 Pro performed as expected in the standard benchmark test. It achieved scores of 950 and 3,216 respectively in Geekbench’s single and multi-core tests. At the same time, scored 6,24,567 points in AnTuTu. This score is apparently on par with the mid-range smartphone’s score and for the same price range.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC found in the phone is less than the score of the processor.
The gaming performance of the phone was good. This phone also got hot while playing games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends on the highest settings. However, it handled long gaming sessions well without showing any impact on performance. Asphalt 9: Legends ran smooth in 60fps mode, but Call of Duty didn’t have as much fun, as its touch sensitivity didn’t help me with my aim of moving quickly and hitting enemies while gaming. I lost several tournaments because of this slight delay in touch response. Even after reducing the graphics quality to the lowest level, it did not lag with the phone.
The Vivo V23 Pro has a single speaker, which sounds quite loud, but at high volumes, the sound feels cracked. Stereo sound is often found in phones in this price range, which is missing in this phone. To balance the sound, the phone should have had a stereo speaker setup.
The AMOLED panel of the phone is good. It’s bright enough, and the colors are saturated, but when viewed in direct sunlight, colors appear a bit faint. The refresh rate of 90Hz is plenty, but many of its competitors get a higher refresh rate than this. Its curved edge makes the panel special. They don’t look much different in everyday use, but the phone’s medium size notch looks a bit different, as most Android phones these days (below and above this price range) get a hole-punch cutout, which Gives a clean look to the display while taking up less space.
Even after being thin, the battery life of the phone affects a lot and the phone gives decent battery backup. The phone lasted 12 hours and 7 minutes in our HD video loop test, which is slightly below average. In common use, the phone lasts a whole day in a single charge, but it cannot be called the best in this segment. Users who want more battery power will have to look for some other option. The phone gets charged quickly with the 44W fast charger. It charges up to 65 percent in 30 minutes and is fully charged in an hour.
Vivo V23 Pro cameras
The camera specifications of Vivo V23 Pro are quite attractive. Both the front and rear cameras can do 4K recording at 60fps. The front camera also has HDR video recording and two LED flash units. The phone has a total of three rear cameras and two front cameras. Its primary camera in the rear is 108 megapixels, the second camera is 8 megapixels ultra wide angle lens and the third lens is 2 megapixel macro shooter.
The primary camera in the front facing camera is 50 megapixels, which comes with autofocus. The second camera is an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle lens, so that group selfies can be taken easily. The camera interface is well set up and all the necessary settings are quickly accessible. For this, a menu has been given in the top left edge (when the phone is held upright), in which the settings can be changed easily. It is worth noting here that special video features like Steadiface and Super Night can only record 1080p at 30fps. HDR video is also limited to 1080p and 30fps for 4K. Whereas 1080p recording is limited to 60fps in Super Stabilization mode.
Photos taken with 108MP camera were saved in 12MP. Saturation was high in photos taken in daylight, but dynamic range and details were good. The photos taken with the ultra wide angle camera were below average in terms of details. Only photos taken in daylight were usable.
The 50 megapixel selfie camera also saved the photo in 12 megapixels. Selfies taken in daylight were sharp and clear and had good dynamic range. It also separated the background from the subject very well. Edge detection and more details were excellent in portrait mode. The same was seen in the portrait mode of the rear camera as well. The photos from the ultra wide selfie camera were also excellent and were much better than the rear facing ultra wide camera. The 2-megapixel macro camera was very useful in taking close-up shots, but the quality was average.
In low-light, the primary rear camera took decent shots with decent details and dynamic range. Night mode shots were also better. Subjects appear sharp, but in contrast mode, the photo looks slightly artificial. There were some photos in which I did notice that the highlights were more exposed around street lamps or other sources of light. Photos taken with the ultra wide angle camera in Night Mode looked good on the phone’s display, but the details were not much on the monitor screen.
Selfies taken in low light were sharp and details came out better with the spotlight flash than with the screen flash. However, the quality of the photo cannot be judged above average in both ways. Night mode also did not help in this. In most cases, the primary selfie camera struggled to focus even after turning on the flash.
Talking about the video, there was a slight disappointment here too. The company has paid a lot of attention to the extra features but left the basic features behind. The best quality of video in the phone was found in shooting 4K videos at 30fps. Details were not found in 1080p video recording in daylight. Stabilization was very good at 1080p but was nowhere to be seen in recording 4K video at 60fps.
The phone has an Ultra Stabilization mode that completely stabilizes the video, but its resolution is limited to 1080p at 60fps. While shooting a selfie video in any resolution in daylight, the background was getting over-exposed. In HDR mode, the subject and background came out well, but the exposure was high and the details were below average. Vivo has introduced a stabilization feature called Steadiface, which makes the footage smooth even in daylight and low light.
When shooting videos in low-light with the selfie camera, the footage came out quite grainy. The Super Night video mode helped narrow it down quite a bit, but the frame rate went awry. The details were not found when shooting the video in 1080p. Videos shot at 60fps were recorded quite dark and the stabilization was also not very good. There was a slight decrease in video smoothness while running. There was a problem with the stability of the video even when the resolution was reduced to 4K. Footage in 4K at 60fps was quite dark and videos were shaking even when panning. Videos appeared slightly blurry and faint in Ultra Stabilization mode.
Verdict
This phone is for those users who want a slim and light smartphone, or want to get the experience of the latest Android smartphone. Its color changing panel is quite different. This phone is one of the few smartphones available in this segment, in which curved edge display is available. However, for users who want gaming performance and great battery life, this phone does not meet the test.
The competition for Vivo V23 Pro is very tough. After testing the Realme GT and iQoo 7 Legend in our reviews, I can confidently say that the iQoo has the best camera out of them all. Apart from this, many more smartphones, such as OnePlus 9R, Xiaomi Mi 11X Pro and the recently launched Xiaomi 11T Pro are available in the market, which give better gaming performance than Vivo V23 Pro. All these phones get stereo speakers and AMOLED display, which includes a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. The Mi 11X Pro also gets an IP53 rating.
Photos taken with Vivo V23 Pro’s camera impress a lot, but video recording needs a lot of improvement. This smartphone proves to be better than V20 Pro in many ways, but cannot be called perfect. Its high price makes the competition tougher for it, as it has to compete with premium smartphones in this range, which perform better than this.
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