Vivo V5 Review: A Moonlight Selfie Camera Smartphone

Vivo V5 is a world’s first smartphone with 20 MP camera launched by Vivo on 15th November 2016. Vivo V5 is a successor of Vivo V3Max but especially for selfie lovers. The Android smartphone is priced at Rs. 17,980 and comes with decent specs and upgrades, especially in the camera department as compared to Vivo V3Max. Let see the Vivo V5 review to know about the performance and features in detail. One more thing soon Vivo is also going to announce Vivo V5 plus (review) with dual camera configuration.

Also See: Nubia Z11 Mini review

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Vivo V5 Review in detail

What you get in the Vivo V5 box

The Vivo V5 comes in two colors: Space Grey and Crown Gold. After unboxing Vivo V5, what we got inside the box is as follow:

Vivo V5 smartphone
Headphones
Charger (5V-1A)
Micro USB cable
SIM ejector tool
Screen protector
Rubber back cover or clear protective case
Quickstart Guide and warranty information

Vivo V5 review of body and design

Out of the box, Vivo V5 has a uni design that feels premium and stylish. The backside of the phone has matte finish along with a chrome line embossed Vivo logo. The 13Mp camera and LED flash sit at the top left backside of the body. The round edges and chrome finish antenna bands at the top and bottom gives a very premium finish to the phone. However, the phone looks premium but the backside is made up of plastic.

The sides and buttons are designed so ergonomically, as you can see in the image below. A silver color lining is running around the edges to enhance the overall look. The right side of the Vivo V5 accomplished with volume and power buttons, while the hybrid SIM slot is situated on the right.

Moving towards the bottom, the speaker grills, mic, micro-USB port, 3.5mm Audio jack is beautifully crafted out from the plastic body. It good to place everything at one place this will come handy when you use headphones while charging.

Coming to the front side, Vivo has placed a home button that looks like pressable but it is not same like OnePlus 3. Also, the fingerprint sensor is integrated into the home button to added security. The fingerprint at the front side is much convenient to use than the sensor at the back side. For navigation, it has backlit capacitive navigation buttons on either side of the Home button.

Vivo V5 comes with 5.5-inch IPS HD display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass. The display is very bright and colors it produces are natural. The viewing angles are also good and one can easily read the text at 70 degrees. However, the reflection of display glass make it reflective and it struggles a little bit in the bright sunlight or outdoor. Despite Gorilla Glass Vivo V5 comes with pre-applied tempered glass. Moreover silicon back cover is also packed into the box.

Vivo V5 review of camera: Best selfie camera

Vivo V5 is been promoting by Vivo as a selfie smartphone for “perfect selfie”. The 20MP front camera has a LED flash called ‘Moonlight Glow” by Vivo. The camera has a Sony IMX 376 sensor with F/2.0 aperture and 5P lens. To enhance selfie the smartphone has a Face Beauty 6.0 mode that can reduce the spots and make faces look slimmer. We captured the photos from the front camera in different light condition and we really impressed with Moonlight Glow flash. The flash didn’t leave any burnout effect or unnatural color effect on the face. In spite of the 20MP the selfie it captures is still not better much so far. The selfies are good but the depth is not much impressive. Whatever, still Vivo V5 is the best smartphone for the selfie and if someone wants a selfie camera then Vivo V5 can be the first choice.

About the rear 13MP rear camera with flash is also coming handy to capture day to day images. The phase detection autofocus feature really did a great job while capturing some moving object. The pictures come out were sharp, vivid and good in detailing. We didn’t find any shutter lag. The Android smartphone camera app has different option or modes such as Panorama, HDR, Face Beauty, Night, Motion Track, Gender Detection, Filter, Watermark and more.

Vivo V5 Review of software: An iPhone like feel

Vivo v5 runs on FunTouch 2.6 OS based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The Funtouch OS has some similar features like iPhone such as lower panel swipe for shortcuts options, no app drawer, and spotlight search. The OS is highly customized but still it runs so smoothly and doesn’t feel clutter. In Vivo V3Max, Vivo has introduced a feature called split screen. It also available in Vivo V5, this features split the screen into two parts and allow to use two different apps simultaneously such chatting on WhatsApp while watching the video. Preloaded apps on the Vivo V5 are Easy Share, Facebook, WhatsApp, and the entire Google suite of apps. The phone OS also has an inbuilt option called “Eye” that protect your eye from strain and fatigue by filtering the blue light.

Vivo V5 Review : It is Good for day to day usage

Under its shell, the Vivo V5 runs on 1.5Ghz Octa-core 64 bit MediaTek 6750 Processor. For multitasking 4GB RAM is there with 32 GB internal storage, expandable up to 128GB by using SIM slot 2. The Vivo V5 is powered by the 64-bit 1.5GHz octa-core MediaTek 6750 processor paired with 4GB of RAM. There is 32GB of internal storage available, and Vivo offers a hybrid slot for expansion by up to 128GB instead of a second SIM.

We played some heavy games on it such as Mortal combat and there is no serious lag or glitches. But while using some heavy apps such as Lightroom the phone become slow. Also, the camera app takes some time to open when some heavy apps running in the background. Sometimes you could face some heating during gaming. The fingerprint sensor is awesome, can unlock the phone in 0.2 seconds. The fingerprint under the home button of Vivo v5 is waterproof that means you don’t need to worry about your wet hands. Moreover, the fingerprint is placed at the front which is much convenient to use as compared to fingerprint sensor at the backside of the phone.

This Android smartphone is very good for day to day multitasking such as browsing, emails, social etc. For better sound quality in a headphone, it has AK4376 dedicated Hi-Fi audio chip giving a signal-to-noise ratio of up to 115d. Also, the Loudspeaker is enough to clear and loud to enjoy any genre of music.

Vivo V5 Battery: Easily last long more than a day

Vivo V5 packed with a 3000mAh battery, the can easily last long for a day. In our video loop test, we played 720p video with full volume and brightness and manage to get 6 hours and 20 minutes back up.

Bottomline:

Vivo V5 as hardware configuration wise is not something adorable but with 20MP camera it has set up a direct competition with other selfies centric phones. The Gionee S6s and the Oppo F1s are some of them. Both the Android smartphones come under the same price bracket i.e 17,999. Moreover, the Gionee has front flash( not much efficient) and Oppo does not. So, overall the phone Vivo V5 is a perfect option for selfie lovers.

Pros: 20Mp camera, front flash, quick fingerprint scanner, good speakers

Cons: No Full HD screen and tad high in price

Vivo V5 Detailed specifications