Who would have thought it around a year ago. But now in 2017 -- although the trend was very much visible in whole of 2016 -- we have budget phones, the phones that cost less than Rs 10,000, that are as good as any other in the market. Sure, they can improve even further, yet it is easy to see that these are good enough phones for even most demanding consumers. Given that we have phones like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 and the Motorola G4 Plus at a price point of around Rs 10,000, why will you want to a phone like Vivo V5, which has an MRP of Rs 17,999. The answer, my friends, lies in the fact that a phone is more than the sum of its parts.
Vivo V5 is the kind of phone that shows specs don't really matter when it comes to the user experience. It's like Apple's iPhones. This is something you will like about the Vivo V5, complete with other similarities that it shares with the iPhone.
Design
You may safely call the Vivo V5 -- and the Vivo V5 Plus that launched recently -- the Chinese twins of the iPhone 6. You look at the device, and you will be immediately reminded of the Apple phone. It is not similar. It is almost exactly the same. Vivo has made sure the camera placement, the antenna lines, the white color in the front and the golden in the rear, the curved edges, the golden ring around the fingerprint sensor (it's round, did they forget) look as they do on the iPhone 6.
But let's not the "similarities" put you off from the Vivo V5 because it is a well-made phone. The build quality and the ergonomics of the device are both top botch. It's is lightweight, fairly slim and easy to operate with one hand. It is also well built and look totally polished.
Vivo mimics Apple inside out. It is not a new thing for the company to use features of iOS on its FunTouch skin made over the Android operating system. But it has only been more closely adopted on the more recent versions
Vivo irons out other things neatly too. The rear camera is not jutting out of the body, physical keys are tactile or in other words fit firmly and rightly in their sockets, the fingerprint sensor is amazingly fast and smooth to use, and it's in the front, the capacitive keys are backlit, rear surface has a matte finish and it comes in grey colour as well. If I had to nitpick, the borrowed look of the V5 is the only blemish here. It lacks originality.
Display
Depending on which phone you compare it with, the Vivo V5's display can be put on the both sides of the scale. The phone has a 720p resolution, which could be unacceptable for many in this range and it's not a Super AMOLED panel either like that on the Samsung J-series or On8 smartphones, but a LCD IPS screen.
Though the display looks good indoors and much more colorful than what is there in the Oppo F1s, another selfie-related phone, that rather appears washed out, it is not the best you can get in the price. The Galaxy On8 has a sharper display and so does the OnePlus 2 that has a higher Full HD 1080p resolution.
The Vivo V5 has a good enough display. It's not a bad display by any means and looks very nice indoors, but it also lacks ample brightness that can cause problems when you are using the phone outdoors under the Sun. The problems with the display were not noticeable in my home-office-home life, but if you will use the phone mostly outdoors, you should consider buying something brighter, like the Samsung Galaxy On8.
Software -- a dash of Apple
Vivo mimics Apple inside out. It is not a new thing for the company to use features of iOS on its FunTouch skin made over the Android operating system. But it has only been more closely adopted on the more recent versions. Vivo V5 runs the Funtouch OS 2.6 over the Android Marshmallow 6.0 and the update to Funtouch OS 3.0, if it ever comes, would only make it more Apple-like (Funtouch OS 3.0 debuted recently on Vivo V5 Plus). So if you like it, good. If you don't, nothing can be done about it.
The good thing is Vivo has always kept its Android skin light and clutter-free at least after the Vivo Y51L. And that has helped users. The Vivo V5 only improves on the previous versions. The phone runs smooth, there are no frequent lags, it doesn't normally heat up, and multi-tasking is great.
Performance
On paper, Vivo V5 is not the best phone to have in this price range when it comes to absolute performance. The phone has a Mediatek MT6750 chipset that has a octa-core Cortex-A53 processor, clocked at a slow 1.5 GHz speed, slower than Xiaomi Redmi's sub Rs 10,000 Redmi 4.
It's an old chipset that is made on the 28nm process. But there are phones that use a MediaTek chipset made on similar lines. The Lenovo Moto M or the Oppo F1s are some of the recent examples. There are certainly better chipsets in this price, but it also depends on what other specs you are looking for.
But forget about the hardware. The actual performance of the V5 is good. Like I said earlier, the hardware does not affect the phone's daily working. The software works without a hitch and even if the chipset is actually underpowered, you only get to see it while running high-end games like the Asphalt 8. Though, even that is not a grave issue as the display resolution is a low 720p that makes matters easy for graphics processor. The 4GB RAM inside the device also helps.
But a not-so-powerful processor has one upside -- it consumes less battery. Although even with that, the battery life of the V5 is average. It isn't that great on the Vivo V5. The 3000mAh battery on the phone is non-removable and gets you through the day on dual-SIM with 4G data but only with casual surfing and few hours of texting. Increase it to extensive usage and you may not get through the whole day.
Camera
The Vivo V5, like the Oppo F1s, has a high-resolution selfie shooter at front that uses a slightly bigger 20-megapixel Sony sensor. It has a 13-megapixel sensor at rear.
Both the cameras on the Vivo V5 Plus require that you hold the device tightly while clicking images in low light. Or else there are high chances that the image will come out blurred. Though most phone cameras in this price range either take a very grainy picture or fail at taking good shots in low light.
Similar is the case with the rear camera. Although I noticed that the shutter is on the slower side. This means there is more chance of blurred image with the V5. Did I say that you have to hold it tightly while clicking the photo? The slow shutter is the reason. At the same time, you can also use the pro mode and bump up the ISO and EV range to get a useable hand-held shot.The rear camera is strictly average, and definitely not as good as what the front camera can manage. The details captured by the rear camera are not as good as what the front camera clicks. Noise creeps in at all times, whatever the lighting conditions. In this price range, OnePlus 2, although old, with OIS on the rear camera is a better option.
Should You Buy the Vivo V5?
If you don't mind the fact that Vivo V5 uses an iPhone-like interface and looks a copy of the Apple device, the smartphone will fit you just fine. Its interface, though an iPhone look-alike, works smoothly. It is as smooth as the stock Android. The phone has a good-enough display, a fast fingerprint sensor at front, and enough power under the hood for regular use.
But there are more powerful phones out there with better rear cameras like the Lenovo P2 in this price bracket. The Moto G4 is also a nice alternative running stock interface and a smooth metal frame, while the Samsung Galaxy On8 comes with a metal unibody and a brighter display. These are also better when it comes to the battery life.
But there is also a catch. All these cool phones are only available online. The Vivo V5 is a phone that you will find in your local phone store near you. If online purchase is not an option for you, the V5 makes a lot of sense. But if you can buy online, the Vivo V5 doesn't make any sense for you.
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