Vivo has been known to launch selfie-centric smartphones for quite some time now. And the latest addition to its range are Vivo V7 and Vivo V7 Plus. The V7 from Vivo follows the trend of bezel-less smartphones and comes with a FullView display. It also has a facial recognition feature. But is it a good buy at Rs 18,990? Read the rest of our review to know....
Design
Let's begin by talking about the look and feel of Vivo V7. The smartphone looks highly inspired from the iPhone X, but nevertheless is sleek and minimalistic. It has a plastic body and is so thin that it often seemed that it would slip out our hand. So, we would say that although it looks appealing to the eye, the built of the smartphone could have been better. Also, with a number of smartphones in themed-range segment coming with metal-clad bodies, we would love to see Vivo adapt to the change too. But then, because of the plastic built, we did not see any fingerprint smudges on the smartphone during our time with it.
The front panel remains dominated by 5.7-inch IPS FullView display, which comes with 18:9 aspect ratio. Besides this, there is the selfie camera, earpiece and on-screen navigation keys. Flip over and you'll see the primary camera along with the LED flash, the fingerprint sensor and Vivo branding below it. The power and volume rocker buttons are sandwiched on the right edge and the SIM tray lies on the left, the 3.5mm jack, microUSB slot and speaker grille lies at the bottom. To add to the aesthetics of the smartphone, a chrome trim runs along the edges. Like we said earlier, the smartphone looked appealing to the eye, but Vivo could have incorporated a few changes to look less like the iPhone X.
Coming to the display, Vivo V7 follows the current smartphone trend and comes with thin bezels. If you like the bezel-less trend, here's one more reason to like the smartphone. The display of the smartphone was good. The colours were bright and vibrant and remained consistent at different viewing angles. Colour accuracy was also good and we noticed no pixilation during our time with the smartphone. The images produced and the app icons were sharp. However, sunlight readability was very disappointing. We have seen other smartphones' displays do much better as far as this aspect goes. Also, at this price, we expect a Full HD+ display and not HD+ to begin with.
Performance
Before we begin talking about its performance, we'll shed light on the specifications of Vivo V7. Running Android 7.1 Nougat skinned with Funtouch OS 3.2, the Vivo V7 features a 5.7-inch HD+ display with 18:9 aspect ratio. The device runs on an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor under the hood along with 4GB RAM. It also includes 32GB internal storage which can be expanded up to 256GB using a microSD card. It is worth adding that the device has triple card slots for the simultaneous use of two SIM cards and a microSD card. It is backed by a 3000mAh battery and offers 4G, VoLTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS as connectivity options.
For imaging duties, Vivo V7 sports 24MP selfie camera with f/2.0 aperture and Moonlight Glow feature. At the front, the Vivo V7 features a 16MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture and LED flash. The camera has Face Beauty 7.0 software for enhanced selfies.
The software of Vivo V7 is a customised version of Android, and it comes with its own set of tweaks. For starters, the app icons are very different from other Android smartphones. The settings are not integrated with the notification panel, appear from the bottom of the screen much like in iPhones. Even the recently used apps appear like they do in iOS devices and not the way they do in Android phones.
The smartphone comes with face recognition feature. So, instead of using the fingerprint sensor, you can use set up the face recognition feature and unlock the device just by raising it to your face. In well-lit areas, we encountered no problem with it. However, the accuracy does go down in areas which are not very well-lit. And unlocking the smartphone in dimly lit areas was a problem. At times, it just did not happen and we had to manually enter the passcode of the phone. There is also a 'Quick Recognition' mode in settings. Enabling it means unlocking the phone even more quickly, and as written in settings of the phone, disabling it means reducing the possibility of the smartphone getting unlocked with a picture or videos. However, when we tried to unlock the device with our picture, we couldn't do it.
Coming to the performance of the phone, Vivo V7 can handle everyday tasks with ease. In spite of such heavy customisation of the software, there was no lag in launching or switching between apps. Multitasking was not an issue either. One can easily use the smartphone for navigation and listen to music or watch videos on it at the same time, and Vivo V7 can take it well.
In fact, watching videos was quite a good experience on the smartphone. Like we had mentioned earlier, the images projected were sharp and clear but the audio quality was average. However, we'll recommend plugging in headphones for a better sound experience.
Another good aspect of Vivo V7 is that there was no heating issue in the smartphone. Even when we used it for navigation or gaming, the phone didn't warm up even once.
We didn't encounter any problem making or receiving calls with the smartphone, even from areas like basements and elevators. The earpiece delivered clear sound experience, but the sound was never loud enough for someone else to hear our conversation.
Now let's talk about the cameras of the device. The 24MP selfie camera comes with Bokeh mode and has support for HDR. We clicked a number of pictures with and most of them turned out to be sharp and had accurate colours. But then, selfies have always been the selling point for Vivo smartphones, so we in way expected them to be good.
Switch on the Bokeh mode and the background behind you will get blurred. Pictures clicked with Bokeh mode on too, turned out to be good. There is also the Moonlight glow feature in Vivo V7 -something we have always liked. When clicking selfies in dimly lit areas, it adds a natural looking glow to one's picture rather than the chalky white light most smartphones' flash does. One can even capture live pictures with the front facing camera of Vivo V7 and there is option for taking group selfies too. In group selfies, you can take a mini panorama shot so that more people can fit in the frame.
The 16MP rear camera of the device also did a good job. It comes with modes like slow motion, time-lapse, professional, Ultra HD, and more. The images taken had good details and looked good even on our laptop. Even the ones taken in dimly lit areas, we did not see any pixilation or noise.
The battery life of the smartphone was another good aspect. On moderate usage involving phone calls, using social media apps, browsing internet and watching YouTube videos, it lasted us for an entire day. However, there is no option for fast charging.
We ran some benchmark tests on Vivo V7 and it scored 55355 in Antutu and 757 and 3871 in Single core and Multi core scores of Geekbench 4.
Verdict
There were both good and bad aspects of Vivo V7. If you are looking for a smartphone that has good cameras, smooth performance and a lasting battery, Vivo V7 may be the right choice for you. But at a price of Rs 18,990, we expected a more original design and a better display too. Also, we don't like such heavy customizations in the phone's software, but that is very subjective, so we won't count it as a downside or an upside.
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