Vivo V3 Review


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Vivo had launched V3 and V3 Max in India in April this year. The Chinese smartphone maker was one of the top five vendors in Q1 2016. We have got our hands on the mid ranger Vivo V3 which is priced at Rs. 17,980. Let’s see if the device is worth its price tag in this detailed review.

Unboxing

We recently unboxed the Vivo V3, take a look at the video below.

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Box Content

  • vivo V3 smartphone in gold color
  • Headset with microphone
  • 2-pin charger (5V-1A)
  • Micro USB cable
  • SIM ejector tool
  • Screen protector
  • Clear protective case
  • Quick start guide and warranty information

Display, Hardware and Design

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The Vivo V3 sports a 5.5-inch (1080 x 1920 pixels) Full HD display with 2.5D curved Corning Gorilla glass protection. The display is bright and produces vibrant colors. The sunlight visibility on the phone is average even when brightness is kept at the maximum however it offers good viewing angles. The display is prone to smudges and is reflective too.

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On the top, the phone has an 8MP front facing camera, earpiece and usual set of proximity and ambient light sensors. It also has a notification LED.

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There are three capacitive touch buttons on the bezels below the display. The buttons are not backlit but offer haptic feedback.

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The SIM slot which holds micro and nano SIM card is present on the left.

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The power/lock button and volume rockers are present on the right.

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On the top you have the 3.5mm audio jack, microSD card slot and a microphone.

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A micro USB port, loudspeaker grills and a secondary microphone are situated at the bottom. The speaker output is loud and clear but since the grills are present only on the right side, the sound focuses only on one side instead of coming from both the sides.

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The phone sports a unibody metal design. We had the gold variant which blends well with the white bezels that are present on the top and bottom. It has a 13MP camera with LED flash at the back which we will check in detail in the review. Also present is the fingerprint sensor that can unlock the phone in just 0.2 seconds or in 0.5 seconds in sleep mode. The Vivo branding is situated in the middle. Overall the phone scores well when it comes to design and build quality. The brushed metal at the back gives it a premium look and offers good grip. The 5-inch display feels compact and is easy for one hand operations for people with small hands.

Camera

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The Vivo V3 sports a 13MP rear camera with LED Flash, PDAF. Macro shots from the phone came out clear and sharp. Daylight images looked a bit washed out and did not bring out the best color. As usual low light images were grainy. But the HDR mode added too much noise to photos.

It comes with different modes like HDR, Panorama, Night, PPT, Motion track, Profession, Slow, Fast. You can use the fingerprint scanner to take photos when camera is on.

The camera setting includes Touch capture, Waving your palm capture, timer, gender detection. There are a large number of camera filters to choose from. Also present is the ability to add watermarks while taking photos.

The 8MP front camera comes with options like face beauty. It also offers additional options including Buffing, Enlarging and Slimming. The front camera is really good for selfies. Check out some camera samples (Click the image to view full resolution sample).

Daylight

daylight

HDR OFF

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HDR ON

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HDR OFF

HDR OFF

HDR ON

HDR ON

Macro

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Low-light

macro

lowlight

Flash

flash

Front Camera

selfie

Software

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The Vivo V3 runs on Funtouch OS 2.5 based on Android 5.1 (Lollipop). There UI is quite attractive and comes without an app drawer. It offers some customization options while a dynamic sliding effect lets you select from various patterns (Cylinder, Turn, Jump, Stack and so on) in which the screen slides. Different widgets can also be added to the screen.

Next up, you can set different home and lock screen wallpapers. Also present are numerous theme options that can be selected from iTheme. You can even change the type and size of the fonts.

Apps

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Sliding from bottom of the screen displays Quick Setting panel. It comes with slider controls for display and volume. At the bottom you have quick shortcuts for Wi-Fi, Flashlight, Data, Bluetooth and others. You can customize these quick actions as per your choice.

The phone comes with built-in apps EasyShare, WPS Office, vivoCloud, Lock, iTheme, iManager and the usual Google apps. Facebook, WeChat and WhatsApp apps are pre-downloaded and can be uninstalled.

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The Notification panel shows usual notifications from apps while you can customize the things that can be displayed in the status bar like network speed, battery percentage, events, data usage and icon beautification. There is a S-capture tool that lets you save screenshots in four ways including Screen recording, long screenshot, rectangular and Funny Screenshot. The iManager app cleans all the background process and clears unwanted files like cache, apks, trash etc. It even has a data monitor which monitors your data plan and offers daily data usage details.

Calls and Message

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There is nothing much to talk about the dialer and keyboard as both of them are pretty standard.

Music Player and FM Radio

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Vivo has added AK4375 audio chip for an enhanced audio experience which is not exceptional but does offer great clarity. However, the audio output is flat with no bass. The phone has a native music and video player. The UI for the music player is simple and clean. It comes with BBE which can be enabled at the time of listening the music using earphones. This offers a number of equalizer options. The audio experience using earphones is decent.

In case of FM Radio, you can set upto six stations and comes with auto scanning and recording. The UI for Radio is also simple and neat.

Fingerprint Sensor

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One of the highlights of the phone is its fast fingerprint scanning technology. Vivo claimed that its fingerprint scanner was among the most accurate and fastest available in this segment and there is no question about it. It unlocks the phone in just 0.2 seconds or in 0.5 seconds in sleep mode. The fingerprint is super-fast and we faced no issues with it during our testing period. You can register up to five fingerprints.

Dual SIM and Connectivity

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Both the SIMs (micro+nano) support 4G, but you can enable 4G only in one SIM at a time, while the other goes to 2G. Other connectivity options on the phone includes the usual Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and OTG support. It does not support NFC though.

The call quality is not the best and we faced numerous call drops during our testing period.

Storage

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The phone comes with 32GB internal storage out of which you get 22.76GB out of the box. You can also move compatible apps to the SD card. Out of 3GB RAM you get 1.95GB of usable RAM out of which 1.06GB is free when default apps are running in the background.

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The phone comes with Smart Motion feature that offers various quick actions smart wake, smart turn on/off screen, smart call and so on. There are a number of handy quick actions like draw ‘m’ to play music, double tap to turn screen off, wave your palm over the top of the phone to answer hands free among others.

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There is a Smart multi-screen feature which as the name suggest splits the screen in two. When a message is received with an app running in full screen view, the message will show as a floating icon. Tapping the icon will split the screen in two and those apps will be displayed side by side as you can see in the screenshot above. The floating icon is compatible with Videos, Google Play Movies & TV, YouTube apps.

Performance and Benchmarks

The Vivo V3 is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 616 octa-core chipset paired with an Adreno 405 GPU and 3GB of RAM. The performance of the phone is decent without any lags. Although, it did heat up a bit while playing games. Check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
AnTuTu Benchmark 6

vivo V3 AnTUTu 6

It scored 39901 in AnTuTu Benchmark 6

Geekbench 3 SingleCore

vivo V3 Geekbench 3 Single-Core

It scored 703 in the Geekbench singlecore benchmark.

Geekbench 3 MultiCore

vivo V3 Geekbench 3 Multi-Core

It scored 1441 in the Geekbench multiscore benchmark.

Vellmao 3.1 MultiCore

vivo V3 Vellamo 3 Multi-Core

It managed to score 1441 in the Vellamo 3.1 multicore benchmark.

Vellamo 3.1 Metal

vivo V3 Vellamo 3.1 Metal

It scored 1088 in the Vellamo 3.1 metal benchamark.

3DMark Ice Storm

vivo V3 3D Mark Ice Storm Unlimited

It scored 10289 in the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited GPU benchmark.

Vellamo 3.1 Browser Chrome

vivo V3 Vellamo 3.1 Chrome Browser

It scored 2629 in the Vellamo 3.1 browser chrome benchmark.

Battery

vivo V3 FA One Charge Rating

Vivo has also employed a dual-engine charging technology, which is its version of fast charging. It comes with a 2550mAh battery that easily lasts a day with heavy to medium use.

vivo V3 FA One Charge Rating Pie Chart

It achieved a One Charge Rating of 11 hours and 59 minutes.

Conclusion

The Vivo V3 scores when it comes to design and build quality which offers it a premium look. However, the phone’s 5-inch HD display with a pixel density of 294ppi is disappointing as the market is filled with smartphones priced as low as Rs. 10,000 that offer a full HD display. The phone impresses with a fast and accurate fingerprint sensor. The rear camera is just average but does come with lot of modes and filters while the front camera performance is decent. Overall, the Vivo V3 is a good device with decent specs but the Rs. 17,980 price tag is a letdown. There are a bunch of phones that offer almost similar specs for a lot less price. To sum up, here are the pros and cons of the Vivo V3.

Pros

  • Good design and build quality
  • Fast and accurate fingerprint sensor
  • Good front-facing camera
  • Decent performance

Cons

  • Low resolution display
  • Average rear camera
  • Priced on the higher side

Author: Sneha Bokil

Sneha Bokil is a tech enthusiast and is currently using OnePlus 3T but she still treasures her Nokia N70 (M). You can follow her on Twitter @snehabokil and on Google+