The current ongoing lockdowns, due to the pandemic has disrupted the flow of business in almost every vertical. Due to this, a lot of products are either being canceled or pushed back. We recently saw brands finally launching the products that we’re in the pipeline post lockdown.
Now it’s the turn of Vivo to announce the Vivo V19. This would essentially be the second product from the brand to launch this year. The vivo V19 builds upon the blueprint set by the earlier V series products with a heavy hand on camera and content consumption.
With quad rear cameras and dual front cameras, an AMOLED display, and a large battery, the phone offers a lot, however, it costs a premium. So, is the V19 worth having a look at? Well, let’s check out the same in our in-depth Vivo V19 review.
Vivo V19 Specifications
Before starting with the Vivo V19 review, let’s have a glance at the phone’s specifications, pricing, and things we get with the device.
- Display: 6.44-inch Super AMOLED display, Full-HD+ (1080 x 2400 pixels resolution), 20:9 ratio, 409 PPI density
- CPU: octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 processor
- GPU: Adreno 612
- RAM: 8GB
- Storage: 128/256GB
- Software: Android 10 (FunTouch OS 10)
- Main Camera: 48 MP primary sensor (f/1.7, AF) + 8MP ultra-wide (f/2.2, 13mm) + 2MP macro lens (f/2.4) + 2MP bokeh lens (f/2.4)
- Selfie Camera: 32MP (f/2.0) + 8MP (f/2.8) Ultra-wide
- Connectivity: USB Type-C, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth v5.0, GPS/ A-GPS, 3.5mm headphone jack, FM Radio
- Cellular: Dual SIM
- Fingerprint Scanner: Yes, in-display
- Battery: 4,500 mAh, Li-ion Polymer, non-removable
- Charging: 33W fast charging
- Colors: Piano Black & Mystic Silver
Box Contents
Here’s a complete list of items you get inside the box:
- Vivo V19
- 40W Fast Charger
- Earphones
- USB Type-C charging cable
- Transparent Silicon Case
- Sim Ejector Tool
- Documentation
Design
The V series smartphones have always stood out for their design and the V19 is no different. The phone is identical in dimensions and design to the iQOO 3 since iQOO is a sub-brand of Vivo and will be using the same resources as its parent brand. Both the phone differs in the paint job, the Vivo V19 comes in two shades, Piano Black and Mystic Silver both of them being solid glossy colors.
The phone finally comes with a textured glass back, protected by Gorilla Glass 6. Starting from the back, the quad-rear camera module sits on one corner and protrudes slightly. At the bottom, you get to see the Vivo branding. On flipping the phone, we get a good look at the 6.44-inch AMOLED display with a dual-punch hole for the selfie cameras.
Moving further, the curved back of the phone makes it grippy and comfortable to hold. Plus, the glass body gives it a solid feel in hands. However, it’s simply not the sleekest phones you’ll find in the market. Coming to the button placement, the power and volume button is on the right, USB-Type-C charging port, primary microphone, and speaker are situated at the bottom. The triple card slot has been to the lest side and houses two SIMs and a microSD. Vivo has done away with the assistant button that was found on the earlier V series models.
Display
The Vivo V19 gets a 6.44-inch iView display with Full-HD+ resolution of 2340×1080 pixels, a 20:9 aspect ratio, and a 90%+ screen-to-body ratio. The screen is quite sharp, has excellent viewing angles, and gets quite bright even under harsh sunlight. Plus, it offers punchy colors with deep blacks and the ability to tweak the color profiles in the settings app.
The device also features always-on display mode. Overall, the display is great for binge-watchers, thanks to the excellent quality offered by AMOLED panel. The display also has a 100% sRGB color gamut and TÜV Rheinland Eye Comfort certification. Thankfully, it does come with WideVine L1 certification allowing you to stream HD content on services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
Software
On the software front, the Vivo V19 runs on the company’s custom FunTouch OS 10, based on Android 10. The FunTouch resembles iOS in many areas and comes with a bunch of preloaded bloatware including Vivo’s own app store, Vivo Browser, EasyShare file sharing tool, followed by third-party apps like UC Browser, Amazon, NewsPoint, WPS Office, PhonePe, and more.
With this new FunTouch OS build, Vivo has enabled the native system-wide dark mode, added a shortcuts hub that houses the toggles, app shortcuts, and more. There are some useful customization features including a built-in theming engine, screen recorder, system-wide dark mode, and AI-based Jovi assistant. There’s also a gaming assistant that blocks calls, alongside letting you enable 4D vibration for an improved gaming experience.
Performance
Coming to the performance, powering the phone at its core is the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 SoC, coupled with Adreno 612 GPU, 8GB of RAM, and 128/256GB of storage depending on the variant. It is a marginal step up from the Vivo V17 series that had the Snapdragon 675 SoC.
This is where the phone seems to have cut corners, Vivo could’ve easily gone with something a little more powerful like the Snapdragon 730G considering the price bracket of the phone and that would have the phone a little more appealing while justifying the price tag.
Barring that, the phone performs pretty great when it comes to day to day tasks like watching videos, listening to music, surfing social media, browsing the web, and more. With the new FunTouch OS, memory management has been improved, and we didn’t really have any problem switching between apps. Games like PUBG and Asphalt 9 ran fine on medium graphics settings.
Apart from this, we have an in-display fingerprint scanner that works reliably well and detects the fingerprint in one go for the most part. Call quality too is great and audio from speakers as well as the headphone jack is loud and clear.
Camera
Like we previously mentioned, cameras have always been the strength and highlighting factor of the V series smartphones. The V19 comes with a quad-rear camera module with the main being a 48-megapixel sensor with f/1.7 aperture, assisted with an 8-megapixel wide-angle shooter with f/2.2 aperture. There’s also a 2-megapixel unit for macro shots and another for Bokeh. As for the front, the phone boasts of a 32-megapixel primary selfie camera and an 8-megapixel wide-angle shooter inside the punch-hole cutout.
The camera performs really well, especially in broad daylight. The images taken by the main sensor are sharp, have lots of detail, and bear natural colors. The dynamic range is excellent, as well. However, the low-light performance is just average as the phone clicks only usable pictures with soft details and inaccurate colors.
For taking shots in low light situations, we would recommend kicking in the Night mode, which helps in achieving good results.
The wide-angle camera, while not as good as the primary sensor, produces decent results. The added macro lens is a delight for people who enjoy taking macro shots. The additional bokeh lens helps in getting some really good depth shots.
The camera is similar to what we have seen on other Vivo smartphones with basic modes laid out neatly. As with previous offerings, there is heavy use of AI here as well that helps in taking the perfect shots as per the conditions.
The front camera impresses as well with the main 32-megapixel sensor pumping out consistently well selfies that have plenty of detail in them. The skin tones are on the richer side. The wide-angle camera is not that great, but apt for clicking good enough group pictures in well-lit areas.
Battery
The Vivo V19 gets a sufficiently large 4,500mAh battery on the hood. During our testing, the phone lasted for a full working day with a screen on-time ranging from six to seven hours on medium to heavy usage. Our heavy usage included a bit of gaming, content consumption, usual texting, and high camera usage.
With the supplied fast charger, the phone charges from 0% to 70% in just 40 minutes. This is possible thanks to the 33W Vivo FlashCharge 2.0 technology that is in-par to other fast charging solutions in the market.
Pros
- Looks Premium
- Great display
- Great Battery life
- Fast Charging, USB Type-C
Cons
- FunTouch OS is annoying
- Bulky
- Chipset is not for hardcore gamers
Verdict – Should you buy it?
The Vivo V19 offers a really good display quite apt for binge-watchers, a massive battery, and fast charging for heavy users. However, it lacks in the gaming department as the Snapdragon 712 isn’t able to push through, that being said, the chipset is more than capable of pushing the phone under normal usage.
One area where the brand could’ve improved is the camera department, an addition of a zoom lens instead of the 2MP bokeh lens would’ve been great.
In our opinion, the phone will face tough competition online but will be a hit in the offline segment thanks to the robust Vivo dealer network.
