Vivo V15 Pro – Bedazzling Innovation – Review

Vivo has been leading the innovation battalion from the front, since 2018. While every other mobile has been safely following the tried and tested route, Vivo has been carving its own path. Last year, Vivo Nex was the first commercially available mobile in India with elevating front camera along with in-display fingerprint sensor. Since then, Vivo has been all about innovation. This year, we have the Vivo V15 Pro, the flagship V series from Vivo with elevating front camera along with in-display fingerprint sensor, but with a much better 32 MP camera and a super fast 5th generation in-display fingerprint sensor. It is priced at Rs 28990. I have been using the mobile for quite some time now and here is my review of the Vivo V15 Pro.

In the Box

• Vivo V15 Pro Mobile
• Transparent Hybrid Back Case
• Earphones
• SIM Ejector Pin
• 9V/5V 2A Dual Engine Wall charger
• Micro USB Cable

Design

Vivo V15 Pro is a stylish mobile available in two color options: Diamond Red and Topaz Blue. The Topaz blue looks the best among both these options with a shiny gradient back. The mobile is predominantly made of polycarbonate material. It is shiny and has a glossy finish which is prone to fingerprint smudges. The bottom has a speaker grill, micro USB port, mic, and dual nano-SIM card tray. The speaker is not the loudest, but it gives clear voice output. The top has the popup camera, mic and 3.5 mm audio jack. It is good to see Vivo not giving up 3.5mm jack. The right side has power and volume buttons, while the left has an SD card tray and a smart assistant button. The back of the mobile has an array of triple cameras, elevated from the surface. The front has an earpiece grill above the display but there is no notification LED. The display covers more than 91% of the body. The Vivo V15 Pro is all about display. When you look at the mobile, you notice only the display and the design. It is a head-turner. It does not have any branded toughened glass to protect the display. It is very comfortable to handle and though it is glossy, it is not slippery. But it can get scratched easily, so better to have the hybrid back case on it always.

Display

Vivo V15 Pro has a 6.39 inch AMOLED Display with no notch and yet 91.27% screen to body ratio. The display supports full HD+ resolution and it has a fast in-display fingerprint sensor underneath. The display is bright and vivid. It has deep black levels with superior contrast ratio. The text is crisp and the images are sharp. It has wide viewing angles, but sunlight readability is not the best we have seen in an AMOLED display. It is well suited for media consumption and text reading. The bezels around the mobile are thin and the chin below is slim as well. Overall, a very pleasant display to use.

Camera

Now here comes the most interesting part of this review. Vivo V15 has a 48 MP sensor on the rear along with an 8 MP wide-angle sensor and a 5 MP depth sensor. The elevating front camera is a 32 MP camera. If you are bedazzled by these numbers, let me break it down for you. The 48MP camera is a Samsung GM 1 sensor. It used quad Bayer filters to combine 4 pixels into one huge pixel, making it effectively a 12 MP camera. The same technology used in the 32 MP front camera, but with a 32 MP sensor, it gives out an 8 MP shot using the Samsung GD 1 sensor and quad Bayer filters.

Camera Samples

Camera UI

The camera UI is highly versatile and is functional software. It has doc scan, pro, panorama, night, AI beauty, video and AR stickers mode. Vivo V15 pro supports auto HDR, portrait and wide angle shots. the mobile can shoot 4k videos as 30 fps and 1080p videos at 30 or 60 fps. It can shoot timelapse and slow-motion videos as well. It supports EIS at 1080p but does not have optical image stabilization.

Camera Quality

The quality of the primary camera is good, but don’t expect any magic out of the 48 MP sensor. The 48 MP is reduced to 12 MP and then the software extrapolates it to 48 MP. This does not result in a sharp output. But if you disable 48 MP output, you get a sharp and detailed output, thanks to the combined pixels. The shots have good exposure levels and brightness at all lighting conditions. Contrast is good with daylight, but it burns out a few pixels in low light. Dynamic range is excellent. The depth and edge detections on portrait shots have improved a lot, compared to Vivo Nex.

The EIS enabled videos are smooth and pleasant to watch. Focus hunting is absent and it has no very less focus breathing. The software still has a lot of room for improvement. But compared to previous generation Vivo mobiles, V15 Pro has come a long way. Vivo V15 Pro buyers are in for a treat, playing and clicking with this sharp shooter. I am impressed.

Hardware

Vivo V15 Pro is one of the first mobiles to be powered by the all-new Snapdragon 675 processor with a 11nm architecture and Octa-core (2×2.0 GHz Kryo 460 Gold & 6×1.7 GHz Kryo 460 Silver) CPU. It has Adreno 612. The mobile has 6 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage. I have installed over 40 applications on this mobiles and loaded it with loads of media files. The mobile did not show me any signs of sluggishness. It is fast, but I felt it warm up a bit to around 45 degrees, while playing games on it for more than 60 minutes non-stop.

The apps were fast to open and the 6 GB RAM does a good job in multi-tasking. The gameplay was smooth and it showed little or no lag while playing resource-intensive games. Graphic rendering quality is good. The mobile supports dual VoLTE. It has all the required sensors. Vivo V15 Pro has a top-notch hardware performance and it is tough to call it a mid-range mobile. The new Snapdragon 675 processor, matches the real-life performance of any flagship processor.

The new Vivo V15 Pro has face unlock and fingerprint sensor. You have an option to popup the camera every time when you unlock the mobile or to invoke it by sliding the screen up. Either way, it is super fast in elevating, detecting and sinking back. It is accurate at any light conditions, but fast when there is ample daylight. The in-display fingerprint sensor is also fast and accurate. It is not slow and sluggish as the one in my Vivo Nex. It is reliable and with combined face unlock, unlocking the Vivo V15 Pro is natural and fast. Both mechanisms can be used at the same time. The fastest, unlocks the mobile first and the second mechanism becomes a fall-back net.

Software

Vivo V15 Pro runs on Android 9 with Funtouch OS 9 skinned on top. Funtouch still has a bunch of bloatware. It has an added a few good features like Game Cube: a gaming suite, Motorbike mode, gesture navigation, App permission management center, kids mode, Face beauty for video calls, Smart screen split, screen recording with voice and much more. The features are useful, but still, Funtouch OS lack visual finesse. It is functional, but not aesthetically appealing. But the UI is fast and responsive. It is well optimized for the hardware and works smoothly.

Battery

The Vivo V15 Pro has a 3700 mAh battery. It comes with a 9V/5V 2A charger which Vivo calls, dual-engine quick charge. It charges the mobile from 0 to 100% in about 2 hours. I wish it had a USB C port, but micro USB port is what you get with the V15 Pro. Not the fastest we have seen, but it is faster than most mobile in this price range. Once charged, the mobile lasts for over a day of moderate usage. On intensive usage, this mobile requires charging twice a day.

Verdict

Vivo V15 Pro is priced at Rs 28990. It is a unique device in the market. It does not have any other mobile to be compared, going by the hardware and the innovation it packs in. Purely by price tag, it competes with the likes of Poco F1, Zenfone 5z, Honor Play. Comparing to these brands and mobile models, Vivo V15 pro stand out unique with its design, features and innovation. It has a great display, cool design, sensible UI and a colosal parade of megapixels along with good performance and decent battery life. I give the Vivo V15 Pro a huge thumbs up.