Vivo V5 has launched by Vivo as the Vivo V3 Max successor but especially for selfie lovers. This is not the first time when a company has focused on the front facing camera, Gionee S6s (Review) and the Oppo F1s has done it before. But Vivo has taken it up to the next level by introducing 20 Megapixel selfie camera along Moonlight flash.
Detailed Vivo V5 Specifications
Vivo V5 Review: Display and Design
Out of the box, the first thing in Vivo V5 has grabs the attention is its stylish looks and rich feel. However, the front, especially at the bottom, is similar to OnePlus 3. It has sleek form factor having a 7.55mm slim body with curved edges and shiny lines running along the edges.
The front panel of Vivo V5 has a 5.5 inch 720 x 1280 pixels IPS display with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass. The display also supports an 'Eye Protection Mode' feature that filters out blue light to protect vision and prevents eye strain. the Front-facing camera is the left side of the earpiece and the Moonlight flash is on the right side, above the screen. The Micro USB port, mic, 3.5mm audio jack and speaker holes are elegantly carved at the bottom.
As we seen the above front portion of the phone is as usual like other premium phones (front camera, sensors, and earpiece) but the below part has something interesting, it has a button. The button looks like a pressable physical button but oops it is not, it is a touch-sensitive water Resistant biometric sensor button. It can use as fingerprint unlocker and a tap button to go back to your home screen. Also on the both sides of the home button, you will find invisible backlit capacitive touch keys. The front side of the phone has the extra protection layer of pre-applied temper glass.
The back panel of the phone is made up of plastic but still looks elegant, free from dust & fingerprint. Vivo V5 has a matte rear finish with antenna bands. The camera, flash, fingerprint sensor, and VIVO logo all have the chrome.
There is a thin silver color metal strip which runs along the curved edges of the phone to give it a more appealing look. The power button and volume rocker are placed ergonomically on the right side whereas the left side has a hybrid sim tray that can hold two SIM cards, one Micro, and the other Nano.
You can use Nano-SIM card as a microSD card slot but that means you can’t use two SIMs at one time if you want to add storage space.
Vivo V5 Camera
As the V5 is designed for selfie lovers, so first we talk about the 20Mp front facing camera. It is capable of delivering amazing selfie shots. The camera has a Sony IMX 376 sensor with F/2.0 aperture and 5P lens. We have used the phone for capturing the selfies in different light conditions and it impressed us. The selfies come out have good detailing and colors also look natural. The front camera has LED flash, which Vivo is calling Moonlight flash. As compared to regular flashes coming in the phones the Moonlight flash is different. It not going to burnt out or gives unnatural effect in your pictures in the low light. The flashlight allows you to take selfie shots with natural colors even when the lighting condition is not good. The front camera also has Face Beauty 6.0 mode to soften the skin tone while you take selfie shots.
The Vivo V5 at the back side has 13MP PDAF rear camera with flash. The camera can be activated in as little as 0.7 seconds which is really true, thanks to its 4GB RAM. Due to PDAF technology, the camera of this device is able to autofocus on the objects faster than the smartphone cameras without PDAF technology. The pictures captured by the camera are bright with good detailing and there is no shutter lag. The camera app comes with different shooting modes such as Face Beauty, Panorama, HDR, Night, Motion Track, Filter, Watermark and more.
Vivo V5 Software
Vivo’s FunTouch 2.6 OS skin is wrapped around Android OS, v6.0 (Marshmallow). There are few elements in the FunToch OS which are similar to iPhone like shortcuts by swiping the lower panel , spotlight search, and no app drawer.
Vivo V5 also has a split-screen 2.0 mode feature like the Vivo V3Max, which allows you to use different apps simultaneously by splitting the screen. This feature works fine without any glitches but it does not seem much beneficial to us. The UI offers smart gesture features such as smart wake where you can type letters on display to open predefined apps like 'c' for dialer, 'm' to play music, 'w' to open WhatsApp, etc. Also if you can off/on the display by double tapping on it to have a quick glance of notifications.
Vivo V5 Performance
Under the casing, the Vivo V5 is powered by a 1.5GHz Octa-core 64bit processor. On the other hand, for doing multitasking it has a 4GB RAM with 32GB internal memory that can be expanded up to 128GB. We used this phone for more than 4 days and played lots of videos and games on it. We tried some common games to heavy graphics consuming games such as Asphalt 8, but we didn’t find any noticeable lag or glitches while running them with almost multiple apps running in the background.
The Vivo V5 home cum fingerprint scanner works better than expected and actually unlocks the device instantly in about 0.2 sec. You can add multiple fingerprints if your device is being used by more than one person. Moreover, the fingerprint sensor is water Resistant that means you do not have to worry about your wet fingers while using the sensor.
With the AK4376 dedicated Hi-Fi audio chip, it gives you clear and boosted audio in both headphones and speakers. The inbuilt speaker was really enough loud to enjoy the music. With a 3,000mAh battery, we able to get one and half day backup on normal usage. However, the smartphone technology is moving towards the USB C type port whereas Vivo V5 still has the microUSB port which is a great downside of the phone. you have to carry its own charger all the time around with you to gets its fast charging benefit. In our battery test, we ran a 720p video and it provides us 6 hours & 15 minutes at full volume & brightness.