Introduction
The vivo V-series has been the company’s main focus in the Malaysian market, its predecessor was launched in December 2019. Not even six months later, we got the successor — V19, that’s pretty fast for a product to get replaced, even though the company still selling the V17. Compared to the V17, there are only a tiny few differences. Without further ado, this is the vivo V19 review!
Design
In terms of design, the V19 looks quite similar to its predecessor. It has a 6.44-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED Ultra O display at the front with a dual selfie camera cutout. The phone has a good amount of bezels, not too thick nor too thin, at least vivo didn’t lie about in the press photos. It still has an optical in-display fingerprint sensor, which works just okay, didn’t feel any difference over its predecessor.
My review unit is the Sleek Silver variant, which actually reflects different colors depending on the lighting conditions. Sometimes it can be bluish, sometimes it can be yellowish, sometimes it can be black too. I’ve seen this color effect on some other smartphones, but that doesn’t mean I am bored with it. One advantage of this color is you won’t notice fingerprints and smudges easily on the glass surface.
Display
Similar to its predecessor, the V19 sports a 6.44-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED Ultra O display. The colors are vivid and eye-pleasing, and it has deep blacks, which works well with Dark Mode. Obviously, the quality isn’t as good as what you get from a Samsung smartphone, but normal consumers won’t really see the differences.
Performance
The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 processor with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. In terms of performance, for sure there will be some lags or hiccups here and there, but overall it’s still good enough.
Gaming wise, I was able to play Call of Duty: Mobile in “very high” graphic quality and frame rate. As for PUBG Mobile, I was able to run “HD” graphics with “High” frame rate. Changing it to “Smooth” graphics will let you play with “Ultra” frame rate, that’s the maximum performance.
Software
If you have read my V17 Pro review, you’ll know that I’m not really a fan of Funtouch OS. To be honest, the phone just looks a lot like the counterfeit version of iOS. This time around, it’s a little bit different for Funtouch OS 10, which is now based on Android 10. vivo has finally moved the quick setting toggles to the notification panel, just like other Android phones. This also means that the Shortcut Center is now removed, which also eliminated the extra recent apps interface.
Funtouch OS 10 now also lets you change your home screen style, you can finally have an app drawer! The rest are pretty much quite similar, the icons are still cartoonish and the settings menu is still quite iOS-like, but you still get Dark Mode. I’m still not a fan of Funtouch OS, but it’s good to see that the company is making it more like an Android smartphone.
Camera
The V19 packs a quad-camera setup — 48MP f/1.79 main + 8MP ultra-wide + 2MP bokeh + 2MP macro. I don’t really get it why do you really need a bokeh and macro lenses, both are just there to fulfill the quad-camera gimmick.
Most people won’t really use the macro lens, but one day I found it useful when I was trying to sort out the ports behind my TV which mounted on the wall. The image quality wasn’t good, but definitely enough for me to know which port is which.
Image quality generally is quite good with great dynamic range and contrast, but the edges of the photos will be blurred due to the nature of large aperture. Like many other phones, the phone shoots 12MP images by default, which is actually good enough.
Selfie wise, the phone has 32MP main and 8MP ultra-wide front-facing shooters. Personally, I don’t really like taking selfies, but I’ll do it for this review. Let the photos do the talking.
You can check out all the camera samples here!
Battery Life
The V19 packs a 4,500mAh battery that supports 33W vivo FlashCharge 2.0, which charges from 0% to 54% in 30 minutes. Based on my test, I was able to use the phone for around 2 days, which is quite impressive.
Final Words
Retailing at RM1,699, it’s actually quite hard to recommend this phone. Just like last year, vivo priced the phone a lot higher than its competitors, you can get a phone with a better performance at an even lower price. No doubt the V19 captures impressive photos, best in its class actually, but will you spend more just to get a smartphone with better camera performance? That’s entirely up to you!