Leading global brand vivo officially released its V20 series last October 23 as it comes in three variants – the V20 Pro 5G, V20 and V20 SE. We got for this review the vivo V20 Pro a 5G ready and one of their thinnest smartphone to date with an assortment of amazing features.
You’re probably thinking that this would be an expensive phone because its already a 5G phone but it is fairly priced for PHP24,999 only and if you will pre-order from October 23-29 it bundles with freebies that included an air purifier, 6 months screen warranty and 12 months phone warranty all worth PHP9,499.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX
We love the nice box packaging design of the vivo V20 Pro 5G and the contents you’ll get are the following: Vivo V20 Pro device, Earphones, Power Adapter, Documentations (Quick Start Guide, SIM Instructions), USB Type-C to USB Cable, USB Type C to 3.5mm Headphone Jack, SIM Ejector, Protective Case and Protective Film (Applied).
BUILD AND DESIGN
Overall, the design of the vivo V20 Pro’s is very outstanding and eye-catching especially at the rear back cover.
The device has a rounded corner edge for a comfortable hold, it weighs only 170g, and its thickness at 7.39mm one of the thinnest 5G smartphone we’ve ever seen. The only physical buttons it had are located on the right side with a volume rocker and a textured power button to easily find it.
Located on the top is the mic receiver while at the bottom you’ll spot the USB Type-C port for your fast charging and file transfer needs. Along with it you’ll also find the grille speakers, mic and SIM card tray. On the top
Upfront you’ll see the display, in-display fingerprint and a notch type dual front camera setup.
Lastly, the back panel is made of glass with a matte finish that features a nice colorful gradient finish effect. We got the Sunset Melody color variant for our review as the gradient colors it produces changes from blue to purple to orange just like the sunset. Other color variants available are Midnight Jazz and Moonlight Sonata. We love the matte finish as it helps keep those pesky fingerprints off this device. You can also spot a triple camera setup with an LED flash housed in a square type design.
DISPLAY AND CAMERA
The display offers a nice 6.44-inch sharp AMOLED FHD+ display (2400x1080px) although it doesn’t have a high-refresh rate panel as it offers a 60Hz refresh rate but swiping thru the touch display is well responsive and fast. The viewing angles on the display is very good and bright enough to handle outdoors as well. We just love watching videos and playing online games without any lag with this device.
You can make further adjustments on the display with screen colors under the display settings like color mode and color temperature. Other features offered for the display are adaptive brightness, eye protection, and a dark theme which can keep your battery a little more longer.
The V20 Pro 5G boasts of an impressive camera both in the rear and front. On the back vivo used a triple camera setup that comprises a 64-megapixel primary camera at f/1.89, 8-megapixel wide-angle camera capable to shoot macro photography and bokeh and finally a 2-megapixel mono camera for black and white shots. It has a rear LED flashlight if you need extra light on a particular shot.
On the front camera vivo opted a notch type dual camera setup offering a 44-megapixel selfie f/2.0 with Eye Autofocus feature and for group shots you can count on its secondary 8-megapixel camera with an ultra-wide lens. Accessing the wide-angle camera can be selected from the ‘lens’ option on the viewfinder along with the super macro and bokeh.
It has an array of camera shooting scene modes like night mode, Tripod Night mode, Portrait, Panoramic, Live photo, Slo-mo, Time-lapse, Pro for manual shooting, Document, AR Stickers and Double Exposure.
In general, shooting with the V20 Pro 5G turned out very well during shots on a bright sunny conditions or low-light situations with good details, sharp and accurate colors. If ever you’re going to use the Night mode be sure you have to keep a steady hand.
Selfies are made even better with the Eye Autofocus feature that ensures your eyes are sharp when you take the shot. For Portrait selfie mode you can set the level of blur in the background before taking a shot. If you need extra fill light to your selfies during dark conditions just enable the Selfie Fill Light.
Here are some of our sample shots with the Vivo V20 Pro 5G:
The device can shoot video resolution up to 4K, 1080p and 720p with frame rates you can choose between 30 and 60fps.
PERFORMANCE AND SOFTWARE
Performance is not an issue for the vivo V20 Pro 5G as it is equipped with the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G Octa-core 2.4GHz coupled with an 8GB memory and an available 128GB storage.
It runs with vivo’s Funtouch OS 11 (based on Android 10) its user interface is so far easy to use, icons are very simple and it has a nice set of pre-installed wallpaper designs. It has a little bloatware along the way as some useful pre-installed apps such as Facebook, GCash, Lazada, YouTube, Spotify Lite and common Google apps as well.
Below you can spot a three navigation buttons by default or have it switched to gesture-based navigation. Holding the middle navigation for a 1 second will access the Google Assistant and Google Lens.
Playing games like PUBG, Mobile Legends and Call of Duty was so much fun with the V20 Pro 5G. It can handle the gameplay and run most any game with a smooth and no lag experience at all. The Adreno 620 GPU did a good job as images are sharp and with an AMOLED display it has nice punch of vibrant colors.
Here are our benchmark results:
BATTERY, AUDIO AND CONNECTIVITY
For connectivity it supports Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, Wi-Fi, USB Type-C and OTG. As for the network connection it has the following supported band: 2G GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz, 3G WCDMA, 4G LTE, 5G SA and 5G NSA.
We were not able to to test the 5G capabilities of the phone as we are still going to acquire a 5G SIM and although some areas in Marikina are already 5G our barangay is not yet covered. But once we have it we will update this article.
This device is powered by a non-removable 4000mAh battery with a quick charging 33-watt Flash Charge adapter using a USB Type-C cable.
After we used up all the battery, we began charging the device without turning it on using the 33W Flash Charger. In just 10 minutes we got an initial charge at around 44%. After 30 minutes we got 70% then it took almost 1.5 hours to have it fully charge. There’s no wireless charging and NFC feature built for this unit.
Loudspeakers are released at the bottom as it gets a bit quite loud, but the V20 Pro 5G audio quality is at an average for our test. The vivo wired earphones uses a 3.5mm jack instead of a USB Type-C that’s why vivo included an adapter. Audio from the wired earphones as well as Bluetooth headphones are fine.
CONCLUSION
The vivo V20 Pro 5G has an impressive set of qualities especially the design aesthetics and it feels premium to the touch. The quality of the camera is superb with additional built-in scene mode features like the tripod mode, double exposure, dual-view video and more.
The performance is already at par with having a 2.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G, 8GB memory and a decent 128 storage enough to handle tasks from watching a video or playing games.
It may be lacking on some features that are already offering in the market now such as a quad camera setup, hi-fi sound quality, large display, punch-hole notch, bigger battery capacity and more. But vivo focuses more on giving you a 5G-ready smartphone at a decent price for only PHP24,999 offering users a nice premium design and still a new set of features.
The vivo V20 Pro 5G will really appeal to you, so I suggest you head on to any vivo concept stores or kiosk to really experience it.
WHAT WE LOVE
- Rear and Front Camera Quality
- Utra Slim Design at 7.39mm Thickness
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G Processor
- 5G-ready
- AMOLED Display
- 33W Flash Charge
- USB Type-C
- Smooth and Lag Free Gameplay
- Price
- 4K Resolution Video
- Dual-View Video
WHAT WE WANT
- Higher Refresh Rate
- Better Sound Quality
- Punch-Hole Notch
- USB Type-C Earphones
Vivo V20 Pro 5G Full Specifications:
- Price: PHP24,999
- Display: 44-inch FHD+ AMOLED display
- Resolution: 2400×1080 pixel resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio
- Refresh Rate: 60Hz refresh rate
- Processor:4Ghz Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G processor
- Storage: 128GB UFS 2.1
- Graphics: Adreno 620 GPU
- Memory: 8GB LPDDR4X
- RearCamera: Rear Triple Cameras: 64-megapixel, f/1.89 main + 8-megapixel, f/2.2 ultra wide + 2-megapixel, f/2.4 monochrome
- Front Camera: Dual cameras 44-megapixel, f/2.0 main + 8-megapixel, f/2.2 ultra wide
- Video: 4K, 1080p and 720p (30 and 60 fps)
- Security: Fingerprint reader (In-display), Screen Lock, and Face Unlock
- Battery: 4,000mAh (33-watt fast charge adapter)
- OS: Funtouch OS 11 – Android 10
- Network: 2G GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz, 3G WCDMA, 4G LTE, 5G SA and 5G NSA
- Weight: 170g
- Card Slot: 2 Nano SIM
- Colors: Sunset Melody, Midnight Jazz, and Moonlight Sonata
- In the Box: Vivo V20 Pro device, Earphones, Power Adapter, Documentations (Quick Start Guide, SIM Instructions), USB Type-C to USB Cable, USB Type C to 3.5mm Headphone Jack, SIM Ejector, Protective Case and Protective Film (Applied).
