We continue our review with the vivo V25 as we had it for almost a couple of weeks now after posting our unboxing and first impressions of the device. We are pleased to share our thoughts on vivo’s latest Night Portrait Master to show you the nice aesthetic design, camera quality and if its flagship performance specs that can handle the demanding task.
The vivo V25 is priced at PHP23,999 along with two more variants the V25 Pro and V25e that’s sold at PHP29,999 and PHP17,999 respectively.
All models of the vivo V25 Series are now available in all vivo concept stores nationwide or place your order thru its online and e-commerce stores: vivo website, Shopee, Lazada.
Here’s the full specifications of the vivo V25
- Sunrise Gold, Diamond Black
- PHP23,999
- 79mm Thickness
- 186 grams
- 44-inch FHD+ AMOLED Display
- 90Hz Refresh Rate
- 2404×1080 pixels
- Photochromic Version 2.0
- MediaTek Dimensity 900
- 8GB+256GB
- 8GB Extended RAM 3.0
- 64MP f/1.79 OIS Ultra Sensing Camera + 8MP f/2.2 Wide-angle + 2MP f/2.4 Macro
- 50MP f/2.0 AF Selfie
- Funtouch OS 12
- 4,500mAh
- 44W FlashCharge
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi (2.4GHz & 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.2, USB Type-C, GPS, OTG, NFC
- Network: 2G, 3G, CDMA, 4G, 4G LTE, 5G
- Card Slot: 1 Nano SIM + 1 Nano SIM / Micro SD
- Sensors: Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Proximity Sensor, E-Compass, Fingerprint Sensor, Gyroscope
- Location: GPS, BEIDOU, GLONASS, GALILEO, QZSS
- Box Contents: vivo V25 unit, Protective Clear Case, Wired Earphone, USB-C to 3.5mm Audio Adapter, USB-C Cable, 44W Power Adaptor, SIM Ejector Tool, Quick Start Guide, Warranty Card and Screen Protector (Pre-Applied)
Design and Build Quality
Let’s start this review with one of the main highlights of the phone. The vivo V25 features a Photochromic version 2.0 on its rear cover panel that sports a Flourite AG Glass. At first it may look like a normal cover back panel to you but when you take it outside in the sunlight or struck by UV light the effect will captivate or amazed you.
You’ll see that the phone has a color-changing back panel which absorbs the light and makes it darker once the sunlight falls on it. Our Sunrise Gold color variant changes between beautiful shades of yellow gold to orange.
The back panel is made of durable polycarbonate material with a smooth frosted glass finish that gets a little glittery when exposed to light. It removes fingerprint marks and smudges as well.
The Sunrise Gold color that shifts to a pleasant orange when exposed to UV light
It offers a triple camera design sporting two large circular camera lens, another small lens and LED flash housed together in a square type camera module while a vivo logo at the bottom.
The V25 comes with flat edges, smooth curved corners and an aluminum frame getting a nice shiny reflective design. Still it feels nice to hold in both hands or even in just one hand only.
The buttons and port placements on the vivo V25 has a power button, volume rockers while its left side is totally clean. The top has a single microphone while the bottom houses another microphone, SIM card tray slot, USB Type-C port and a speaker grill.
With all that said design and look, it weighs relativity light at around 186 grams with thickness of 7.79mm for a slimmer profile.
At the top of the screen you have the front receiver and a tiny waterdrop notch that houses the front camera.
vivo claims that the vivo V25 undergo some extremely thorough testing to make the device more durable against wear and tear. It had 42,000 drop tests, extreme environment test while phone is in use or at a storage unit and 6,000 times plugging and unplugging.
The vivo V25 also gets an IP54 rating against dust particles and water splashes but we recommend that you refrain from submerging the device underwater.
In general, the vivo V25 looks premium, durable and unique with its color-changing back design.
Display
Screen size on the vivo V25 comes with a 6.44-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display with resolutions at 2404 x 1080 pixels.
At peak brightness of 1300 nits the display is bright enough to use during outdoors.
You get smooth scrolling experience with its 90Hz refresh rate or choose the standard 60Hz to save more battery. You may also select the Smart Switch option that automatically select the refresh rate base on your usage and power consumption.
Bezels around the screen are slightly thin except for the bottom chin which is a bit thicker. Even with the water drop notch it didn’t ruin my viewing experience in any way.
With an equipped AMOLED display, the colors that emits on the screen are vivid and vibrant. While the text and app icons are great as well providing a clear and crisp quality. I really enjoyed my gameplay and watching videos on the vivo V25.
It has HDR10+ playback certification enabling you to watch HDR content on supported apps such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube.
With all those long hours of usage on the phone, you get eye care protection against harmful blue light discharge around 7.5%. Enabling the eye care display will have warmer colors on the screen and you can even schedule it or adjust the intensity.
Hardware
In terms of internal specifications, the vivo V25 is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 900 Octa-core chipset which is paired with an 8GB RAM, 256GB of storage and Mali-G68 MC4 for its GPU.
You can add more speed to your memory with an additional 8GB of virtual RAM using the internal storage, making a substantial 16GB of RAM.
The phone was able to run smoothly and easily with the usual tasks we can throw on it from browsing the internet, updating our social media accounts, taking photos during events and watching our favorite multimedia content without any issues.
Opening the apps it loads up quickly, we experienced no lags and can handle multitasking while using the phone.
Using Geekbench 5, the phone system’s performance scored 680 in single-core and 1955 in multi-core. Meanwhile, here’s our other benchmarks scores on the vivo V25:
- A1 SD Bench: 721.93MB/s Read, 272.57MB/s Write
- 3DMark: 2149
- PCMark: 8011 Work 3.0 Performance
The audio on the vivo V25 is mostly coming out from the single bottom-firing speaker which produces decent sound quality thanks to its Hi-Res Audio feature. The Hi-Res Audio makes sure that the quality of sound it produced is much better that CD quality.
You’re getting clear vocals, distinct high mid-tones and obviously loud. You may hear a slight presence of bass but lacks that fullness low thump sound.
Ready for Gaming
The vivo V25 is tailored for gaming enthusiasts as it offers a handful of tools and optimization to experience a better gameplay. Here are some of the game features on the vivo V25:
- Multi-Turbo 5.0 automatically activates as you start the game is a series of boosters to optimize the CPU, RAM, GPU and network connection to reduce stutters and lags in games.
- Ultra Game mode, when swipe sideways from the top left corner exposes the game sidebar, brings out some shortcut functions to further enhance your gaming performance. It has 4D game vibration, voice changer, enables background calls while supporting hands-free and hides floating notification alerts to avoid any interruption during gameplay. You can also select your preferred game type mode either in battery saver mode, balanced mode or performance mode.
- To reduce heat building up on the phone for long hours of playtime, the V25 is equipped with a liquid cooling system.
Now it was time to test some popular online games with the phone like Call of Duty Mobile, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and PUBG. So far all three games ran without any flaws or lags and you can go up to medium to high settings. For games that are not too graphically demanding you’ll definitely have no problem at all.
What I noticed during playing Mobile Legends the phone is just slightly warm on the back after playing for almost half an hour. Unlike other phones we tested which is more warmer as I felt the heat on both of my fingers on the back. So, I realized that the liquid cooling system is working bringing the temperature down.
Camera
Together with the nice color-changing back panel, you can immediately spot a triple camera setup that composed of a 64MP OIS ultra-sensing main camera, 8MP ultra-wide lens and a 2MP macro sensor.
For your selfies, the front facing camera gets a higher resolution at 50MP with auto focus, touch to focus and face detection for more vibrant yet clear photo output.
Opening the camera app you already have five pre-existing shooting modes ready at your dispersal from Portrait, Photo, Video, Vlog Movie or Night mode.
With a ready set of vlog templates, Vlog Movie mode can create short videos in 5 to 6 segments then combining them all after you’re done recording, it can be posted right away on your social media channels.
Other available shooting modes found in the camera app are High-Resolution mode, Pano, Live Photo, Slo-mo, Time-lapse, PRO mode, AR Stickers, Documents, Double Exposure and Dual View.
With the 64MP main camera we get nice images when used during daylight or bright conditions with plenty of details, images were clear, colors appear to be more pure and with a wide dynamic range.
For the portrait shots, our photos came up with good details and colors are still natural. It also produces that nice bokeh in the background but sometimes the corners of the subject can grasp that bit of blur as well. You can also adjust the bokeh degree or amount of blur before taking the shot. Aside from the bokeh filter, there’s a fairly complicated set of beauty filters and multi-style portrait filters.
Quality of the shots on the ultra-wide lens were fairly decent, colors are still retained and it captured more area however details are slightly lost.
Multi-style Portrait Filters
Bokeh Effects
Lastly, the macro shots were not too bad as well. If taken during bright conditions you’ll get good quality but only when we zoom in our shots the details are a little bit soft.
The front facing camera took some really good selfies that are clear with sharp details, good skin tone and decent color tones during good lighting conditions. Selfies done at low light conditions will have presence of noise and a bit muddy .
Here are some sample photos taken with the vivo V25.
1x Photo mode, Main Camera, Outdoor
Ultra-wide Photo mode, Outdoor
2x Photo mode, Main Camera, Outdoor
1x, Photo mode, Main Camera, Indoor, Low Light
Macro, Indoor, Low Light
Night mode, Main Camera, Low Light, Outdoor
Selfie Front Camera, Indoor, Low Light, (Left) Ambient Light (Right) Fill Light On
Recording videos on the vivo V25 offers a wide-range of resolutions starting with 4K quality at 30fps both the main and front camera. While the 1080p and 720p can record both frame rate speeds either in 30fps or 60fps still on both front and back.
For footages to stay clear and stable the vivo V25 offers stabilization feature. You can choose between standard or ultra stabilization mode working only in 1080p resolution at 60fps. Under the ultra stabilization mode the frame is heavily cropped.
If you’re recording at bright conditions the video quality is decently good from both the main and front camera with good details and colors.
Software
The user interface on the vivo V25 is very much simple and easy to use running on Funtouch OS 12 which is based on Android 12.
The phone comes with a lot of pre-installed apps like Agoda, Facebook, Foodpanda, GCash, Grab, Lazada, LinkedIn, Netflix, Shopee, Spotify, and TikTok. It also has some Google tools and vivo’s very own proprietary apps. Some of the pre-installed apps are the ones I usually use so it’s good there already there but If you don’t like some of it you can uninstall them from the app settings.
You can also get additional privacy security settings like manage permissions or access to an app, screen capture protection from third party apps, autofill service from Google and more.
With the Funtouch OS 12, it offers tons of customization options or personalize it the way you want it. You can start under the lock screen and wallpaper settings to customize either the Always On Display, Themes, Wallpaper or even change your UI Colors.
You can even adjust the size of the icons or its shape from either in circle or a rounded corners.
The animation style of the fingerprint, home screen unlock, screen on/off, charging and the USB insertion can easily be switched under the Dynamic Effects settings.
Connectivity and Security
The vivo V25 comes with 5G connectivity with support for a number of 5G bands from n1, n3, n5, n7, n8, n28, n40, n41, n77, and n78. Other networks that support the device are 2G, 3G, 4G and 4G LTE.
Other connectivity options are NFC, OTG, Wi-Fi (2.4GHz/5Ghz), Bluetooth 5.2, GPS and Android Auto which mirrors the phone on your car’s dashboard information and entertainment head unit.
The device uses a hybrid slot having the second slot to hold either a second SIM card or a micro SD card for expandable memory.
For biometrics it features an in-display fingerprint scanner and face unlock along with the usual screen lock options like swipe, pattern, and PIN. The in-display fingerprint scanner is quick and pretty accurate without having to try it multiple times. The facial recognition works well also with some few additional options you can enable like screen fill light, privacy & app encryption and allowing you continue stayed on the lock screen after a successful face unlock.
There’s a security scan to check if you’re phone is protected from viruses, hazardous apps and system invulnerabilities. With the app encryption you can secure access to your apps with either a 4-digit password, pattern or alphanumeric password so that no one else can open it without your permission.
Battery
The vivo V25 is equipped with a decent 4500mAh battery coupled with a 44W fast charging support to quickly juice up the battery.
Now, the 4500mAh battery is kind of small, so if you’re a very heavy user then do carry the 44W charger with you to take advantage of the fast charging.
During the charging test, we got the battery up to 33 percent already after 15-minutes then the next 30-minutes it went up to 72 percent. Final charging time that we were able to fully charged the vivo V25 was around 1 hour and 3 minutes from 0 to 100 percent.
For average users you can easily get one full day from this phone while light users can last it up to the next day probably till afternoon.
Our normal use on the vivo V25 got us around 7 hours screen time which involves playing games, updating social media channels and watching videos on YouTube.
It has a Battery Saver options found under the battery settings that turns on the Dark Theme mode and limits background activity, reduce the phone’s performance and disable your 5G for it to extend the battery life.
What We Like
- Color Changing Technology
- Aesthetics
- Build Quality
- AMOLED Display
- 90Hz Refresh Rate
- Triple Camera Setup
- 50MP Front Camera with Auto Focus
- 64MP Main Camera with OIS
- Selection of Shooting Modes
- Gaming Optimization and Tools
- 8GB RAM plus 8GB Extended Virtual RAM
- Expandable Storage
- 44W Flash Charge
- 5G Ready
What We Want
- Punch Hole Notch
- Stereo Speakers
- 5,000mAh Battery
Conclusion
The vivo V25 is no doubt one good premium mid-range phone to consider buying. It has good looking aesthetics adding up that color changing back cover makes it trendy and a solid build.
The display is vivid and bright which makes me want to binge-watch all day on my favorite shows in Netflix and HBO. The 90Hz refresh rate is enough for a smooth scrolling experience but I wish on the next model vivo should upgrade it to 120Hz.
Multitasking is a breeze on this phone with its reliable internal hardware specs scoring a MediaTek Dimensity 900 octa-core processor, 256GB storage, 1TB expandable storage and an 8GB RAM offers a fast and lag-free performance.
It is also a good choice if you’re looking for a phone with good camera. The vivo V25 can take decent photos with good detail and color. You also get an optical image stabilization and auto focus for a stable and sharp images.
The vivo V25 is also built for those who loves to play graphically demanding games as the phone is equipped with game tools to optimize and enhance your gameplay experience.
Lastly, the battery is equipped with only 4500mAh that could last a day for an average user. Good thing vivo added a 44W fast charging feature to quickly charge the battery which gives a decent backup.
Overall, the vivo V25 is one exceptional mid-range phone that has a set of upstanding built-in features that other in its range doesn’t have upright
