Vivo V20 review

Vivo India has launched its next V-series phone, Vivo V20, which focuses on young Indian consumers who according to the company are showing a behavioral shift from being content consumers to content makers. It’s the first phone to launch with Android 11-based software out of the box and Vivo once again pays meticulous attention to design and camera details.

For a starting price of Rs. 24,999, the handset will be up against tough challengers like OnePlus Nord and Samsung Galaxy M51. In our Vivo V20 review, we will discuss if it’s good enough to stand its ground. We will answer Vivo V20 related questions and help you decide if this is a phone you should buy.

Vivo V20 box

Vivo V20 isn’t missing anything in the box, not even earphones. Contents include:

• Handset with a pre-applied screen protector

• Transparent protective case

• 33W fast charger

• USB Cable (A to C) for charging and data transfer

• Basic earphones

Design and Build

Vivo V20 is a gorgeous looking phone. It is slim (~7.3mm) and weighs just right (~171 grams), which is not something we can say for most phones we run into these days. The “Sunset Melody” color, which is predominantly blue, is a tad too flashy for my personal taste, but there are also Midnight Jazz (Black) and Moonlight Sonata color options to choose from.

Vivo uses a polycarbonate frame along the sides and actual glass for the back. The buttons are metallic and the power key has a texture which makes it easier for fingers to recognize (only if you are going commando without a case). The Type-C charging port at the bottom, 3.5 mm audio jack, and the speaker grill are all aligned symmetrically.

Moving on to the front, the display has a dewdrop notch, which is one of the dated notch styles, and it’s protected by Schott Xensation 3D glass. The earpiece is quite elongated, so much that we were hoping for stereo output. The fingerprint sensor is present under the display and it’s fast and snappy.

Display

V20 has a good quality AMOLED display and consequently, blacks are deep and contrast is high. This is not a high refresh rate display, but UI transitions and animations are snappy and we didn’t particularly mind the regular 60Hz panel. We understand that this could be tough for some users to look past.

Our review unit has Widevine DRM L3 certifications and doesn’t support HD streaming on Netflix or Prime videos. Vivo assures that this won’t be an issue in retail units sold in India but there is no way for us to verify these claims.

Camera Review

Camera performance is what should primarily give Vivo V20 an edge over its rivals. On the rear, the handset has a 64MP primary camera paired with an 8MP wide-angle and 2MP portrait camera. On the front, there is a 44MP selfie camera that Vivo lays special emphasis on.

Be it indoors or outdoors, the rear camera does good in proper lighting. The V20 doesn’t have the gimbal camera hardware of the X50, but the image processing software has been passed on.

Indoors and under artificial light, the camera still performs really well compared to other options in this budget. Vivo’s Night mode is not only for dark scenes, but it comes in particularly handy while shooting images in improper indoor lighting as it enhances image texture, white balance, details, and contrast without overexposing them. Even when it involves a slight delay, we found ourselves using the Night mode very frequently.

Performance and Software

Vivo V20 is powered by a Snapdragon 720G octa-core chipset paired with 8GB RAM and up to 256GB of storage. While definitely not class-leading, the Snapdragon 720G is similar to Snapdragon 730G in terms of performance and is still great at handling all day-to-day tasks and even high-end games.

We could notice that the performance, especially when it comes to tasks like gaming and image processing is a hair slower than what you get on flagships, but the phone isn’t sluggish by any yardstick. If you are into hardcore gaming, perhaps OnePlus Nord with 765G would suit you better. Four our moderate needs, the Snapdragon 720G sufficed.

We’d also like to point out that RAM management is still very aggressive, and that can be annoying at times

FuntouchOS has come a long way from times when it used to be a brazen imitation of iOS. Version 11 running on V20 is based on Android 11 and feels a lot more refined. Vivo has included most of the big-ticket Android 11 features including the convenient smart home dashboard in the power menu, notification history, the option to pin apps in the share menu, and more.

The new Funtouch OS is mostly stable, but we did encounter bugs and minor glitches on occasions. These would hopefully be fixed with subsequent updates.

During our review period, we didn’t face any issues with connectivity. The call quality was excellent. Face unlock and in-display fingerprint unlock are snappy and reliable.

Battery and Audio

The 4000mAh battery doesn’t seem like much in the day and age where manufacturers are pushing up to 7000mAh on mainstream phones, but the battery mileage turned out better than expected. This longevity can partly be attributed to optimizations in Android 11 and to aggressive RAM management of Funtouch OS 11.

Battery comfortably lasts more than a day even with heavy usage. We are getting 9 hours + of screen-on time. The 33W fast charger bundled in the box takes around 1.5 hours to fully top up the tank.

The mono loudspeaker at the bottom gets quite loud, but the audio quality is average at best. Audio via wired headphones worked fine. As for Bluetooth codecs, Vivo V20 supports Qualcomm’s AptX, SBC and AAC. We couldn’t get eligible headphones to stream over LDAC or Qualcomm AptxHD.

Verdict

Vivo has been making incredible phones this year – phones that are not specs monsters but still strike the right chords. The Vivo V20 is one such phone that was very enjoyable to use.

It is a slim phone that’s extremely comfortable to wield, has a good quality AMOLED display, runs the latest Android 11-based software, and the camera performance is better than what we usually get in this price range.

On the downside, it doesn’t include the latest and greatest SoC and is missing a high refresh rate screen. Vivo V20 will be up against the likes of OnePlus Nord and Samsung Galaxy M51, and we’d say it serves as a decent alternative to these phones.

Pros

• Slim and elegant design

• Good quality AMOLED display

• Camera performance

• Android 11 based software

Cons

• No high-refresh-rate display