Not as well known in the UK as other Chinese brands, Vivo have sold well in India and it is only a matter of time before we start to seem them appear over here.
The Vivo V15 Pro is a pretty good mid-range handset with some premium features worth considering. It also has a few issues, which we will mention.
It boasts a 6.39” Super AMOLED screen with a screen to body ratio just under 85% and a PPI density of around 400. The screen however is not Gorilla glass, making it prone to scratching when it is in your pocket or bag. The back of the phone is made from a very attractive looking graduated plastic and the frame is plastic as well. Despite this use of plastic, the Vivo V15 Pro is a sturdy phone that feels solid in the hand.
Solid internals
Moving inside the phone, it has a solid Snapdragon 675 processor, with 6 or 8GB of RAM and 128GB of expandable storage. This is powered by a 3700 mAh battery with 18W fast charging. However, the Vivo V15 Pro comes with a Micro USB part, which is a bit dated now.
Security is via a rapid under-screen fingerprint sensor or face lock via the front-facing selfie camera. It comes with a single, downward facing speaker, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a built in FM radio. All pretty decent for a mid-ranger.
Good main and selfie camera
The main camera consists of 3 lens’. The main 48MP f/1.8 wide, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide and a 5MP f/2.4 depth sensor. These produce pretty good shots in both day and night with the software driven night mode enhancing the dark shots. The selfie camera is a rather fancy motorised pop-up affair with a 32MP f/2.0 lens. It produces great selfies and looks good when it slides in or out the top of the handset.
Where the camera setup falls down is in video recording. The sound quality is very poor and difficult to hear, which if you want to record music events is not good news.
Feels like iOS
Shipping with Android 9 with Vivo’s own Funtouch 9 skin on top, it feels very iOS-like. This is particularly the case with apps, where no app drawer is available, so everything is on the home page(s).
Available in Topaz Blue, Coral Red and Ruby Red it can be picked up currently for around £330.
So, is it worth it? Well, it is a good mid-range handset with a premium chipset, screen and camera but at the price, there are a lot of other better value handsets available.
