With the mid-range segment becoming more popular nowadays, every customer wants a smartphone that has good overall performance with a balanced design, display, and having good software. Last Year, Vivo came up with a handful of mid-range smartphones with the Vivo V20, V20 Pro, and the V20 SE.
Vivo has a very strong foothold in the market as which we saw in 2020 with the Vivo X50 and the X50 Pro (Review) which were flagship smartphones with top-end specifications. Like the premium X50 series, the Vivo V20 Pro brings a glass and metal design, a powerful chipset that supports 5G, and the most important of Vivo smartphones, the camera.
While there are some very strong mid-range smartphones like the OnePlus Nord (Review), Realme X3 Superzoom, etc. How does the new Vivo V20 Pro stand in the market and is it worth buying? Let's find out in the full review.
Vivo V20 Pro Design:
The Vivo V20 Pro is one of the best looking Android smartphones out there in the market as it borrows looks from its elder brother Vivo X50 Pro as it has a glass and metal build and the back has a frosted finish which Vivo calls it AG Matte Glass design with a different color design when you tilt the smartphone in different angles.
Especially the "Sunset Melody" option is great and there is also a Midnight Jazz variant. The colors at the back make it look the best when compared to other smartphones in the mid-range segment. The back is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 and at the front, there is Schott Xensation protection.
The rectangular camera is well integrated with the main camera at the top and below it lies the ultrawide camera with two mono sensors and a flash. The Vivo logo is printed at the bottom and talking about the back, it catches a lot of fingerprints but to keep it protected, Vivo has provided a plastic case.
The smartphone is the slimmest compared to other smartphones with a 7.4mm in thickness. To the sides, we have a plastic frame that houses the volume buttons with the power button and at the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, loudspeaker grill, and a dual SIM card slot. while the top has a secondary noise-canceling microphone.
The Vivo V20 Pro has a P2i coating which somehow makes it splash resistant and since it weighs 170 grams, it feels much lighter and easier to hold. Similarly, on the front, unlike other smartphones that have a punch hole or full-screen display, the Vivo V20 Pro houses a notch that has dual cameras.
In terms of design, the Vivo V20 Pro clearly shows each and every attention to detail that Vivo has given to this smartphone and makes it one of the best-looking smartphones in the market.
Vivo V20 Pro Display:
On the front, the Vivo V20 Pro houses a notch that is not a waterdrop but a small notch that has dual selfie cameras and the sides have minimum bezels all around the display. Like the OnePlus Nord, you get a 6.44 inches Full HD+ AMOLED display (1080x2340 pixels) with a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9.
Since this is an AMOLED display, the colors look punchier and the viewing angles are also good. The sunlight legibility is good and under dark or low-light situations, the display looks good. There is an eye-care mode for reading and also a dark mode. However, this display lacks a 90/120Hz display like the POCO X2 or the OnePlus Nord.
The slightly larger notch does intrude while watching videos and playing games but it is not so bothering. Vivo has also provided the optical in-display fingerprint scanner which is quite fast and accurate. It also supports Widevine L1 using which streaming HD content from Netflix, Prime, etc. is much easier.
There is no support for HDR10 which looks a bit disappointing when compared to the OnePlus Nord which has it. The display is really good but certain misses like a higher refresh rate and lack of HDR10 make it an average one.
Vivo V20 Pro Performance:
The standard Vivo V20 was powered by the Snapdragon 720G chipset which is a mid-range chipset, but the Vivo V20 Pro has the premium mid-range chipset which is the Snapdragon 765G that we first saw on the OnePlus Nord. This chipset is built on a 7nm process and has the powerful Adreno 620 GPU.
All tasks like scrolling webpages, multi-tasking with normal to heavy applications felt much easier but could have been slightly better with the presence of a higher refresh rate display.
This Adreno 620 GPU handles all heavy games like Call of Duty, Asphalt 9 ran smoothly at the highest graphics settings but at certain points, there were certain frame drops noticed, and with extended gaming, the back did felt a bit warmer.
The Snapdragon 765G brings support for 5G. In terms of benchmarks, like Geekbench 5.1, the Vivo V20 Pro scored 613 and 1827 in single and multi-core tests simultaneously. Vivo's own gaming mode does improve the gaming performance and it also shows the CPU and GPU usage while gaming.
So with a good chipset, the Vivo V20 Pro is a great smartphone for all multi-tasking capabilities and gaming.
Vivo V20 Pro Software:
The Vivo V20 Pro runs on FuntouchOS with Android 11 out of the box. It is the first non-Pixel smartphone in the mid-range to get the Android 11. As always FuntouchOS looks more like Stock Android than iOS and like MIUI and RealmeUI, there are some third-party applications pre-installed.
Since this smartphone ships with Android 11, you are guaranteed another two years of software and security updates. FuntouchOS brings some noticeable changes like instead of the Vivo's Jovi Home we have the Google Feed when swiping from the left of the home screen, there are some Google-specific applications like a dialler app, calendar app, etc. which we first saw on Realme smartphones.
All the Android 11 features are present like Chat Bubbles, media controls, new Voice Assistant, and also there is a system-wide dark mode, navigation gestures, and Digital Wellbeing. Vivo has a new Gallery app and its own specific apps like Video, Browser, Hot Games, Hot Apps which does eat up quite a bit of space.
And like the RealmeUI and MIUI, there are ads that make the software experience jarring, but comparing this FuntouchOS to earlier versions, it feels better to use. A higher refresh rate would have been better.
Vivo V20 Pro Cameras:
The Vivo V20 Pro has one of the best cameras in the mid-range segment. At the rear, there are three cameras that include a 64MP f/1.9 Samsung ISOCELL GW1 sensor, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP depth sensor for portraits.
There is no dedicated macro camera instead the ultrawide camera doubles up as a macro camera. The images from the main camera have good details and the colors look sharper also. The dynamic range is good but there is some amount of saturation. The noise is quite present though.
At night, the camera struggles with low light, as there is a lot more noise present and the details are not so good. The dynamic range is pretty average and with the dedicated Night Mode, the exposure is well handled in very low-light areas, the noise reduces and the dynamic range shows an improvement.
Without Night Mode
With Night Mode
It is just that Vivo tries to oversaturate the colors. Similar is the case with the 8MP ultrawide camera which is just average in terms of dynamic range and the details are good. There is some amount of softness around the corners of the images and the noise is much more present.
Similarly, at night, the images from the ultrawide camera come out to be average as there is a lot of noise, there are many areas of under-exposure and the dynamic range is not so good. The colors are not as good as on the main camera and with the lack of a Night Mode, there is room for improvement.
The 8MP ultrawide camera doubles up as a macro camera and the images have good details and dynamic range and this macro camera implementation here is better compared to many 2MP macro cameras. The ultrawide camera can really focus well on many subjects.
The portraits come out good with proper edge detection and the dynamic range is well maintained. The skin tones look good but there is some amount of noise present. The background blur is good though as the autofocus works really well.
The most striking aspect of the Vivo V20 Pro is the front-facing cameras that include a 44MP f/2.0 camera and this has autofocus built into it so you can track the eye of a moving object. This also brings out much better details compared to other front-facing cameras and has an excellent dynamic range.
The beauty mode is enabled by default and you can turn this off to prevent skin smoothening. The colors look natural and with good contrast. So with selfies, this is the ultimate mid-range smartphone. Accompanied by the 44MP camera, there is an 8MP ultrawide camera also.
The 8MP ultrawide camera produces images with good details and the skin tones look natural. The dynamic range and contrast is average and not as good as on the 44MP camera. Still, the ultrawide camera is useful when it comes to group selfies.
On the video side, there is support for 4K video at 30fps. The videos have a good dynamic range and the colors look a bit saturated though. The 1080p videos come out really good at both 30 or 60fps as there is EIS which helps maintain stabilization and improves the dynamic range. At the front, you are only restricted to 1080p video recording.
With each Vivo smartphone, the cameras are the best and this also continues with the Vivo V20 Pro.
Vivo V20 Pro Battery Life:
The Vivo V20 Pro houses a 4000mAh battery which seems a bit smaller in capacity when compared to the OnePlus Nord or the Moto G 5G (Review) which has more than 4000mAh battery capacity. Since there is no high refresh rate display, the standard screen-on-time is 7-8 hours which is pretty good.
With normal usage, the Vivo V20 Pro can last easily last for one and half days with normal usage and with heavy usage, you have around 10-20 percent left and to top it up Vivo has included a 33W fast charger inside the box which can quickly charge the smartphone so 0-100 percent can be achieved under an hour.
Vivo V20 Pro Audio Quality:
The Vivo V20 Pro has a single speaker set up so the sound is adequately loud and clear but compared to most of its competitors, it does sound a bit low. The level of loudness is good and at higher levels, it does feel distorted.
There is no 3.5mm headphone jack on the Vivo V20 Pro but Vivo does provide a 3.5mm connecter inside the box to connect your earphones.
Verdict:
The Vivo V20 Pro feels like a complete mid-range smartphone focused more on camera-centric people. This product also shows that Vivo has paid each every detail when it comes to build and design, performance, and improved software with FuntouchOS which is more like Stock Android.
The cameras are excellent especially the front cameras with that 44MP camera and since it has the powerful Snapdragon 765G, the daily tasks and gaming are good. Coming to the software experience, FuntouchOS is quite good but nowhere as good as OxygenOS on the OnePlus Nord and Stock Android in Pixel 4a (Review).
The AMOLED display is good but the lack of a higher refresh rate is a bit of a letdown and the battery capacity is quite lower also but with the included fast charger, you can quickly charge the smartphone. So considering an overall package, with the powerful chipset, great design, and excellent cameras, it is worth buying.
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