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Vivo V19 Review

Written By Justine Basco
Published • June 13th, 2020
Gadget ReviewsMobile
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Vivo was mostly quiet during the first half of 2020, but they’re back with not one, but two new mid-range smartphones, and leading the pack is the Vivo V19. It boasts a 6.44-inch Super AMOLED display, Snapdragon 712 chipset, a total of six cameras, and a large 4,500mAh battery. Are those enough to steal the spotlight from other popular devices in its class? Let’s find out.

Table of Contents

Design and Construction

A lot of smartphones nowadays share a similar design — stepping out from the gimmicky pop-up cameras. They’re now formed with full-screen displays, thin bezels, punch hole in the screen, large camera modules with multiple cameras, and fancy colors. The Vivo V19 is not an exception and possesses those qualities, which are great by the way.

Upfront, we have a 6.44-inch display with a hole-punch placement for two selfie cameras. Also found here is its in-display fingerprint scanner.

On the left is a triple card slot tray for two nano-SIM cards and a microSD card that’s expandable up to 512GB.

Meanwhile, on the right are the power/lock button and volume rocker. They’re tactile, clicky, and are placed near the center of the frame making it easier to reach.

Up top is the secondary microphone, while down at the bottom are the loudspeaker, USB Type-C port, main microphone, and the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Flip it on its back and we can see the protruding camera module that houses four cameras and the LED flash, which honestly reminds us of the camera module found on current flagship devices. The camera bump doesn’t make the phone wobble when placed on flat surfaces.

Now the V19 is as premium as it can be with a 3D curved glass back, metallic frame, and glass panels. Despite that, holding the phone actually feels light. It’s a bit of a fingerprint magnet so better use a case, or the jelly case included in the package. The unit we have is in the Gleam Black color, but there’s also a Sleek Silver variant that you might like.

Display and Multimedia

The Vivo V19 has a 6.44-inch O screen with slim bezels and just a slightly thicker chin. It’s a common screen size today but it’s still great for multimedia consumption. It uses a Super AMOLED panel so it has punchy colors, deep blacks, great contrast, and nice viewing angles. It also has a Full HD+ (2400 x 1080) resolution with a pixel density of 409ppi which is good. It has Gorilla Glass protection that’s not specified in Vivo’s spec sheet, plus, you also get a pre-installed screen protector.

While we can expect a very good viewing experience on the V19, some might find the dual punch-hole distracting, especially if you’re viewing a photo or video in full-screen. Unfortunately, there’s no option to hide it with a black bar, but you can control specific apps if you want them to maximize the whole display or not.

For audio, its down-firing loudspeaker can be loud enough for a small room. Mids and highs are clear but lows are lacking. If you want better audio quality, we still recommend connecting to an external speaker or headphones. Good thing the V19 has a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Camera

The V19 wants to be your all-around shooter, packing four rear cameras consisting of a high-resolution 48MP primary, an 8MP ultra-wide, a 2MP for bokeh effects, and a 2MP for macro.

Under good lighting, we get shots with a good amount of detail and natural-looking vibrant colors. Besides the standard mode, you can play around with the ultra-wide-angle, bokeh, super macro, beauty, and of course, its 48MP lens for more details. Its HDR isn’t perfect but it works well too.

As for night mode, you can use the ultra-wide-angle lens with it and the effect gives a subtle brightness without making the photos look grainy.

For selfies, the V19 wants to be versatile as well, so it has a 32MP primary for high-resolution portrait shots, and an 8MP ultra-wide, which is handy for selfies with a scenic background or with a group.

We get clear and bright selfies that fall more on cooler tones and it can really be handy to be able to use that ultra-wide-angle lens with the front camera. The camera app itself packs a few selfie nifty features like its predecessor such as the beauty mode, portrait mode, and a posture feature to guide you with some poses. As for videos, you can shoot up to 4k at 60fps.

OS, UI, and Apps

Running the software is the newer Funtouch OS 10 based on Android 10. It’s a youthful-looking interface with a functional and easy-to-navigate layout. It’s got new icons and dynamic wallpapers, to make it look more, well, fun.

Unlike previous Funtouch skins we’ve seen, the brand finally decided to place the shortcuts menu on top of the display together with the status bar and notifications. We do prefer this more than swiping up from the bottom of the screen.

For features, it has the Jovi smart assistant that works within other parts of the interface like the photo gallery and the camera, as well as Child mode and Driving mode.

Also, expect a few bloatware and some pre-installed Google apps on board. Other notable features are the option to navigate with gestures, dark mode, app clone, digital wellbeing, and dynamic effects for more quirky animations.

For storage, we have the 128GB model, which you can easily expand through its microSD card slot.

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the Vivo V19 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 octa-core CPU, Adreno 616 GPU, and 8GB of RAM. It’s a year-old chipset but still packs a punch even in 2020 standards. It can fluidly handle day-to-day tasks such as calling, messaging, social media browsing, video streaming, and the like. We didn’t experience any noticeable delay when opening apps and when multitasking.

In terms of gaming, it can deal with graphics-heavy games like CoD: Mobile, PUGB, Asphalt 9, and Mobile Legends with just a few rare hiccups. Besides that, it’s a smooth encounter and the Super AMOLED display really compliments the graphics. By the way, there’s also an Ultra Game Mode that you can maximize for a boosted gaming experience.

However, do note that the unit we got is an engineering sample so we might see an improved performance in the final retail unit. In the meantime, check out the benchmarks below:

• AnTuTu V8 – 242,124
• Geekbench – 409 (Single-Core), 1,542 (Multi-Core)
• PCMark – 7,214 (Work 2.0)
• 3D Mark – 2,175 (OpenGL), 2,027 (Vulkan)
• AndroBench – 492.95 MB/s (Read), 219.34 MB/s (Write)

For biometrics and security, you can unlock the phone via face-unlock and the in-display fingerprint scanner. Both work snappy but the face-unlock can struggle in challenging light scenarios. One small thing that we appreciate is the fun animations for unlocking that you can customize in the settings.

Battery Life

To make sure that users can take full advantage of the features mentioned, Vivo equipped the V19 with a large 4,500mAh battery. Surprisingly, with a high consuming display and performance, its battery can definitely last you a whole day.

In the PCMark battery bench, it got a good 19 hours and 10 minutes. While in our video loop test, which involves playing a video on loop in Airplane mode at 50% brightness and volume, we got a whopping 24 hours and 2 minutes worth of playback. Charging, on the other hand, takes about an hour to an hour and a half with its 33W FlashCharge 2.0.

Conclusion

Vivo’s V-series is well-known for its cameras, but as for the V19, it seems like they’re now considering more internal aspects that matter to a lot of users. It may have a year-old Snapdragon 712 chip but it still provides a smooth multitasking experience. The battery life is amazing and of course, the cameras are loaded with useful features.

If you’re coming from the V17 Pro, then this is a worthy upgrade considering the new offerings. But if you’re still looking for a new smartphone with reliable performance and outstanding cameras, then you might want to add this to your list.

The price and availability of the V19 Pro will be announced later at 9 PM. Stay tuned.

Vivo V19 specs:
6.44-inch FHD+ (2400 x 1080) Super AMOLED Ultra O display
Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 2.3GHz octa-core CPU
Adreno 616 GPU
8GB RAM
128GB, 256GB storage
Dedicated MicroSD card slot
Quad-rear cameras:
• 48MP F1.79 (main)
• 8MP F2.2 (wide-angle)
• 2MP F2.4 (bokeh)
• 2MP F2.4 (macro)
Dual front cameras:
• 32MP F2.08 (main)
• 8MP F2.28 (ultra-wide)
Dual SIM
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 5.0
GPS, Beidou, Galileo, GLONASS
USB Type-C
3.5mm audio jack
Fingerprint scanner (in-display)
Funtouch OS 10 (Android 10)
4,500mAh battery w/ 33W charging support
159.64 x 75.04 x 8.5mm
186.5g
Sleek Silver, Gleam Black