VIVO V5 PLUS: It Does More than You Expect

The old advertising adage goes that when a major big-name celebrity endorses a branded product then it must certainly be good. That is no longer such a guarantee of quality in this day and age, but when the product is good, then wow, it’s really great. This year, Chinese smartphone manufacturer Vivo undertook a big step when it comes to celebrity endorsements for their latest model, the V5 Plus. The Vivo brand already has a sponsorship deal with the Indian Premier League up to 2022, but this new agreement brought some serious star power in the person of NBA player Stephen Curry.

Even I must admit, Steph Curry cuts a dashing figure when it comes to celeb endorsements. Large images of him dominate the entryways of a national mall chain in my hometown, as well as the interiors of said mall’s telecom and computing department. True, Vivo is banking greatly on name association with the Curry marketing deal for both China and the Philippines. It coincides with the NBA’s latest sponsorship initiatives in the former, not to mention score big points with the general basketball mania in the latter. All well and good, but I’m more interested in the technological muscle that the Vivo V5 Plus can bring to bear; and what do you know, it answers my immediate needs and then some.

In my work, I am pretty much required to do a lot of travelling all over the country and out of it, going from attending one event here to sightseeing at another location there. Without going into a lengthy discourse, such an active schedule that tends to keep me on the move means that I need to rely on a communications device that also doubles as a high-end photographic and video recording camera, something that is a complete necessity nearly everywhere I go. That then, is where my new Vivo V5 Plus comes in and acquits itself very awesomely. 

It could be construed that Vivo and fellow Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oppo are in fierce competition over which of them is a better “selfie-use” camera phone. Vivo, it is plain to see, has brought their A-game in designing the V5 Plus thanks to their co-engineering efforts with none other than Sony itself. Their collaboration bears fruit in the phone’s dual front camera. Yes, that’s two camera lenses working in concert, the primary lens being 20 megapixels and the secondary with 8 megapixels.

Selfies shot with the dual front camera come across a being comparable in quality to a professional digital single-reflex cam. That means I can make pictures shot with the front cameras look like they were snapped by a pro. Vivo also adds some crazy beautiful effects like fiddling with a shot’s depth-of-field, like making foreground figures (me and my groufie-mates) look sharp while blurring the background artistically. Now that’s taking photos with power.

That also applies to the V5 Plus’s 16-megapixel rear camera as well. Never let it be said that Vivo only does perfect selfies. The sensors for the main camera are just as top-notch, helped along with some superior software optimization. I’ve tested it on some location shots and group pictures and I can attest to it being very well put together.

Of course, the Vivo V5 Plus is not just a camera but a smartphone first and foremost. The signal and audio quality of its phone calls on both normal and speaker mode is magnificent and definitely exceeds my expectations. This and the camera functions apparently are able to perform at their utmost thanks to the sheer computing power of the phone’s Octa-core processor, courtesy of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 CPU. With this as the heart of the whole thing, the V5 Plus makes for an impressive mobile computing experience with the aid of the Android 6.0-based OS Funtouch 3.0 making all systems run so smoothly.

I’ve had problems with battery life in some of my past devices, and judging from the specs of the V5 Plus it will not disappoint me in this regard. Vivo wants their gadgets to last a very long time power-wise, and take only a fraction to charge. I’m very much impressed with their 3055mAh battery and Dual-Charging System. In concert, they ensure the V5 Plus keeps running a good long while, and cut down on time spent connected to a wall socket thanks to the phone’s two charging chips (while most smartphones have one).

These are all the major features of the Vivo V5 Plus that I have come to consider essential for my companion smartphone. Its fingerprint unlocking scanner, hi-fi music support, eye filters and split-screen app capabilities are just cherries on top for what is undoubtedly one of the best smartphones ever designed yet. Stephen Curry of the NBA may have been great as a way to attract attention to the V5 Plus, but the smartphone on its own is more than enough to keep that attention and usage.

Photo courtesy of GSMArena