Vivo V19 Review: Great Cameras, Impressive Design But Its Expensive!

Vivo’s presence in the mid-range and budget segment is long known. Especially, their V series has redefined the selfie camera concept which a lot of users look out for. Not only the cameras but Vivo’s offering in this series has also been exceptional for the price over the years. And now, they are back with the Vivo V19, which is their latest addition to the V-series family. How does the device fare out for the price? Well, read out the Vivo V19 review of ours.

Vivo V19 Review

Design and Display

It’s been a while since Vivo has launched a device in the V lineup, the last one was the Vivo V17 and V17 Pro. The V series is something Vivo has always stuck to and is one of the best selling mid-rangers for them. For the design, while most of the phones are getting larger by the time, Vivo has stuck to the compact design similar to that of the Vivo V17. But this time around, we get a dual-lens selfie punch-hole camera.

On the front, we have the rather medium than large 6.44-inch display with minimal bezels and a chin at the bottom. Weighing just 186.5 gms and packing a 4500 mAh battery, the V19 is a perfect example of an ideally designed smartphone. We have the power button and the volume rockers on the right panel whereas the SIM card slot with a dedicated MicroSD card slot is on the left one. On the bottom, it comes with a USB Type-C charging port, the 3.5mm headphone jack alongside it, and speaker and microphone. The secondary noise-canceling mic is located on the top panel.

On the other side, at the back, Vivo has still stuck to the plastic-finish rather than a glass back. But this certainly helps in keeping the weight of the device in the limit. It comes with a quad-lens rear camera put in a rectangular module along with the LED flashlight similar to what we have on the Galaxy S20 series. Along the camera panel is the Vivo branding placed vertically on the plastic back. Overall, the device does look modern but for the feels of it, a glass back would’ve been much better. Again, can’t complain about that in this price segment.

Talking about the display, the Vivo V19 comes with a 6.44-inch Super AMOLED FHD+ display with Gorilla Glass 6 protection and which has impressive viewing angles with good enough color reproduction. It’s a great panel to consume multimedia, thanks to the FHD+ AMOLED display. It’s just a few times you will be bothered about the punch-hole camera cutting through your content but you’ll get used to it as time goes by. On the whole, the Vivo V19 offers an exceptional display for the price.

Software and Performance: Vivo V19 Review

Out of the box, the Vivo V19 comes with the FunTouch OS 10 on top of Android 10. This is something Vivo stuck to since its entry in the market, and it might bother you a bit if you are moving from a stock experience but otherwise, you will be pretty happy with the number of customizations on offer. Although there are a few pre-installed apps, they can be uninstalled without any issues.

With Apple updating its action center from the bottom to the top, Vivo also made its move by shifting the action center to the top-down drag. Vivo’s FunTouch OS relationship with iOS never seems to end, will it?

In terms of the performance, the Vivo V19 comes with the Snapdragon 712 SoC along with 8GB of RAM. The high performing chipset and the RAM helps pretty well for multi-tasking. We tried opening many apps and switching between them was smooth and well-staged. For the lock security, the in-display fingerprint sensor on the front and the face-unlock is quick enough.

Coming to gaming, with extreme graphics of PUBG Mobile, the device did struggle a bit in frames rate. But when set to medium settings, it did great and everything was pretty balanced. After gaming for about 30 min heavily, the device does warm up a bit just like any other smartphone but it doesn’t get a bit uncomfortable. The performance, on the whole, is better, but a chipset like the Snapdragon 730  or at least 720 would’ve helped in gaming performance. Below are the benchmark scores that were returned.

Cameras: Vivo V19 Review

The Vivo V19 comes with a rear quad-camera setup with a 48MP primary sensor with f/1.79 aperture, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle sensor with f/2.2 aperture, a 2MP macro lens with f/2.4 aperture, and a 2MP depth sensor with f/2.4 aperture. Vivo’s stock camera app comes with all the basic modes that include ultra-stable video mode, super macro mode, super night selfie, and AI scene recognition modes.

The output with the primary 48MP sensor shoots 12MP shots by default using the pixel binning technology, and the autofocus and shutter speed are up to the mark. When put into scene detection mode, the auto HDR kicks in whenever needed to give those crispier shots. The camera performance in good daylight conditions is great but when it comes to low light conditions, the images come out bit grainy and low in detail.

The wide-angle lens can be turned with a toggle on the screen in the camera app. The photos came out pretty good but do not match the level of the shots taken with the primary camera. The edges too come distorted but we hope Vivo fixes them soon in future updates.

Coming to portrait shots, the bokeh mode puts the depth sensor to work and gives a good shot with the background blurred. The output was good but the edge detection is a bit shabby. The difference between the bokeh and portrait mode is that you get the beautification feature in the portrait mode so bokeh mode can be used for different objects as well.

Coming to the last sensor, the macro lens which is good enough to take macro shots, the photos came out great with good details and colors but in terms of practicality, you’ll see no practical use for the macro mode, just marketing gimmick. As said earlier, the camera performance is not up to the mark in low light conditions, but thanks to the night mode, the pictures come out well in detail and shadows.

On the front, the Vivo V19 comes with a 32MP selfie camera which shoots some great selfies in terms of colors and details. To add to the modes available in the camera app, the selfie camera can also shoot in the night mode that can take brighter selfies in low lit areas. You can check the camera samples for yourself below.

Battery and Connectivity

The Vivo V19 comes packed with a 4500 mAh battery and a bundled 33W fast charger to help you charge the device quickly. We’ve run our daily tests and the device did hold up a bit of juice after the end of a working day which included browsing, social media, gaming, and video streaming. All in all, the device did not heat up nor did we observe any battery drain issues. When it comes to charging, the device takes about an hour to charge from nil to 100% which is great for a phone in this price range.

Coming to connectivity, the Vivo V19 comes equipped with Bluetooth 5.0, dual-band Wi-Fi, USB-OTG connectivity, and GPS. Moreover, in terms of streaming, the device comes certified with Widevine L1 DRM which makes sure that you can stream HD and higher resolution video content on streaming apps like Netflix, Prime Video, and more.

Verdict: Vivo V19 Review

The Vivo V19 is a good addition to the Vivo family as it comes with great battery backup and fast charging support. Overall, the device can be questioned in a few aspects like a performance where you can get a similar processor or performance in devices like the OnePlus 7T by upping your budget a bit. But as we know, Vivo’s V-series is solely a camera-centric one and the V19 stands true to the tag.

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