This smartphone of Vivo provides privacy features of Android 12. Small audio and video indicators appear in the notification area when the phone’s microphone or camera is in use. Apart from all this it also includes some Funtouch widgets inspired by Origin OS. The notification tray and quick settings menu don’t look like those on a Google Pixel running stock Android. It doesn’t have a powerful search function in the app drawer, but Notification History makes up for it and you can use it by scrolling to the bottom of the notification tray (you have to activate it first by going to Settings).
The company has added a new Game Space app to the phone, but it doesn’t do much and only tells you which games are available on your phone, and for how long you have played them.
Vivo V23 Pro performed as expected in standard benchmark tests. It achieved scores of 950 and 3,216 in Geekbench’s single and multi-core tests respectively. At the same time, it scored 6,24,567 points in AnTuTu. This score is obviously at par with the scores of mid-range smartphones and in the same price range.
This is lower than the score of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC processor found in India.
The gaming performance of the phone was good. The phone also got warm while playing games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends at the highest settings. However, it handled long gaming sessions well without showing any impact on performance. Asphalt 9: Legends ran smoothly on 60fps mode, but Call of Duty was less fun as the touch sensitivity during gaming was not able to support me in moving quickly and aiming to kill the enemies. I lost many tournaments because of this slight delay in touch response. The phone did not lag even after setting the graphics quality to the lowest level.
Vivo V23 Pro has a single speaker, which sounds quite loud, but at high volumes the sound feels choppy. Stereo sound is often available in phones of this price range, which is missing in this phone. To balance the sound, the phone should have a stereo speaker setup.
The AMOLED panel of the phone is good. It’s quite bright, and the colors are saturated, but the colors appear a bit faded when viewed in direct sunlight. The refresh rate of 90Hz is enough, but many competitors of this phone have higher refresh rates. Its curved edges make the panel special. In everyday use, they don’t look much different, but the medium-sized notch of the phone looks a little different, because nowadays most of the Android phones (below and above this price range) have a hole-punch cutout, which Along with taking up less space, it gives a clean look to the display.
Despite being thin, the battery life of the phone is quite impressive and the phone gives decent battery backup. The phone lasted 12 hours and 7 minutes in our HD video loop test, which is slightly below average. In normal use, the phone lasts the whole day on a single charge, but it cannot be called the best in this segment. Users who want more battery power will have to look for some other option. The phone charges quickly with a 44W fast charger. It charges up to 65 percent in 30 minutes and gets fully charged in an hour.
Vivo V23 Pro cameras
The camera specifications of Vivo V23 Pro are quite attractive. Both the front and rear cameras can record 4K at 60fps. The front camera also has HDR video recording and two LED flash units. The phone has a total of three rear cameras and two front cameras. Its primary camera in the rear is 108 megapixels, the second camera is an 8 megapixel ultra wide angle lens and the third lens is a 2 megapixel macro shooter.
The primary camera in the front facing camera is 50 megapixels, which comes with autofocus. The second camera is an 8 megapixel ultra wide angle lens, through which group selfies can be taken easily. The camera interface is well laid out and all the necessary settings are quickly accessible. For this, a menu is provided in the top left corner (when holding the phone lengthwise), in which settings can be easily changed. It is worth noting here that special video features like Steadyface and Super Night can only record 1080p at 30fps. HDR video is also limited to 30fps for 1080p and 4K. While 1080p recording is limited to 60fps in Super Stabilization mode.
Photos taken with 108MP camera were saved in 12MP. Photos taken in daylight appeared to have more saturation, but dynamic range and details were good. Photos taken with the ultra wide angle camera were below average in terms of details. Only photographs taken in daylight were usable.
The 50-megapixel selfie camera also saved photos in 12-megapixel. Selfies taken in daylight were quite sharp and clear and had good dynamic range. It also separated the background from the subject well. Edge detection and details in portrait mode were very good. The same was seen in the portrait mode of the rear camera. The photos taken from the ultra-wide selfie camera were also amazing and much better than those from the rear-facing ultra-wide camera. The 2-megapixel macro camera was quite useful for taking close-up shots, but the quality was average.
In low-light, the primary rear camera took good shots with good details and dynamic range. Night mode shots were also better. Subjects looked sharp, but in contrast mode the photos looked slightly artificial. There were some photos in which I noticed that highlights were overexposed around street lamps or other light sources. Photos taken with the ultra wide angle camera in night mode looked good on the phone’s display, but there was not much detail on the monitor screen.
Selfies taken in low light were sharp and details were better with the spotlight flash than with the screen flash. However, with both methods the photo quality cannot be rated as more than average. Even night mode could not help in this. In most cases, the primary selfie camera struggled to focus even after turning on the flash.
Talking about the video, there was a bit of disappointment here too. The company has paid a lot of attention to extra features but left the basic features behind. The best quality of video in the phone was achieved by shooting 4K video at 30fps. Details were not found in 1080p video recording in daylight. Stabilization was very good at 1080p but was nowhere to be seen when recording 4K video at 60fps.
The phone has an Ultra Stabilization mode that completely stabilizes the video, but its resolution is limited to 1080p at 60fps. While shooting selfie videos in daylight at any resolution, the background was getting overexposed. In HDR mode, the subject and background came out well, but the exposure was overexposed and details were below average. Vivo has provided a stabilization feature called Steadiface, which makes the footage look smooth even in daylight and low light.
When videos were shot in low-light with the selfie camera, the footage came out quite grainy. Super Night video mode helped reduce this to a great extent, but the frame rate remained glitchy. Details were not found when shooting video in 1080p. Videos shot at 60fps were recorded quite dark and the stabilization was also not very good. There was a slight decrease in video smoothness while playing. Even after increasing the resolution to 4K, there was a problem with the stability of the video. The footage in 4K at 60fps was quite dark and the video was shaking even while panning. Videos in Ultra Stabilization mode appeared slightly blurred and blurry.
Verdict
This phone is for those users who want a thin and light smartphone, or want to experience the latest Android smartphone. Its color changing panel is quite different. This phone is one of the few smartphones available in this segment which has a curved edge display. However, this phone does not meet the criteria for users who want gaming performance and excellent battery life.
The competition for Vivo V23 Pro is very tough. After testing Realme GT and iQoo 7 Legend in the review, I can say with full confidence that iQoo has the best camera among them. Apart from this, there are many other smartphones, such as OnePlus 9R, Xiaomi Mi 11X Pro and recently launched Xiaomi 11T Pro Are available in the market, which give better gaming performance than Vivo V23 Pro. All these phones have stereo speakers and AMOLED display, which includes refresh rate up to 120Hz. Mi 11X Pro also has IP53 rating.
Photos taken with Vivo V23 Pro’s camera are quite impressive, but video recording needs a lot of improvement. This smartphone proves to be better than V20 Pro in many ways, but cannot be called perfect. Its higher price makes the competition tougher for it, as it has to compete with premium smartphones in this range, which perform better than it.