Excellent portraits at a cut price worth

It was solely again in March that I took the Vivo V27 and V27 Pro for a spin, however now I am again with the Vivo V29. What occurred to the V28, chances are you’ll be questioning? Vivo skips a quantity within the V collection, for some cause, so the V25 preceded the V27, and presumably, we’ll be seeing a V31 earlier than too lengthy, as nicely.

Naming confusion apart, the V29 is a cellphone that bears loads of resemblance to its predecessor, and the signature impactful colourways and halo-shaped LED flash are current on the newer mannequin, too.

With an identical look, and such a brief house of time between iterations, I used to be initially involved that not a lot had modified however fortunately, there’s extra occurring with the V29 than first meets the attention. There’s a powerful new show, an progressive new lighting device, and, as we have come to count on from the V-series, digital camera efficiency that outclasses its worth level. Let’s take a more in-depth look.

Value, specs and availability

The Vivo V29 was launched in August 2023 and is that can be purchased now in additional than 39 markets together with India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Turkey, Mexico and chosen European international locations.

It’s not at present offered within the UK or US via official channels, although imports are broadly accessible. The Vivo V29 begins at round €450 / $480, although the value will differ between areas.

Design

The Vivo V29, like its predecessors, adopts a fairly vital curve on its show, and likewise on the rear panel. Which means the cellphone feels exceptionally slim in your palms and pocket, and it is pretty light-weight at simply 186g, which is spectacular, contemplating it packs a 6.78-inch show. The Vivo X90 Pro is the cellphone that lives in my pocket on a day-to-day foundation, and it is a chunky handset, so switching to a slimmer and lighter cellphone like this felt like a little bit of a luxurious.

The V-series telephones usually are available distinctive and crowd pleasing colourways, a few of which have been UV-reactive in earlier generations. That development continues right here, with 4 distinctive finishes to select from. I acquired my palms on the Peak Blue and Starry Purple choices, each of which have a glittering sparkle in wavy shapes that shift as the sunshine hits them. Peak Blue is a extra uniform color all through, whereas the Starry Purple choice shifts from a lightweight purple hue to an off-white color in a single easy gradient.

Additionally accessible are Velvet Pink and Noble Black, which each use Vivo’s Fluorite AG glass backs, which we have seen on the V27 Professional and iQOO 11. The Velvet Pink mannequin is UV-reactive and shifts between purple and pink hues, whereas the black mannequin is all black, on a regular basis. All fashions include a clear TPU case included within the field, however if you wish to go caseless, I would undoubtedly go for the blue or purple variants. Vivo’s AG glass backs really feel pretty, however they’re very slippery, and the sparkly choices are a lot grippier. That mentioned, you may need to be on board with sparkles, and I can think about not everybody shall be so eager.

Regardless of coming at an reasonably priced worth level, nothing in regards to the Vivo V29 appears or feels low cost. It is solidly constructed and has a really eye-catching look. It additionally carries an IP68 rating for mud and water resistance, so it’s going to deal with the weather with out subject. Vivo additionally says it has been examined in over 60 laboratory eventualities for sturdiness, together with drop exams, temperature and humidity exams and extra.

Show and audio system

The show has seen a pleasant improve this time round, and it gives a crisp 2800×1260 decision with a pixel density of 452 PPI. It is tremendous easy, because of its 120Hz refresh rate and options 2160Hz PWM dimming to scale back eye fatigue.

It is also extraordinarily shiny, supposedly placing out as much as 1300 nits at peak. This is likely one of the brightest panels that I’ve seen on a mid-range machine, and it means you may don’t have any points seeing the show on shiny sunny days. Streaming content material from suppliers like Netflix additionally appears nice because of HDR10+ assist.

There is a good quantity of adjustment accessible for the color rendering, too. You’ll be able to choose between customary, professional and vivid presets in addition to tweak the color temperature of every. Should you’re involved about eye well being, there’s a watch safety mode, in addition to SGS certifications for low blue mild, low flicker and low smear.

There’s solely a single speaker on this mannequin, so you are not going to get a stereo impact when watching content material or taking part in video games with the built-in audio. Nonetheless, it might nonetheless get lots loud, and it does not sound too tinny. It is not prone to shock you, nevertheless it’s completely sufficient for watching YouTube round the home.

Efficiency and software program

The Vivo V29 runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G, a mid-range chip that is a few years outdated now, so for sure, this cellphone will not be topping the leaderboards in benchmarks. Nonetheless, this is identical chip that you will discover within the Nothing phone (1) and Honor 70, so we already know that it is lots succesful.

It is also paired with a wholesome quantity of RAM, both 8GB or 12GB, and it is nearly extendable so as to add as much as one other 8GB, which implies it is a superb multitasker. In use, the cellphone at all times felt snappy and responsive, apps opened shortly, and I might simply neglect that I wasn’t utilizing a flagship machine.

It is actually solely in gaming that you will discover a distinction, and you will have to load up one thing graphically intensive, like my present favorite, Honkai Star Rail, to see the results. I needed to swap the graphics preset to ‘low’ to get playable framerates, which is clearly rather a lot much less fairly, nevertheless it performed nicely in that mode, and the cellphone solely began to warmth up after a superb 45 minutes or so – by no means getting uncomfortably heat.

The Vivo V29 has 4600 mAh battery, and this, mixed with its environment friendly chipset, implies that battery life is fairly nice. You may simply get via a day of pretty heavy use on a cost, and when it is time to juice again up, it is completed in a flash with the included 80W wall adapter. You’ll be able to count on to get from flat to full in round 40 minutes or so, a 50 per cent cost will solely take about 20 minutes. There is not any wi-fi charging on this one, however that is nonetheless one thing fairly uncommon to seek out on gadgets at this worth level.

The V29 runs FunTouch OS 13, an working system I am very conversant in, after utilizing the X90 Professional for thus lengthy. It does not stray too removed from the stock-android expertise, and it provides some extraordinarily in-depth customisation choices, that are good to have, however there are some downsides, too. The primary one is that you could do some fiddling to make sure that you get all your notifications, because the power-saving measures are fairly drastic by default. The opposite is the quantity of bloatware, which is unchanged from the earlier V-series gadgets that I’ve examined. Fortunately, most of it’s straightforward to take away.

Cameras

With the earlier V-series fashions, it was the digital camera efficiency that really set them aside, and it is the identical case with the V29. The selfie digital camera seems to hold the identical specs as its predecessor, however that was the most effective selfie digital camera I had ever tried, and the identical is true of this mannequin.

It has a whopping 50MP decision on its front-facing digital camera, and crucially, it has quick and correct autofocus. That is one thing that is nonetheless lacking on nearly all of flagship gadgets (apart from the brand new Pixel 8 Pro), and it means you’ll be able to maintain your cellphone up shut or at arm’s size, and at all times look tack-sharp.

The rear digital camera array is essentially unchanged from the Vivo V27, you continue to get a 50MP predominant sensor and an 8MP ultra-wide, however there are a few much less apparent adjustments. The primary is that the ineffective 2MP macro digital camera is gone, now changed by a 2MP depth sensor, presumably to assist with portrait mode cut-outs. The opposite is that the primary sensor is now a Samsung GN5, versus a Sony IMX766.

Pictures from the primary digital camera look very good, particularly within the daylight. Vivo’s color processing makes for vibrant and natural-looking photos with sharp particulars and loads of dynamic vary. Low-light photos are good, too, with the evening mode in a position to deliver out the small print in even the darkest of scenes. As ordinary, the portrait mode cut-outs are among the many greatest within the enterprise, too.

The ultra-wide is much less spectacular. It has a set focus, so you will not be taking any close-ups with it, and the extent of element cannot evaluate to the primary lens. It nonetheless is available in helpful, infrequently nevertheless it’s greatest used sparingly, as you may get a lot nicer outcomes with the opposite two cameras.

Check photos

The digital camera system on this cellphone has one other distinctive trick up its sleeve, too. The big round flash unit that is discovered subsequent to the primary lenses just isn’t really a flash, however a bi-colour continuous light source. This intelligent mild can robotically alter to match the lighting of your scene, making a subtle fill mild that matches the setting round you. It is a sensible concept, and so far as I am conscious, utterly distinctive to this cellphone.

After all, with evening mode being so good, this intelligent lighting answer may not get a lot real-world use, nevertheless it’s good to have the choice. In my testing, it did a superb job of recognising the ambient mild temperature, however you’ll be able to alter it manually in case you choose. There’s additionally a separate, conventional LED flash, in order that can be utilized the place required.

Verdict

The Vivo V29 is likely one of the greatest telephones you should buy for taking selfies, however past that, it additionally offers a superb predominant digital camera, a beautiful show and glorious worth for cash. Should you’re in search of a camera-focused mid-range smartphone on this worth vary, it’s extremely straightforward to advocate, as in lots of instances, and particularly with selfies, its photographic efficiency will outperform even the likes of the Pixel 7a.

It is not good – the lacklustre ultra-wide, single speaker and mediocre gaming chops are positive to be deal breakers for some. However the primary drawback lies with its availability, I am within the UK and lots of our readers are within the States. The Vivo V29 hasn’t formally launched in both area and certain by no means will. This would possibly imply that getting your palms on one for a superb worth turns into very tough.

Should you’re in a supported area, although, the Vivo V29 is nicely price a glance. It is trendy, shoots nice images and is half the value of most flagship telephones.