Vivo X5Pro review: Great camera and performance, but it is pricey

The Vivo X5Pro is surely a very stylish phone and also among the slimmest around at just 6.4mm. The phone looks a lot like some other phones in the market, especially those in the same price range thanks to the perforated speaker grill under the screen. However, the metallic frame that runs around the body will remind you of some Sony Xperia models, though in a good way.

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Specs: 5.2-inch (1080x1920p, ~424 ppi) pixel density) Super AMOLED | Qualcomm MSM8939 Snapdragon 615 (Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & quad-core 1.1 GHz Cortex-A53) | 2GB RAM | 16GB internal storage, expandable up to 128GB | 13MP rear camera + 8MP front | 2450 mAh battery | 4G LTE | Funtouch OS 2.1 based on Android 5

Price: Rs 28,650

Vivo X5 Pro: The phone has a very good Full HD display that works well even in bright sunlight. (Source: Nandagopal Rajan)

What is good?

The phone overall offers you the feeling of something robust, something that will last. And that itself is an achievement these days. The build quality is really good and the plastic at the rear and front does not feel flimsy.

The phone has a very good Full HD display that works well even in bright sunlight. However, the company needs to take a look at whether it needs to use up so much space and above and beyond the display, which thankfully is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3.

Vivo X5Pro has a 13 megapixel camera. (Source: Nandagopal Rajan)

The phone offers decent performance and you will not have issues with multi-tasking. I tried some high-end games and was happy with the graphics as well as with the response offered by the device.

The best things about the phone has to be its 13MP rear camera. The camera is one of the fastest I have used, certainly in a phone that is not priced like a flagship. The sapphire lens offer great clarity in the photos and there is a great level of detail even in low-light shots.

Test shots from Vivo X5Pro’s rear camera. (Source: Nandagopal Rajan)

With touch-to-click activated you can see how fast the auto-focus works on this phone and that is impressive. The only time there is even a slight lag is when you are trying to shoot macro. The camera app packs a few presets — even one for PowerPoint presentations — and it pretty much covers all common uses cases.

(Source: Nandagopal Rajan)

(Source: Nandagopal Rajan)

The battery life is decent and should be able to last 12 hours if the Snapdragon processor behaves and does not go on one of its heated, power draining, phases.

(Source: Nandagopal Rajan)

What is not good?

Yes, the processor does heat up at times. We have come to expect that from a Qualcomm processor, so much so that it could be considered a unique feature. When this happens, which is thankfully not that often, the phone will lose battery in a hurry. I experienced this the most when apps were updating in the background.

Overall, the Vivo X5Pro phone is a decent, more affordable, option. (Source: Nandagopal Rajan)

The Funtouch OS is easy to use and not that complicated. But it does go against a lot of things you are used to with Android. For instance, the new apps will be added to the homescreen and you will need to create folders to keep things clean. Plus, the back button is on the right and this will take some getting used to.

The audio quality of the phone is not that great, especially since the company wants to call it a Hi-Fi phone. I tried to test the Airtel Wynk Movies app with the phone and could not hear the dialogues clearly with the fan running in the room.

Verdict

Overall, the phone is a decent, more affordable, option for those looking to buy the Samsung A8 or the HTC M9+. It offers similar features at a better price. However, if you look bottom up, the phone looks overpriced in comparison to Chinese competitors like the OnePlus 2 and the Xiaomi Mi4i.