Vivo V11 Pro review: Feature-rich smartphone with good camera, battery life

Priced at Rs 25,990, the Vivo V11 Pro is has rich features in the midrange smartphone segment. It is also among the first smartphone to have a tiny notch display

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Vivo started its journey with devices tuned to deliver best-in-class audio capabilities. With fast-changing dynamics of the smartphone game, the company soon shifted its focus to imaging by integrating higher megapixel cameras in its devices. Now, at a time when the specification race has saturated and the mobile phone game has moved to features, Vivo is seemingly taking the lead in shaping the future of smartphones — the Vivo Nex, with a three-side all-screen front and motorised pop-up camera is an example.

While the Vivo Nex seems to be a concept phone setting the benchmark for future smartphones, a Business Standard review of the recently launched Vivo V11 Pro revealed that the new device fits just perfectly as a smartphone filling the gap during thr transition. The Vivo V11 Pro features a modern design with glass body, a tall stance due to its 19.5:9 aspect ratio screen with a tiny notch on top (called Halo FullView), and respectable specifications.

Vivo V11 Pro design, display and in-display fingerprint sensor

With almost every phone offering the same specifications in their respective segments, the industry focus has now shifted to design and display; these have become a key differentiating factor for new-age smartphones. In terms of design, the V11 Pro is a step forward, especially with its glass-metal-glass design that looks plush. The back of the smartphone is uniform with almost no obstructions, except for a vertical dual-camera module placed on the top-left corner. The glass on the back has a starry night design of a glittery blue hue at the bottom, and a glossy shade of black on the top. A caveat: The phone’s back looks like an enhanced version of the V9.

The front is dominated by a new format 6.41-inch superAMOLED screen of fullHD+ resolution, stretched in a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The screen boasts a new tiny notch screen area, accommodating just the front camera. Interestingly, the earpiece now sits under a thin bezel above the display, along with an infrared sensor on its right for the face-unlock mechanism. The new screen format gives the phone a tall look — that makes operating it using one hand somewhat difficult.

Being an AMOLED unit, the display is bright and looks vivid. It has a good saturation and contrast ratio. Sunlit legibility is satisfactory, but a fullHD+ resolution for such a big panel looks a bit pixelated, especially while reading text, playing games and watching videos. The lock screen supports the always-on mode to show notifications, time and date. However, unlike Samsung smartphones, there is no way you can interact or check notifications.

Speaking of the lock screen, the phone features an in-display fingerprint sensor sitting beneath the lower side of the screen. The fingerprint recognition area is highlighted with an animated icon which supports three different animations. The area brightens up as soon as it detects fingerprint and unlocks the screen. However, the in-display fingerprint sensor is slow and not as accurate as conventional fingerprint sensors. To compensate, the phone boasts an IR-based face-unlock mechanism that works like a charm in all light conditions. It detects the face instantly and unlocks the phone in a fraction of a second. The display animation while detecting the face is interesting, too. It looks close to Samsung edge lighting and shows a moving blue light on display edges as the device detects your face.

Camera

The smartphone sports a dual camera module on the back featuring a 12-megapixel primary sensor, mated with a 5MP depth-sensing lens. The main camera has a large f/1.8 aperture and a pixel size of 1.28 microns. The camera is a major improvement over iterations of dual-camera modules seen in earlier Vivo smartphones. The camera's autofocus is fast and it fixes the frame in a split second. It takes detailed shots in daylight conditions. The addition of artificial intelligence-based automatic scene selection fairly improves the output, but not every time.

Among a few things that look unbecoming of this otherwise capable camera is the user interface. It is loaded with several modes and settings. However, moving from one mode to another requires a swipe on the screen. There is no way you can select any particular mode directly. Speaking of picture quality, the camera captures a soft tone in the beauty mode, and detailed natural-looking pictures with enhanced bokeh effect, thanks to a 5MP secondary camera that works in tandem with the primary one.

On the front, the phone has a 25MP lens. The selfie camera is best suited for portrait shots. It supports auto HDR, which allows the camera to take better images even with bright backgrounds. The addition of iPhone X-inspired lighting modes is a welcome change as well.

Performance

Powering the smartphone is the midrange Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 system-on-chip (SoC), mated with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, expandable using a dedicated microSD card. The processor is not a powerhouse, but it packs enough to run things smoothly. The phone boots Android Oreo out of the box, covered under Funtouch OS 4.5, a highly customised skin packed with a lot of bloatware. The interface is far from stock, so it takes time getting used too. It is not the best-looking user interface, as the icons appear to be a cheap adaptation of the iOS. In terms of usability, the OS is difficult to operate, especially for users who have not used Vivo smartphones earlier. The lack of an app drawer and a cluttered settings menu ruin the experience even more.

Coming on to the performance, the Vivo V11 Pro is a mixed bag of hits and misses. It keeps background apps working without force-closing them, and moving from one app to another shows no jitters or lags. The performance is mostly smooth, but gaming apps like Asphalt 9 and PUBG show the processor’s limitation with respect to graphics. It does manage to run such graphic-intensive games but only when graphics are set to medium or low.

Powering the smartphone is a 3,400 mAh battery, which keeps the phone going for more than a day. Gaming, video streaming and camera take a toll on battery, but the phone shows a promising on-battery number of more than 12 hours. Battery charging time is also quick — the phone's battery goes from zero to 100 per cent in less than two hours, which is as good as the OnePlus 6's Dash Charge technology.

Vivo V11 Pro review verdict

Priced at Rs 25,990, the Vivo V11 Pro is a feature-rich offering in the midrange smartphone segment. The phone is among the first to feature a tiny notch display. It also has an in-display fingerprint sensor and premium glass design. The performance could have been better, but it is not disappointing if you take into account the price segment it ranks in. The phone is primarily a camera phone with best in-class performance. However, it could have been an all-rounder if the user interface and performance had also been paid attention to.

Overall, the phone does well in terms of display quality, features, camera and battery life, and that puts it on the forefront with respect to other smartphones in the same segment, such as Nokia 7 Plus and Oppo F9 Pro.