Vivo V25 Pro: Solid Mid-Ranger For The Southeast Asian Market

Asia Vivo V25 Pro: Solid Mid-Ranger For The Southeast Asian Market Ben Sin Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I cover consumer tech in Asia Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories. Got it! Sep 21, 2022, 01:55am EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The Vivo V25 Pro comes in two colors Vivo I’ve been testing Vivo’s V series phones since the V5 , which came out in early 2017 and was billed as “the perfect selfie phone.

” Since then, the Shenzhen-headquartered phonemaker has pumped out a V phone every six months or so, which coupled with its tendency to skip even numbers, has now resulted in the V25 in just half a decade. Unlike previous V phones, which always felt like a lower mid-tier phone in terms of construction, the Vivo V25 Pro looks and feels closer to a flagship phone. To the untrained eye, they may not be able to tell the difference between this $450-ish handset from a $1,000 Samsung premium phone.

Design The Vivo V25 Pro is a sleek and curvy device, with a curved 6. 5-inch OLED display that has a refresh rate up to 120Hz. The panel doesn’t get as bright as a flagship phone screen, nor can the refresh rate dynamically drop down to 1Hz to conserve battery power the way new iPhones can, but these extra flourishes barely matter to the average consumer.

To most people, they look at this screen and see it has thin bezels and lively colors, and to them, it will look as good as any $1,200 phone screen. Vivo V25 Pro has a 6. 5-inch display.

Liz Choi The backside is crafted out of glass and has this coating material that changes colors when UV light hits it. This allows you to craft patterns on the phone’s back if you wish, but they’ll only last about five minutes before reverting back to the normal color. A bit gimmicky in my opinion and serves no real use beyond a neat party trick.

The frame is plastic, but it’s so thin your hands won’t actually feel the plastic much, so for the most part, this is a nice feeling phone that feels like it should be pricier than the $450 price. MORE FOR YOU China Detains Fallen HNA Ex-Billionaire Chairman Ahead Of Airline Restructuring Vote Nasdaq Listing Of Freshworks Creates Windfall For Indian Founder And Hundreds Of Employees Ninja Van Becomes Singapore’s Newest Unicorn After Raising $578 Million From Alibaba, B Capital It’s a curvy device. Liz Choi That above price, however, is converted from the India pricing, because as of press time, this phone is only sold in India, although it should eventually make its way to Southeast Asian markets like Malaysia and Thailand the way other Vivo V phones have.

Internal components The Vivo V25 Pro runs on a Mediatek Dimensity 1300, a mid-tier silicon that is perfectly suitable for normal smartphone tasks, but will show its limitations for power users who export 4K videos or play graphically intensive games for long sessions. Vivo V25’s backside is made of glass with a unique coating. Liz Choi For optics, the V25 Pro has four cameras, but only the primary rear-facing camera and front-facing selfie cameras are worth talking about.

The 64MP main camera captures sharp images, and thanks to Vivo’s excellent computational photography in recent years, can produce excellent HDR images. Selfie cameras have always been a priority for Vivo devices, and the 32MP front-facing shooter produces excellent selfies. The other cameras—8MP ultra-wide and 2MP depth sensor—are mediocre and below par even at this price range.

A night image snapped by the Vivo V25’s main camera. ben sin Software Android 12 is the software here, and while Vivo’s software skin is fine, it lacks some of the customization options rival Chinese brands bring, such as the ability to launch apps in resizable windows. Also, Android 13 is just about here, and I’m not confident this phone will get the update any time soon.

This is a step back from the Vivo V20 a couple of years ago, when it was one of the first phones to launch with Android 11, before many other brands. A solid mid-ranger, but perhaps Vivo is pumping too many of these out The Vivo V25 Pro is a fine phone at this price point. Getting a great screen, good main and selfie cameras, and a solid processor at $450 sounds like a good deal to me.

But Vivo is pumping out the V phones at such a rapid pace that it’s hard to find any meaningful innovation or improvements over the Vivo V23 released just earlier this year. The V25 Pro phones Vivo Vivo’s doing some exciting stuff at its highest-tier, flagship level. I think the Vivo X80 Pro is still the best camera phone around.

But its mid-range V series are starting to feel a bit cookie-cutter. To be clear, there’s nothing much wrong with the V25 Pro, but how can I be excited for this when the Vivo V27 is just around the corner? Follow me on LinkedIn . Check out my website or some of my other work here .

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