After the success of the Vivo V15 Pro, Vivo recently launched its successor, the Vivo V17 Pro in India. Vivo V17 Pro is the first smartphone that comes with a Dual pop-up selfie camera in the front. It flaunts a 6.44-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED display and is priced at Rs.29,990. Is this device worth your money? Read our review to find out.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn35tO4zGqw]
In the box
- V17 Pro
- Earphones
- Documentation
- USB Cable
- USB Power Adapter
- SIM Ejector Tool
- Protective Case
- Protective Film (applied)
Vivo V17 Pro Specifications
- CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 octa-core processor
- RAM: 8 GB
- Operating System: Android 9.0 Pie with FunTouch OS
- Display: 6.44-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED with 2400 x 1080 pixels resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, and 91.6 percent STB ratio
- Rear Camera: 48 MP Sony IMX582 primary sensor with f/1.8 aperture + 13 MP telephoto with f/2.5 aperture + 8 MP wide-angle lens with f/2.2 aperture + 2 MP depth sensor with f/2.4 aperture
- Front Camera: 32 MP with f/2.0 aperture + 8 MP with f/2.2 aperture
- Internal Storage: 128 GB
- Connectivity: Dual SIM (Nano), 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4 GHz + 5 GHz), Bluetooth5.0, GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, USB 2.0
- Other: In-display fingerprint sensor
- Colors: Midnight Ocean & Glacier Ice
- Battery: 4100 mAh with 18W Dual-Engine fast charging
Design, Display, & Ergonomics
After the Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro, this is the smartphone that takes our heart when it comes to the design. The device is available in two colors – Glacier Ice and Midnight Ocean and features a clean glass back that comes without any type of reflection effects. We got the Glacier Ice variant to play around with and it surely feels premium when you hold it. The Vivo V17 Pro weighs 201.8g which is quite heavy when compared with the other devices in this range. The camera module is placed in the center and there’s a Vivo logo in the bottom. The Glacier Ice variant of the V17 Pro features a metallic blue kinda color on the sides that looks glossy.
You get the Power and Volume buttons on the right side and there is a dedicated button for the Google Assistant on the left. The Dual pop-up selfie camera is on the top and along with that Vivo also gives a 3.5mm headphone jack next to it. The back panel does attract fingerprints but they aren’t visible until you take a close look. It is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 6 on the back.
Talking about the display, the Vivo V17 Pro flaunts a 6.44-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED Display. It comes with a pixel resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels and a screen to body ratio of 91.6 percent. It’s a full view display that comes with an in-display fingerprint scanner that works well and unlocks the device in a second. As its a Super AMOLED Display you get deep blacks along with punchy colors. The display is bright enough and you won’t face any problems while using it outdoors.
Vivo V17 Pro comes with Widevine L1 Support which means that you’ll be able to enjoy Full HD content from online streaming services like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. Vivo has placed the speakers in the bottom but for some reason, the sound output isn’t loud enough. The sound output from videos and audio streaming services is still audible but if you are playing games like PUBG you won’t be able to hear your enemies without wearing earphones.
User Interface and Software
Vivo V17 Pro runs on Android 9 Pie based on the latest Funtouch OS 9.1 that comes with a lot of additional features. Funtouch OS doesn’t have an App Drawer so every app you install comes directly on your Home screen just like what we’ve seen on MIUI and ColorOS. It’s highly customizable and you get a lot of inbuilt dynamic sliding effects for your home screen and you can set it according to what you love.
Funtouch OS also brings features like Smart Motion which comes with a lot of gesture-based features that make your workflow easy and fast. In addition to this, you also get features like Smart Mirroring, Smart Split, One-handed mode, S-capture, and App Clone on the device. You also get the Dark Mode on the device which makes your UI dark and also helps in saving your battery life.
We’ve already covered all the top features that come with the Funtouch OS and know more about them you can click here. The device comes with the usual Bloatware but you can uninstall most of the apps you don’t need. However, some services and Applications like Videos, Vivo’s Game Center, V-Appstore and Vivo Cloud can’t be uninstalled. Overall the user interface is good and you’ll have fun while customizing your device according to your needs.
Hardware Performance, Benchmarks, and Gaming
This is a segment where the Vivo V17 Pro disappoints us. This device comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 octa-core processor which is paired with 8 GB of RAM. Its priced at Rs.29,990 which is overpriced considering the specs it comes with. If this device featured a Qualcomm Snapdragon 712, 730 or an 845 chipset it would have changed the market.
With the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor packed inside, this device just performs like the other mid-range devices available in the market. You can multitask with ease but when it comes to gaming you’ll have to settle with playing your games on low graphics settings for getting smooth performance. We played PUBG, Dead Trigger 2, FIFA Mobile and Asphalt 9 on this and the performance was decent. You can play PUBG maximum in HD Graphics with High frame rate settings and Auto-Adjust graphics enabled.
After 3 to 4 hours of gaming, the temperature for the Vivo V17 Pro goes up to 40-degree Celsius and it feels a little warm in hand. As we mentioned above, the speakers on the device aren’t that loud so we’d recommend you to play with your headphones on.
Talking about the benchmarks, Vivo V17 Pro manages to get a score of 173256 on AnTuTu Benchmark which is less than most of its competitors like Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro and the other devices available under the price of Rs.20,000 to Rs.30,000. Due to its processor, this device can’t be compared with the flagship devices that come with Snapdragon 845 chipsets and are available in a similar price range. On Geekbench 5 the Vivo V17 Pro gets a single-core score of 488 and a Multi-core score of 1621.
Vivo V17 Pro comes with 128 GB of Onboard Storage and while running the Androbench Benchmark we got a Sequential Read speed of 498MB/s whereas the Sequential Write speed was up to 185MB/s. You can have a look at the Benchmark results below.
Vivo V17 Pro packs a 4100 mAh Battery that supports 18W Dual-Engine fast charging. The battery easily lasts up to 1.5 days with normal usage and you can game up to 8 hours on this device. Fast charging on this device isn’t fast enough as it takes approximately 2 hours and 6 minutes to fuel up the battery power. On the connectivity part, Vivo V17 Pro supports Dual SIM cards (Nano) along with 4G VoLTE. Furthermore, it also supports Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4 GHz + 5 GHz), Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, GLONASS, Beidou and USB 2.0. MicroSD cards aren’t supported on this device which means that you can’t expand your storage.
Camera
Now let’s talk about the best part of this smartphone, its camera setup. The Vivo V17 Pro features a 48 MP Sony IMX582 primary sensor with f/1.8 aperture + 13 MP telephoto lens with f/2.5 aperture + 8 MP wide-angle lens with f/2.2 aperture + 2 MP depth sensor with f/2.4 aperture on the back. On the front, there is a 32 MP lens with f/2.0 aperture + 8 MP lens with f/2.2 aperture which makes it the first smartphone to come with the dual pop-up front camera setup.
As good as these camera specs look on paper they perform equally well when it comes to real-life performance. The AI works amazingly and you get crisp pictures on whichever mode you are shooting. The camera app is clean, well-optimized and comes with a lot of additional features. It automatically detects the scene in which you are shooting your images and it optimizes the camera settings according to it.
When it comes to the selfies, the front camera on the Vivo V17 Pro can also take pictures in Ultra-wide angle mode along with the Portrait mode. The Portrait mode on this device comes with AI Beauty features along with a feature named Posture that has some predefined poses.
Both, front and rear cameras perform well in every type of lighting condition and show a good imaging performance with a high amount of sharpness in the image. The color output in the images is impressive and much better than its competitors.
The video capabilities on this device are also impressive and it allows you to record videos in 60 FPS in 1080p or 720p resolution. You can also shoot 4K Videos on 25 to 30 FPS. It also features dedicated video modes for Slow Motion and Timelapse videos. Vivo V17 Pro can shoot Timelapse Videos in 1080p and 720p resolution with 60 FPS per second. We took a couple of shots with the camera on Vivo V17 Pro and you can have a look at the Camera Samples below.
Vivo V17 Pro Camera Samples
Verdict
This device is priced at Rs.29,990 which is overpriced considering the specs it offers. If you are a gamer ignore this smartphone as there are many smartphones available in the market which offer better performance. However, Vivo V17 Pro is a camera focused smartphone and if you are a person who loves clicking a lot of pictures then this smartphone is made for you. The camera on this device steals our heart and the shots we got were amazing. It won’t be wrong to say that the Vivo V17 Pro brings the best camera setup under the price range of Rs.30,000.
Decent Performance, Great Design, and an Outstanding Camera. Vivo V17 Pro gets a thumbs up from us.
Pros
- Corning Gorilla Glass 6 Protection
- Great Design
- Outstanding Camera
Cons
- No MicroSD Card Support
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 – Comes with a processor that is available in the devices which cost less than Rs.15,000
- Overpriced
- Charging Time
