Vivo V7+ Hands on review

Introduction

FullScreen, FullView, FullVision – call it whatever, but the 18:9 display with trimmed bezels has turned out the next big thing this year and vivo’s V7+ is riding this wave. The maker may be a bit late for the Full-something bandwagon, but it is among the first to offer the trending feature onto a mid-ranger smartphone.

With the V7+ the maker also keeps its traditional focus on the selfie photography and offers yet another impressive shooter capable of creating a simulated DE-focused background. But that won’t be enough to beat the V5+ bokeh king. Not even the honor of being chosen as the official smartphone for World Cup 2018 in Russia. But a trending Full-view screen might just do it.

The V7+ is also the premiere of Qualcomm’s latest 14nm chip – the Snapdragon 450. It has an unimpressive octa-core A53 processor, but the Adreno 506 GPU and the new dual ISPs with native bokeh support are some welcome updates. There is also a new faster LTE modem and the V7+ comes with a tri-slot for two SIMs and a microSD cards, so you can fully utilize the phone’s capabilities. And the base 64GB storage is much appreciated, too.

Vivo V7+ key features:

• Body: Plastic unibody; 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass 4 front
• Screen: 5.99-inch 18:9 IPS LCD of 720 x 1,4400 resolution; 269ppi;
• Chipset: Snapdragon 450 chipset; octa-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU; Adreno 506 GPU;
• Memory: 4GB RAM; 64GB of built-in memory; dedicated microSD card slot;
• Camera: 16MP rear camera; f/2.0 lens; phase-detect AF; single LED flash; 1080p video
• Selfie cam: 24MP front camera; f/2.0 lens; single LED flash; bokeh effects
• OS: Android 7.1.2 Nougat, Funtouch OS 3.2 on top
• Battery: 3,225mAh battery
• Connectivity: Dual nano SIM slot; Cat. 6/13 LTE support; Wi-Fi g/b/n; Bluetooth 4.2; GPS with GALILEO; FM radio
• Misc: Fingerprint scanner, Face Unlock

Main shortcomings

• 720p resolution is a bit of a stretch on a 6″ screen
• No NFC and no fast charging
• Single-band Wi-Fi
• Older Micro USB port

While the Snapdragon 450 has a modern Wi-Fi chip, vivo chose to cover just the basics and didn’t utilize the dual-band feature. No NFC and no fast charging are also somewhat of a turn-off. But while the resolution might be stretching at 6″, the pixel density is still pretty tolerable, and we expect no pixelization whatsoever.