First Impressions of the Dual Selfie camera smartphone: Vivo V5 Plus

Vivo has been well known for providing high-quality DAC’s in smartphones, an area which almost all manufacturers ignore the most as the end-user doesn’t care much. Recently in the past few months, Vivo has shifted their focus more towards providing great selfie experience to users by making innovations in the front camera department. Well, that’s a great move as in a world where everyone is obsessed with selfies, everyone needs a smartphone that captures the best selfie. Last month in December Vivo had launched Vivo V5 smartphone that marked their first big step in this new direction. It features a Moonlight Glow selfie camera tried to bring a new experience for selfie lovers in any lighting conditions. And today Vivo has launched yet another smartphone the Vivo V5 Plus that takes the selfie game to the next level. The highlight of the device being it sports a dual front facing camera setup, where one of them is a 20MP Sony IMX376 sensor and an 8MP depth sensing camera. Fortunately, we were given a chance to have a look at the device before the official launch and here are our first impressions for Vivo V5 Plus.

Design

If the Vivo V5 and Apple iPhone 7 plus had a baby, it would look exactly like Vivo V5 Plus. On having a look from the front side the device looks exactly like the Vivo V5, the only difference being a dual camera setup on the V5 plus. And from the back the Vivo V5 plus looks exactly like Apple iPhone 7, I mean same antenna lines, similar camera hump. Looks like Vivo V5 plus is the best visual alternative for iPhone 7 aspirants. The V5 plus features a unibody design in a sleek and slim form factor. The edges are tapered and the corners have been rounded off which makes the device sit comfortably in the hand. The hardware buttons (Volume Rocker and power) are placed at the traditional location on the right. The sim tray is located on the left, and make a note that this is not a hybrid SIM tray so it can only house 2 SIM cards and there is no possibility to expand the internal storage. At the bottom there is a micro-USB charging port, single speaker grill, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

Hardware

The Vivo V5 plus has a 5.5-inch 1080p IPS 2.5D curved glass panel on the front with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. The device is powered by a 2GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 625 processor with Adreno 506 GPU. In terms of memory, it features a 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. To capture great selfies the device features a dual front camera setup: where one being a 20MP Sony IMX376 1/2.78″ sensor accompanied by an 8MP depth sensing camera. There’s also a 16MP rear camera with LED Flash. To power the device it backs a 3160 mAh nonremovable built-in battery.

Revolutionary Dual Camera System

The dual front camera setup is nothing new and we have earlier seen similar kind of setup in the Lenovo Vibe S1 but that was back in 2015. Vivo by launching the Vivo V5 plus has made an attempt to revolutionise the selfie camera game by providing a dual front camera setup accompanied by a moonlight flash. One of the two camera’s is a 20MP Sony IMX376 1/2.78″ sensor and the secondary 8MP sensor is purely used to capture depth information. On selecting the “BOKEH” mode which is nothing but a wide aperture mode that lets you adjust the aperture from f/16 to as down as f/0.95 for a very stylistic selfie bokeh effect. Interestingly the phone stores the image’s original data that can be used later to change the aperture and points of focus even after capturing the shot. The overall camera experience till now has been very impressive and every time the Vivo V5 Plus manages to capture great selfies with a good amount of sharpness and excellent dynamic range. The focus is fast and the images are pleasant surprisingly. There’s more to come in our detailed camera review of Vivo V5 plus in few days.

Our First Impressions about Vivo V5 Plus

The Vivo V5 Plus is an asset for selfie enthusiasts and can capture best selfies amongst all smartphones in similar price range. The V5 plus houses some decent specs and you can definitely get better specs at this price range. But Vivo V5 Plus is not about having flagship specs at a budget price but it’s about providing decent performance and great camera experience. The dual front camera is something new and its implementation is even more innovative. Who would have thought that someday we could capture our selfies in BOKEH effect? The build and design of V5 plus is sheer premium and the device feels great to hold. With decent performance, best in class selfie camera and a blazing fast fingerprint sensor, you can’t ask for more at the price at which this device is available. We’ll continue testing out the phone and our full review will be live soon. If you have any questions, please do ask them in the comments section below.