Vivo entered the Indian market in late September with the Vivo U10, the introductory device in the U series with the Snapdragon 665 SoC to compete with other devices like the Redmi Note 8 and Realme 5 in the budget segment. Now, the Chinese smartphone maker is back with its successor, the Vivo U20 which is powered by the Snapdragon 675 SoC which is a powerhead for gaming. Is this the device that’s gonna rule between the budget and mid-range segment for as long as time persists? Well, read our Vivo U20 Review down below to find out.
Design and Display
The Vivo U20 weighs about 183 gms and is 8.9mm thick. As soon as you get hold of the device in your hands, you will find the bulkiness of the device and might find it a bit heavy for its size. On the front, it has a 6.53-inch display with thin bezels and it comes with a screen-to-body ratio of 90.3% as per Vivo. It has a teardrop notch which also houses the earpiece and a thick chin at the bottom.
Turning over to the backside, it has a flat back made of plastic panel and frame and is curved towards the edges. The triple-lens rear camera setup is placed vertically to a side and the camera module also consists of the LED flashlight. Just beside the camera module is the perfectly placed fingerprint sensor that your finger will find when you normally hold the device in your hands. There is also the Vivo branding placed vertically in line with the cameras.
Coming to the buttons, the power button and the volume rockers are placed on the right panel and buttons give out good tactile feedback. On the other panel, we have the SIM card tray, a secondary noise-cancellation mic on the top panel and a 3.5mm headphone jack and the speaker grill on either side of the MicroUSB charging port in the bottom panel. Vivo stuck to the MicroUSB which is kind of a downside but should not bother much at the price the device is on offer.
The Vivo U20 features a 6.53-inch FHD+ display which is certainly an upgrade from its predecessor, the Vivo U10. The viewing angles and the colors look great and the brightness levels are up to the mark to be used in broad daylight outdoors without any issues. It also has certain features like the night mode and reading mode which has something to do with the saturation levels.
Software and Performance
The Vivo U20 comes with FuntouchOS 9.2 on top of Android 9.0 out of the box. Coming to the pre-installed apps, a lot of bloatware can be found on the U20 including Gaana, Amazon Shopping, Dailyhunt, Facebook, WhatsApp, WPS Office, and more. Fortunately, you can still uninstall any unwanted pre-installed apps without any trouble.
Coming to the UI, the FuntouchOS needs to be swiped up from the bottom to open the action center. To add to the customizations on offer, you can also change the themes for charging animation and face recognition. There is also Vivo’s own personal assistant Jovi that will help you perform certain actions like recognizing products and make it remember things for you. There is also a motorbike mode that rejects all the incoming calls and when in motion and sends out SMSs to the callers automatically.
In the performance section, the Vivo U20 comes with the Snapdragon 675 which is similar to that of what you find on the Redmi Note 7 Pro. It is one of the powerful processors in its segment and hence, I can assure you that we did not find any kind while performing multi-tasking with minimum apps. However, after a certain load with heavy games, the device tends to slow down a bit but is perfectly alright in terms of temperature.
The Snapdragon 675 combined with 6GB of RAM is a good deal for users who are looking for a great performance device at entry-level. We played PUBG on HD graphics and the frame rate set high. During this period, we did not find any kind of lag or frame drops. Although it got a bit warm after playing for a certain amount of time, it is totally normal. Overall, the performance of the Vivo U20 is impressive for its price and is a good get for gamers looking to have a good gaming experience at a nominal price.
Cameras: Vivo U20 Review
The Vivo U20 sports a triple-lens rear camera setup which comes with a 16MP primary Sony IMX499 sensor along with an 8MP super-wide-angle lens, and a 2MP sensor for macro shots. On the front, the Vivo U20 has a 16MP shooter and there are multiple features available on the stock camera app. It has all the basic modes like Night, Portrait, Panorama, Live Photo, Pro Mode, AR stickers, and time-lapse mode. Also, there are quick toggles for the HDR, macro mode, super-wide-angle mode, and other filters.
Coming to the camera outputs, the Vivo U20 has a quick camera shutter and has automatic scene detection which enables HDR automatically whenever required. The photos taken from the primary sensor came out pretty good given the lighting conditions are well with a good amount of details and saturation. The color reproduction is good and it is more inclined towards the warmer side which makes the photos look more enhanced. Below are the camera samples for you to check out.
The photos that were taken with the wide-angle lens also came out above par which gives out a good view of what’s around but the edges are a bit distorted in nature which is a bad sign. Hopefully, this can be fixed with a software update and wish Vivo pushes out that soon. The portrait mode photos came out well with good enough edge-detection given the background hugely differs from the subject. If not, the edge detection is a bit shabby but the overall output is satisfying enough. The macro shots taken under good lighting conditions came out great with a good amount of details.
As said earlier, the output in lowlight conditions is a bit on the downside but thanks to the night mode which makes the situation a bit better. Talking about the selfie camera, the 16MP shooter does a good job when given in any circumstance. Overall, the camera performance is on an average level when compared to other devices in this segment.
Battery and Miscellaneous
The Vivo U20 packs a huge 5000 mAh battery and it comes with an 18W fast charger out of the box. Coming to our tests, the device performed great and when tested with heavy usage, there was still some juice left over at the end of the day. The usage included some intensive gaming, video streaming, browsing, and social media for the most part. With an average of about 5 hours of SoT, the battery of the Vivo U20 gives it all for the user. Coming to the charging, the device takes about 2 hours to fully charge from 0 to 100%.
The connectivity options on the device include Bluetooth 5.0, dual-band Wi-Fi, four satellite navigation systems, and FM Radio. It comes with storage options in different variants, has UFS 2.1 and the speaker’s output is also pretty good.
Verdict: Vivo U20 Review
The Vivo U20 comes in two different variants with 4GB or 6GB RAM and the internal storage at 64GB and is priced at Rs. 10,990 and Rs. 11,990 for each respective variant. With the U series, Vivo did rack up some sales in the budget segment in sub 10k and the Vivo U20 is a perfect phone for primarily gaming at the budget but the device for itself ain’t no good allrounder. Packed with powerful hardware, huge battery, triple-lens camera setup, I feel the device is priced a bit aggressively but given the performance, it should not concern much. That’s all for our Vivo U20 Review and comment down below what do you think about the Vivo’s U series.
Pros:
- Full-HD+ display
- Impressive Design
- Decent battery life
- Performance Beast
Cons:
- Micro-USB port
- Average camera performance
- Bloatware preinstalled
