Vivo X50 Review

This year Vivo has announced two new smartphones in the “Vivo X50” lineup, namely the X50 And the Flagship X50 Pro. The new smartphone from Vivo comes with a new design and updated internals, the primary focus of the smartphone is the camera and it doesn’t seem to disappoint you if Capturing Cameras is something you love. The Vivo X50 will be a mid-range flagship offering from the brand. It looks identical to it’s elder brother the X50 Pro. So, the biggest question in people’s minds is if the X50 worth its price? Here’s our Vivo X50 Review.

Design & Build

The tagline of the Vivo X50 is “ Photography. Redefined” and it does stand true. So for the design, the X50 has a glass back combined with an aluminum side rail. It is one of the slimmest phones available in the market at a thickness of 7.49mm and with a hefty weight of 171gms. On the front, the phone has a 2.5D glass and a punch-hole camera setup in the screen which they call the “Ultra O Screen” with a resolution of 1080×2376, and the pixels per inch are a little short of 400ppi (398ppi). Talking about the screen, it comes with a massive 6.56 inch AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 92.8%. The display also has a DCI-P3 Colour Gamut which produces incredible eye-popping colors. 

The screen also has a peak brightness of 1300nits which is more than enough for day to day usage. The AMOLED panel comes with a 90hz refresh rate and 180hz response time for some amazingly smooth performance. The screen also supports HDR10. There’s an in-display fingerprint scanner and it’s a good quality one. Unfortunately, this phone does not have a headphone jack.

Performance

Vivo smartphones have been a good competition in the market for the budget range phones. They make some good quality phones for average pricing. The price to performance ratio is pretty good. The Vivo X50 is powered internally by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 octa-core chipset paired along with 8GB Ram.

The storage options on the Vivo X50 are limited to 128GB and 256GB and the phone is brilliant to use every day without any lag or jitter whatsoever. The processor and the RAM on the smartphone combine to give a smooth buttery performance. The display is good enough at FullHD+ resolution to watch your daily dose of entertainment. The speakers are also pretty decent compared to other phones and provide good performance.

Moving on to the Operating System, Vivo has its own skin called FunTouch OS on top of Android 10. The OS is pretty good and can run multiple apps at the same time. The phone runs well on daily use social media apps and the general apps. The display gets bright enough for outdoors to offer a pleasurable viewing experience.

The Vivo X50 comes with a Dual 4G SIM card setup along with VoLTE and VoWiFi. The smartphone also supports Bluetooth 5 and 802.11 AC Wi-Fi. Sadly there is no 802.11 AX support meaning you can not yet take advantage of WiFi 6. It also has all the essential sensors like Accelerometer, Compass, Gyroscope, and Ambient Light sensor.

There is a hole punch camera at the upper left corner of the screen which personally is not that distracting as much as in the center position. The phone can also handle some medium gaming like Pubg at medium settings. The Vivo X50 is overall a great smartphone and will offer you pleasant performance day-to-day.

The phone will not lag when many apps are put up and will continue to perform like a champ. The only problem is the massive screen which is difficult to use one-handed at times unless you have massive fingers. The phone never overheated and all the games ran very smoothly. The faster refresh rate of 90hz on this phone makes the phone feel snappier and faster compared to other devices with a lower refresh rate. The phone has a 4,200 mAH battery along with fast charging to quickly top-up.

Camera Performance

The Vivo X50 offers a decent camera setup almost similar to the elder brother, X50 Pro. it has a 48MP+ 13MP + 8MP + 5MP setup. The phone has a Pro-Quad camera setup which consists of a 48 Megapixel main sensor, A 120° super-wide-angle camera, A 50mm Prime portrait camera along with a Super Macro camera with a focus distance of 1.5cm. 

The main camera is a Sony IMX 598 sensor along with a beautiful aperture of f/1.6 This makes up an amazing photo-taking experience. Let it be still photos or 4K video, this phone can handle anything. The f/1.6 aperture gives you that silky smooth background blur naturally without any need for additional software. The 50mm sensor is basically a Prime Lens used for taking beautiful portraits just like an SLR camera. It has an aperture of f/2.0. 

There’s a super macro camera of 5MP resolution and a focus distance of 1.5cm For all the landscape shots, there’s an 8MP Super Wide camera with a 120° Field of View. For stabilization, OIS is offered only on the main camera. All the other cameras offer EIS for videos. Some of the camera modes include extreme night vision for super low light photos, Some night filters built into the camera app to enhance photos and give them a bit of pop, There is also a pro sports mode which offers super quick exposure and shutter speed for some amazing moving shots, the Motion AF tracking helps to track specific subjects in the frame. 

Camera Samples

 

Fixed Macro Shots

Night Mode Styles

Conclusion

The Vivo X50 is a pretty good smartphone and offers a great price-to-performance ratio. The phone is very well built and has an amazing camera setup for photos as well as videos. If you want to spend Rs. 35,000 on a premium mid-range smartphone with optics as a priority then you can consider the Vivo X50 as a worthy contender. The battery life on the smartphone is pretty decent as well with the software being perhaps one of the only downsides. 

Should You Buy It?

Vivo X50 is a phone built around an impressive camera setup that is built exceptionally well and feels so good to hold. The device feels premium and has all the bells and whistles a premium flagship smartphone should possess. With a void created by Huawei P series of smartphones in India, the Vivo X50 fits perfectly in the price segment. With Xiaomi Mi10 and the OnePlus 8 Pro in the same price segment, these devices do not come close to the photography experience the Vivo X50 has to offer.

As an everyday phone, there’s a lot to like besides the impressive camera. There’s a 33W fast charger, 4315mAh batteries that last almost a day under normal use, high-quality DAC, innumerable customizations possible with Funtouch, and a great super smooth 90hz display. Vivo X50 is a great photography tool and offers a lot more than this and is a great buy for content creators and for casual photographers. This machine won’t disappoint.

Pros

  • Premium design and hand feel
  • Capable of great photography
  • Super Impressive 90Hz AMOLED display

Cons

  • Single Bottom firing speaker
  • No HDR gaming support in PUBG Mobile
  • Average Battery Life

Disclaimer: This product was thoroughly tested by the editor, whose thoughts regarding the product are being portrayed in the article. The Author did not test the product himself, but, has been briefed regarding the experience of the Editor post usage.