Reviews

Vivo Y66: Review

Vivo has been on roll in the last 6 months, they have tried to capture the smartphone market by launching devices in all price brackets. Although almost all the smartphones from Vivo have almost similar design and specification. Vivo brought the Moonlight selfie feature to their flagship device the Vivo V5 and the Vivo Y66 is built on the same design lines as of the V5. We know it’s quite late but here is our review of the Vivo Y66.

Design

The Vivo Y66 looks exactly similar to its elder brother the Vivo V5. The device features a unibody design with gently rounded corners. The smartphone is crafted out of plastic but the rear panel in a glossy finish can easily be mistaken for a metallic design. The Y66 features a 5.5-inch display at the front with a large chin and equally large area above the screen. Up top is a 16MP front camera module alongside a moonlight selfie flash. On the right side of the device, you’ll find the volume rocker and power buttons. The microUSB port and the 3.5mm audio jack is placed at the bottom. The device has nothing to complain about the build quality and the device feels good to hold in hand. The device is certainly not heavy and has a decent build with a fairly average design. Although the device doesn’t stand out and keeps the design consistency aside and does no favors to the brand when all the models of Vivo look alike.

Specs Recall

Software

Unlike every other Chinese smartphone manufacturer, Vivo too built its homegrown user interface overlay on Android which they call it as FunTouch OS. The V66 runs on FunTouch OS 3.0 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The UI looks more like iOS as there is no app drawer, though this gives a new experience to the users from the conventional app launcher grid but some of the old school Android users might miss a launcher. The FunTOuch OS 3.0 packs a lot of tricks under it’s sleeves such as:

Control Center: Swipe up from the bottom pulls out control center which houses all shortcuts which can also be customized depending on one’s need.
Smart Split: This shows app notifications as floating icons for supported apps.
Smart Click: Allows to enable long press the Volume – button functionality. Such as opening camera app on long pressing the Volume – button.
Smart Motion: This allows various gestures to control the device, such as shake to turn on the flashlight, tilt to zoom pictures, double tap to turn off display etc.

Performance

The Vivo Y66 is powered by a 1.5GHz MediaTek MT6750 Processor paired with 3GB of RAM. The chipset has already been used by Vivo in V5 and the chipset is tried and tested. Although the processor is a mid-range processor, but still it’s capable enough to handle basic tasks well. We have been reviewing the device for more than 30 days and I never encountered any stutter in the UI or any delays in opening the apps. Even we tried to play some graphics intensive games like Need for Speed: No Limits, Asphalt 8 and N.O.V.A 3, and the performance was good.

Camera Module

The Vivo Y66 carries forward the Moonlight Glow flash and selfie-centric legacy as present in other smartphones by Vivo. The device features a 16-megapixel front camera with f/2.0 aperture along with a 13-megapixel rear camera with f/2.2 aperture. The front camera does the job well in capturing selfies in bright daylight by capturing natural colors in the standard mode, with crisp detailing. For capturing images in low light conditions there is a front facing flash that Vivo claims to capture better pictures in low light conditions. The Moonlight LED flash is one attempt to enhance your portraits in low light conditions, but you need to be specific on when to use the front facing flash as it might increase noise in the picture eventually if other mild light sources are too present in frame. The rear camera produces some great looking shots with natural colors but the images lack detail. The rear camera does not feature any form of image stabilization mechanisms and you need to have extremely stable hands to capture a perfect shot.

Conclusion

The Y66 is yet another smartphone to the crowded ‘Selfie’ centric era of smartphones. The device is more like a run-of-the-mill smartphone with more megapixels on the front than on the rear camera with the company’s added ‘Moonlight Glow’ frill. But at a price of INR 14,990 the device isn’t that shabby with good build quality, a bright display, an above average camera setup and a decent battery life. If selfies are your primary aspect, Vivo Y66 will impress you, if not there are better alternatives in this segment.

Pros