The Vivo Z1 Pro is the upgrade to last year’s Vivo Z1, which was launched back in April 2018 with significant upgrades. (ADD PRICE INFORMATION)
Vivo’s new smartphone is targeted at a millennial audience, as it enters a market space which is dominated by the likes of Xiaomi and Oppo’s sub-brand Realme. However, it does leave much to be desired.
After spending a week with it, here are our initial impressions on the Vivo Z1 Pro.
The glossy back looks attractive. However, it is better to use a case as it is prone to smudges.
At first glance, the phone does look attractive from the back thanks to its blue colour. Although, the back is made of plastic, it is prone to smudges and fingerprints.
Besides the triple cameras at the back there is also a fingerprint scanner at the centre which is easy to reach. The phone does feel quite heavy in the hand.
On the front, the Z1 Pro sports a 6.5-inch full HD+ display with the front camera placed at the top left-hand side in punch-hole style.
The punch-hole display is a unique design now being used by many phone brands.
Despite all the concerns, the punch-hole camera isn’t a deal breaker if you are worried about viewing content. The display is adequately bright, and the colours look natural. However, it’s nowhere close to an AMOLED panel.
Performance and Hardware
Now coming to the internals, the Z1 Pro comes packed with a Snapdragon 712 processor which is a first-in-India feature. How does a processor make a difference?
The difference between a 712 and 710 can be seen during the loading times as the Z1 Pro does have a slight edge over phones like the Realme 3 that run a Snapdragon 710 processor.
Snapdragon 712 is able to handle games at the highest settings.
It comes with 4GB and 6GB RAM variants. There is almost no lag during intense gaming sessions, it handles multitasking smoothly between apps. It’s good that Vivo is offering multiple storage variants up to 128GB with the phone.
The Z1 Pro also has a gaming mode named ‘Multi Turbo’ which gets activated during the game-play offering quick controls to block calls and notifications. It manages background functions to boost gaming performance while at the same time keeping it cool.
The ‘Multi Turbo’ mode has a quick menu on the left hand side to toggle through the settings.
In our tests the phone remained cool during gaming sessions but started to get mildly warm after almost 30 minutes.
The Vivo Z1 Pro is running Funtouch OS 9 on top of Android 9 which kind of mimics iOS. Not a fan of that at all.
There are occasional stutters during regular use which hopefully can be fixed with future updates.
Camera and Battery
The triple camera setup is starting to become a trend on smartphone these days
The camera performance on the Z1 pro is quite good. The back houses a triple camera setup with a 16-megapixel f/1.7 camera, an 8-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide camera and a 2-megapixel depth-sensing camera coupled with an led flash.
Outdoor natural light.
Indoor low light shot with normal lens.
Indoor low light shot with wide angle lens.
Taken using the normal lens.
Taken using the wide angle lens.
The ultra-wide-angle camera is a welcome addition and the 32-megapixel selfie camera is impressive though it struggles in low light as the image turns out to be a bit too grainy.
(After a software update we noticed a considerable improvement in focusing speed and sharpness of the images taken)
Micro USB is quickly phasing out of the upcoming smartphones.
It comes with humongous 5,000 mAh battery with fast charging which lasts a full day under intense use but the choice of having the micro USB over Type C port was not expected and underwhelming considering this is a 2019 smartphone.
While playing PUBG the phone has some tricks up its sleeve with vibration feedback, voice change option and game countdown.
We really wanted Vivo to offer these options in other games however that wasn’t the case.
Initial Verdict
The hands on experience of the Vivo Z1 pro has been fairly good.
The Snapdragon 712 makes it quite an able performer but as other upcoming smartphones are bringing innovations and cutting edge performance in budget segment, the Z1 Pro isn’t anything exceptional.
At a starting price of Rs 14,999 for the 4GB+64GB variant, it comes in direct competition with the likes of the Nokia 8.1 and Realme 3 Pro.
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