The new Vivo V70 series looks to continue Vivo's offerings for camera and design-centric smartphones at mid to high range budgets, though that has clearly gone up due to the rising memory chip costs globally. Priced at ₹51,999 for the base model and ₹61,999 for the highest model, let’s try and see what it really offers and if it’s worth the price tag:
The phone looks quite a bit different from recent Vivo V series devices and looks closer to the Oppo Find series, which isn’t a bad thing at all, but just something that’s noticeable at first glance.
You get rounded corners, a protruding camera setup that’s on a similar curved rectangle on the left top corner of the glass back. There are narrow bezels and an in-screen fingerprint scanner that’s been put up at a slightly higher height than usual, but still very much usable.
The right side carries the volume buttons and power/lock key; the top has the infrared port, secondary mic and one outlet for loudspeakers; while at the bottom you have the dual SIM card tray slot, USB type C port, primary mic and the other outlet for loudspeakers.
Colour options include Passion Red, Sand Beige (which I used) and Authentic Black. It’s an IP68 and 69 dust and water-resistant device weighing 194 grams, quite comfortable to grip and carry around if you’re used to today’s average smartphone size.
Featuring a 6.59-inch (2750x1260) AMOLED display supporting up to 120Hz refresh rates. This is a bright display with good viewing angles that can output details for high-resolution videos and images. It would have been nice to have an LTPO display for lower to highest refresh rates, but otherwise, this is a really nice display.
Coming to the camera performance, the rear features a 50MP (f/1.88) main camera, a 50MP (f/2.65) telephoto camera (both with OIS), and an 8MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide camera. I really liked the tuning of this camera in terms of consistent performance in daylight and often low-light conditions.
You get sharp shots, and even the portrait shots are done well in terms of details and colours. Till 3x zoom, you get well-stitched shots that don’t lose out on details much. The 50MP (f/2.0) front-facing camera takes reliable selfies and doesn’t struggle with most conditions. There’s a bit of skin smoothening in most modes, though.
Equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset (up to 3Ghz octa core processor and Adreno 735 GPU), 12GB LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB UFS 4.1 internal storage (also comes in 8GB and 256GB GB and 12GB with 512GB configurations). It’s running on OriginOS 6 based on Android 16 with the January security patch. The phone’s day-to-day performance is nothing to worry about; it really handles tasks well and doesn’t show any lag while switching between apps or scrolling inside social media apps, or using the split window feature for multiple apps.
When it comes to gaming, you can expect to play games like Call of Duty (medium to highest settings) and Monument Valley smoothly, but it can’t quite do the graphics-intensive games at their highest settings as well. Software-wise, Vivo has put up a good, feature-rich interface that gives you customisation options. What’s not so great is ads on the lockscreen despite not enabling the app that’s supposed to deliver those. It shows up when you swipe left instead of unlocking the display or checking a notification. Bloatware isn’t too big a problem, but the curved corners of the phone meant some cutting out of the content, such as the video player or notifications, which Vivo could address in the next update. Otherwise, this is a fine OS in place now on the Android side.
Powered by a 6,500 mAh battery unit, the phone lasted me a day quite often and didn’t have any battery drainage issues throughout my usage. You can charge it using the bundled 90-watt FlashCharge charger in a little over an hour without any heating issues to be reported.
The phone’s loudspeakers are quite loud and have decent depth to them, though they can be a little less clear at the highest volumes. The WiFi and GPS performance of the phone is top-notch, while 5G network reception didn’t disappoint for working on the go. The only time the phone did show a bit of heating was while using it for hours on the go as a 5G hotspot outdoors. Call quality is also pretty good, with clear in-ear sound most of the time.
All in all, the V70 Elite comes across as a pretty well-balanced option for those who prioritise camera performance while keeping battery use in check. While the performance isn’t the best across the board, it doesn’t disappoint at all in general. Hopefully, the company keeps working on OriginOS, which it clearly has been doing recently.
