Editor’s rating: 3.5/5 Display Performance Camera Battery Now, Vivo has started its count for 2022 with the launch of the V23 series which includes Vivo V23 Pro and the vanilla V23. True to V- series spirit, these phones offer trendsetting design (with a color-changing rear panel in V23 Pro) and capable hardware. Another thing that has been a constant improvement in V Serries is Selfies. With each passing year, Vivo made incremental upgrades to selfie cameras, especially with Pro variants. The V23 Pro boasts of a 50MP dual selfie camera setup which isn’t a common sight in 2022. But are these dual cameras promising enough to make the V23 Pro a compelling buy? Well, I have been using the Vivo V23 Pro for a week now and here’s what I think about the phone: Navigate this review: Unboxing | Specs | Design | Display | Software & Performance | Camera | Battery | Verdict In my opinion, the biggest talking point of the V23 Pro is the in-hand feel of the phone. Vivo has done fantastic work delivering a soft-touch matte finish. There has been a lot of talk about hits fluorite AG glass back of the SunShine Gold variant which changes colors for a few minutes after getting exposed to ultraviolet light. Well, I am more impressed with the shimmering Stardust Black color option which I have with me. Vivo has kept it really slim and it indeed is one of the slimmest phones that is available in the market today. With curved edges on the side and excellent weight distribution, holding the V23 Pro is a delightful experience in itself. What I didn’t like in this entire package is a notch in the middle of the screen. Come on Vivo, it’s 2022! and I don’t like being reminded of 2018 when we had to endure such wide notches on Android phones. Nevertheless, this is an anomaly most people buyers would find easy to get used to. The phone has a glass back, the side frame is made of plastic. The phone has a bottom-firing speaker – I wish Vivo had used the earpiece as a second speaker to deliver a stereo effect. There is no 3.5mm port here so Vivo has supplied a connector within the box. The Vivo V23 Pro flaunts a 3D curved screen on the front. It’s a large 6.56-inch AMOLED display offering a 90Hz refresh rate in an 18:10 aspect ratio. The 90Hz Full HD+ panel may feel a tad lethargic if you switch from a 120hz or 144hz display phone. The AMOLED panel offers a decent level of peak brightness and can be used outdoor without concern. Color reproduction is also decent but might fall short if I compare side by side with other offerings in this price segment. The HD streaming works out of the box on all relevant apps but HDR support is currently only limited to Youtube. Talking of streaming, the wider notch on the Vivo V23 Pro does hinder my viewing experience as most apps are not optimized for a wide notch. Overall, I would say the V23 Pro panel is functional and isn’t its strongest suit. The V23 Pro comes running on Vivo’s own custom skin FunTouch 12 which is based on Android 12. Vivo has incorporated some of the Android 12 features such as camera, location or mic access in-use indicator, redesigned notification, and quick setting panel. However, it has conveniently left out some of Android 12 features as well. You won’t find Android 12’s personalization features that allow you to pick colors from wallpaper that can be used in different elements. There are no smart controls options while long pressing the power button. Coming to the performance part, the Vivo V23 Pro is driven by a 6 nm-based MediaTek Dimensity 1200 octa-core chipset which is clocked at 3.0GHz. The chipset is mated with up to 12GB RAM with up to 256GB storage. Vivo has also added 4GB of virtual RAM which uses part of your storage to storage as memory. With Dimensity 1200 at the heart, it performs similar to OnePlus Nord 2, Poco F3 GT, OPPO Reno 6 Pro, and other similar specced phones. It delivers good day-to-day performance. It manages to handle everyone’s tasks without slowing down. Even the games like CoD Mobile and PUBG mobiles ran without fame drops at 60FPS and 40FPS respectively. What about throttling you may ask? Well, we ran the CPU throttling test on the V23 Pro and it throttled at 75 percent of its max performance. That means over a longer period of time, system performance dips to manage to keep CPU temperature in check. As far as other benchmarks are concerned, the Vivo V23 Pro scores 6,34,276 on Antutu. On Geekbench it only manages to score 626 on single-core and 2611 in multiple cores tests. Overall, the Vivo V23 Pro doesn’t disappoint on the performance front. While it won’t top the price to performance charts but you won’t face any performance stress in day-to-day life with the V23 Pro. Let’s now take a look at Vivo V23 Pros cameras. Well, the phone has a stack of three cameras at the back featuring a 108MP primary shooter, an 8MP ultra-wide shooter, and a 2MP macro camera. For selfies, Vivo has packed in a setup of 50MP primary snapper coupled with an 8MP ultra-wide sensor. There are also two spotlights on the front with the option to change their colour temperature for better low-light selfies. The primary rear camera snaps 12MP images by default. These pixel binned shots offer ample details with close to real-life colors (well at least they aren’t as oversaturated as competition). Having said that, HDR performance is a bit of a hit and miss. The ultrawide lens delivers usable shots when there is enough light. The 2MP macro camera delivers images that look artificial and with almost no details. The low light performance of the V23 Pro optics isn’t very praiseworthy either. Shots taken with night appear bright on screen but if you try to zoom in you will realize the high noise levels in the picture. The V23 Pro really shines when it comes to selfies. The 50MP camera front snapper captures a good amount of facial details. That’s not all, Vivo has added a bunch of cool styles and effects to optimize your selfie for social likes.
Vivo V23 Pro Review: Battery
The Vivo V23 Pro packs a fairly large 4,300mAh battery and the battery backup is pretty amazing. After making numerous call, attending mail from multiple mail account, and bit out media consumption, music playback, and socializing, I had about 15 percent left in the tank at the end of the day. The 44W charger is also effective as it comes with dual-engine quick charge technology which refills the battery in about fifty minutes (approx.).
Review verdict: Should You Buy the Vivo V23 Pro?
Should you buy the Vivo V23 Pro? Well, that’s a tricky question to answer. It has its pros and cons. You should buy the V23 Pro if you are looking for a good selfie camera phone. You should consider this phone if you wish to impress your peers with its color-changing back panel. You should look for other options if you are looking for a better price to specs ratio. Also, if mobile phone gaming is your thing then also you should consider Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 or SD870 based phones for a better gaming experience.
Reasons to buy
Elegant look and feelCapable selfie cameraGood everyday performanceExcellent battery life
Reasons to not buy
Average DisplaySingle speaker
Q. Does Vivo V23 Pro has a dedicated MicroSD slot? A. the V23 Pro doesn’t support a micro-SD card. Q. What is the SAR value of Vivo V23 Pro? A. The V23 Pro SAR values are 1.22 W/Kg (Head); 0.63 W/Kg (Body). Q. Does Vivo V23 Pro support dual-band WiFi? A, Yes, it supports both WLAN bands i.e. 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Q. Is Vivo V23 Pro water-resistant? A. No, the Vivo V23 Pro isn’t rated for water resistance. Q. Which is the Android update on Vivo V23 Pro? A. The V23 pro ships with December 01, 2021 security patch. Q. Does Infinix Note 11 support GCam or Camera2API? A. The V23 Pro comes with Full Camera2API support for GCam. However, finding a GCam mod for the Dimmensity 1200 processor is a challenging task. Q. Does Vivo V23 Pro support Netflix Full HD streaming? A. Yes, Vivo V23 Pro supports DRM L1 certification and so you can do full HD streaming on Netflix and other OTT platforms. Q. Does Vivo V23 Pro support Gorilla Glass protection? A. Nope.
Δ
