Vivo S1

In the past few years, Vivo has launched some stylishly slim and sleek smartphones, and its latest offering, the Vivo S1, is no different. Two colour variants are being offered by the company, Diamond Black and Skyline Blue. 

The phone has thin bezels to complement the 6.38-inch display and feels good to hold. The triple rear camera bump on the back doesn’t cause any discomfort in regular use and instead adds to the style. Though it is a mid-range budget smartphone, the manufacturer has tried to give it a premium look and has succeeded to some extent. The Skyline Blue model used for this review looked elegantly beautiful up close

Source: Vivo S1

However, despite its good looks, when used for just a few hours, we noticed the back panel picking up scratches quickly. A preferable option would have been to use Corning Gorilla Glass. On the front side, the bezels do not seem thin enough, making the phone a little regressive for the price.

The smartphone is powered by the MediaTek Helio P65 octa-core processor, which can clock up to 2.0 GHz. The Vivo S1 is the first phone in India to feature this processor. It is based on a 12nm process coupled with a pair of ARM Cortex-A75 and six cores of Cortex-A55 clocking at 1.7GHz. To push the graphics forward, it comes with the Mali-G52 integrated GPU. Like the recent Vivo phones, the S1 also runs the Funtouch Operating System complemented by Android 9 Pie. According to the smartphone developer’s official website, the S1 comes pre-loaded with 26 apps, which is not optimal.

Regular tasks with the P65 processor were efficiently done, and there were no lags or heating issues experienced. The phone also works fine with multitasking. However, while gaming, the phone does get heated within a few minutes and sometimes hangs too, specifically with heavy games like PUBG and Free Fire. It has a unique feature called the ‘Ultra Game Mode’, which does offer some respite, with a ‘Gaming Countdown’ and ‘Multi-Turbo Boost’.

The S1 comes with an sAMOLED FHD+ display panel. It is bright enough, just like other phones with the same display specifications. The viewing angles are right, and even outdoors, you won’t face any issues with brightness.

The phone has a 90% screen-to-body ratio bundled with a 19:5:9 aspect ratio, giving uninterrupted binge-watching experiences. The only context in which the display might cause trouble is direct peak sunlight conditions, where the reflections of the user come up consistently.

One of the highlights of the Vivo S1’s marketing campaign was the flash-in-display fingerprint scanner. Such unlocking mechanisms are not uncommon these days, but largely, we get to see a back-mounted fingerprint scanner rather than an in-display one.

The practical applications of this feature were fast and unlocked the screen in a flash, literally. The scanner allows you to add several fingerprints, but the best one, in our opinion, is the thumb impression. The S1 does a great job in this aspect and provides quick and reliable security at your fingertips. 

The Vivo S1 comes with a 4500mAH battery along with the company’s unique 18W dual-engine fast-charging technology. An 18W fast charger comes bundled with the smartphone.

During the review, the phone was put into heavy usage, and it did manage to last a whole day comfortably. With the fast-charging technology, the phone reaches 70% charge in just an hour, which is quite good. On the downside, heavy gaming did lead to a faster battery drain and heating issues.

Now, about the camera performance of the Vivo S1. The gadget features a triple rear-camera setup with a 16 MP primary camera, 8 MP ultrawide shooter and a 2 MP depth sensor. There’s a 32 MP shooter at the front for selfies, which is a significant number considering the price range. There are plenty of camera-centric features like AI portrait framing, ‘AI Face Beauty’, HDR, etc.

The numbers do raise some doubts when it comes to actual performance. Pictures clicked from the primary shooter were underexposed and not as sharp as expected. The details were not sufficient, and the camera performance didn’t match the price tag. The ultra-wide sensor, too, lacked details despite balancing the exposure.

Of the three sensors on the back, surprisingly, the macro sensor won the battle with good close shots. The 32 MP front shooter was good but not great because of the automatic over-exposure of images. The camera’s performance in low-light was also disappointing, and a probable reason for this could be the absence of a night-mode. Video recording lacks stabilisation, which is another drawback of this smartphone that is otherwise high on features. The highest preset is 1080p for both the front and back cameras.