vivo V50 Unboxing and First Review – New midranger with ZEISS lens cameras and posh looks
In keeping with vivo’s fast tempo of launches and scarcely a few short months after the launch of their vivo V40 late last year, they’ve rolled out its successor the V50 that has a number of improvements all around and subtle improvements in its ZEISS lens cameras while adding in the obligatory performance upgrades. We managed to get a sample ahead of launch for testing – here’s our vivo V50 unboxing and first review of their latest midrange camera phone ahead of the usual indepth benchmarks and camera tests.
vivo V50 Unboxing and First Review – Build and Design
Intended as the successor to the earlier vivo V40 released in late September last year, the vivo V50 has a somewhat similar design to its predecessor. When compared side by side, the new vivo V50 is 1g lighter and retains the same thickness as well as the same processor and approximately the same display size and quality while featuring a substantially larger 6,000mAh battery. The biggest telltale difference is a reworked rear camera housing as well as a selection of new colourway options.
Out of the box, the vivo v50 has a smattering of useful kit to complement the phone including a protective casing, the obligatory USB cable and a 90W wired fast charger which covers all the bases. Our vivo V50 unboxing sample also features a pre-applied screen protector on the display itself which is a nice touch that lets you use it straight out of the box.
This time around, vivo has taken pains to offer aesthetically distinctive colourways for more fashion conscious users. For Malaysia, they’ve issued the V50 in Mist Purple, Satin Black and in the case of our vivo V50 unboxing sample, a unique shade of Ancora Red that works out to a deep maroon finish. According to the official literature, Ancora Red is inspired by the colours of red sandstone that aims to invoke a ‘sense of calm, profound luxury’.
The finish itself is fairly fingerprint resistant and of note is the vivo V50 has an IP68 and an improved IP69 dust and water resistance. The provision of IP69 means that the vivo V50 is able to shrug off high pressure jets of water while IP68 offers water resistance in up to 1.5 metres of freshwater for up to 30 minutes at a time.
Of note is the addition of a larger Aura Light soft flash lighting array that is 100% larger compared to the prior V40’s Aura Flash array for better lit portraiture emplaced just beneath a dual rear camera array with Zeiss lenses.
Cameras aside, the sides of the phone come in a shinier metallic maroon finish that matches the Ancora Red backplate. The edges and corners are rounded along with each edge of the AMOLED display itself to create an exceptionally smooth, tactile design that’s comfortable to hold in both landscape and portrait mode.
The left side of our vivo V50 unboxing sample is otherwise unremarkable with the right side featuring a volume rocker and power button. On the base of the phone, you get a USB-C port, a grille for the speaker and a nano SIM card tray. Up top, you have two tiny holes for the speaker that forms a stereo pair with the one at the bottom of the phone.
Up front, our vivo V40 unboxing sample has a quad-curved 6.77-inch AMOLED display with FHD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate which is essentially unaltered from its predecessor. You also get a punch hole up top for the single 50MP selfie camera with Zeiss lens.
The display is also beefed up with Gorilla Glass and what vivo refers to as Diamond Anti-Drop film. To further reinforce the chassis from drops, it also integrates what vivo refers to as a 10-facet cushioning structure. Combined with the front Gorilla Glass and IP68 and IP69 rating, this renders the phone quite resistant to the usual misadventures encountered in daily life like nicks, scratches and the occasional drop or two.
As midrange phones go, the vivo V50 has a pleasant and distinctive look that doesn’t wander too far from its predecessors while featuring decent ergonomics and improved dust and water resistance while its additional accessories bundled in the box add a bit of extra value.
Aesthetics aside, our vivo V50 unboxing sample runs a fairly respectable setup as midrange phones go with a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset though this is also the same one used by its predecessor the vivo V40. Paired with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor is a 12GB RAM with an additional 12GB of virtual Extended RAM. You also get your choice of either 256GB or 512GB of storage depending on how deep your pockets go. Running under the hood of the vivo V50 is the latest Android 15 with vivo’s own Funtouch 15 OS. According to vivo, the vivo V50 has a 5-year guarantee for smooth, lag-free performance.
At first blush, the phone looks and feels smooth in both casual use and gameplay and thus far acquits itself well for general duties expected of a phone. Web browsing, videos and light gaming felt smooth and pleasant on the phone with fair clarity under direct sunlight.
Where the vivo V50 enjoys a substantial upgrade over its predecessor is its larger battery, which is a 6,000mAh Bluevolt battery that’s up from last year’s 5,500mAh cell with slightly faster 90W wired charging. To date, this would be vivo’s slimmest 6,000mAh battery phone at 7.7mm thin.
vivo V50 Unboxing and First Review – Cameras
The rear dual camera of the v50 is akin to its predecessor the v40, consisting of a 50MP main camera with OIS and Zeiss lenses along with a 50MP ultra wide angle camera, also with Zeiss lens. Up front, the phone also has a single 50MP selfie camera with Zeiss lenses, effectively creating an all-50MP Zeiss camera setup on both the front and rear.
What makes the vivo V50 particularly appealing is the impressive set of cameras and a veritable cornucopia of settings to take full advantage of the camera array. The rear cameras have an AI Group portrait mode that can take up to 30 people at a time and the phone has AI 3D Studio Lighting 2.0 algorithm that ensures portraits look presentable even with strong backlighting.
The key draw here though is its rich portrait mode that lets you shoot digitally in 23mm, 35mm and 50mm equivalents while being able to tweak your aperture settings and even choose from one of seven different bokeh effects from Zeiss. Combined, this offers a massive toolbox of creative options for shutterbugs. We also managed to get a few snaps with the phone to get a feel of its capabilities.
As first impressions go, the vivo V50 doesn’t wander all too far from what its predecessor the vivo V40 set to achieve – a midrange phone with Zeiss lens equipped cameras for excellent image quality on both the front and rear camera arrays but improves on it with an even larger battery to offer longer endurance in the field and, by extension, the creativity to experiment and leverage the full array of features and settings in its cameras. It’s not exactly a compelling upgrade for an existing V40 user but it’s well worth exploring for those who haven’t yet hopped onto the vivo bandwagon.
In Malaysia, the vivo V50 is available in two configurations which are effectively identical with the same available colourways as well as RAM but differ primarily on available storage. The premium variant with 512GB storage retails for RM2,399 while our vivo v50 unboxing sample is the base model with 256Gb storage that retails for RM1,999. You can also check out their official vivo V50 page at https://www.vivo.com/my/products/v50
