Vivo is the latest Chinese smartphone brand to launch here with the Y65 and the V7+.
Largely unknown outside China, Vivo achieved its status as one of the top five global smartphone vendors on the back of strong sales in its home market.
The V7+ is the higher-end of the two models made available to local consumers earlier this month.
It is worth mentioning that Vivo's parent company, BBK Electronics, owns the Oppo and OnePlus brands. Unsurprisingly, the design of the V7+, from its near-bezel-less screen to the placement of the rear fingerprint sensor and main camera, is similar to the Oppo R11s and the OnePlus 5T.
The budget-friendly V7+, however, has mid-range hardware and lacks a rear dual-camera system.
But its claim to fame is a front-facing camera with a whopping 24-megapixel image sensor and thus is all about taking selfies.
Its front-facing camera captures plenty of detail, from the pores on my face to the fine blood veins in my eyes. As one might expect from a selfie camera, it comes with a Face Beauty mode that lets the user adjust the amount of airbrushing, such as removing wrinkles or adding a rosy glow.
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TECH SPECS
PRICE: $469
PROCESSOR: Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 (Octa-core 1.8GHz)
DISPLAY: 5.99-inch, IPS LCD, 1,440 x 720 pixels, 269 ppi pixel density
OPERATING SYSTEM: Android 7.1.2
MEMORY: 64GB (microSD expandable up to 256GB), 4GB RAM
CAMERA: 16MP, f/2.0 (rear); 24MP, f/2.0 (front)
BATTERY: Non-removable 3,225mAh
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RATING
FEATURES: 4/5
DESIGN: 4/5
PERFORMANCE: 4/5
VALUE FOR MONEY: 4/5
BATTERY LIFE: 3/5
OVERALL: 4/5
It also supports portrait mode, which blurs the background, as well as a Live Photo mode that captures a short video clip before and after the shutter button is pressed.
While the front-facing camera lacks a wide-angle lens, the V7+ has a group-selfie feature that captures a wider vista by asking the user to pan the phone slowly to the left and then the right and stitching the images together.
The rear camera performs well for its price. Indoor and low-light shots look noisy, but photos taken in the bright outdoors look decent enough, especially with HDR enabled.
While many Chinese phone-makers have moved away from copying the Apple iPhone in appearance or features, Vivo's Funtouch OS - based on Android 7.1 Nougat - is very much influenced by Apple's iOS operating system.
Take its Quick Settings menu, which resembles the Control Center in iOS 9. You even bring it up by swiping from the bottom like on an iPhone.
There is no app drawer, while notifications, the keyboard and even the default browser are almost identical to the ones on the iPhone.
But it would not be fair to dub it an iOS clone as Funtouch OS has some neat features. For example, App Clone lets users run two instances of a messaging app - such as WhatsApp and Line - using two phone numbers on the same device.
More importantly, the V7+ feels relatively smooth, thanks to its Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 chip and 4GB of RAM.
Screen transitions and app switching feel fluid, though apps are slightly slower to open compared with a flagship phone.
In the Geekbench 4.0 app that tests smartphone performance, the V7+ multi-core score of 3,860 was around that of a two-year-old Samsung Galaxy S7, though its single-core performance was only about half that of the S7.
In my testing, the V7+ had about 45 per cent of its battery remaining at the end of the day.
In our video-loop playback test, it lasted 7 hours 17 minutes, which is about an hour shorter than other previously-tested mid-range models.
• Verdict: A good, solid smartphone that excels at taking selfies. Its smooth iPhone-like interface makes it easy for Apple users to switch to Android.
