Vivo V19 Review: Should you buy it?

Vivo V19 is the newest addition in the V series and a successor to the V17 but is priced slightly higher given a few notable improvements it comes with. The smartphone comes in two variants – 8GB + 128GB and 8GB + 256 GB priced at INR 27,990 and INR 31,990 respectively. The Vivo V19 comes in two colour options – Mystic Silver and Piano Black.

Speaking about the specifications, the V19 sports a 6.44-inch AMOLED display with a Full HD+ resolution. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 and runs on FuntouchOS 10 on top of Android 10. It has a quad-camera setup at the back that consists of a 48-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel wide-angle camera, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor and a dual-camera setup of a 32 megapixels primary camera and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle secondary sensor for selfies. Vivo also offers an in-display fingerprint scanner on the Vivo V19 which is quick to unlock the device.

Now, I have been using this phone for almost a month and I did find some really good features but also a few questionable ones.

First things first, I’ve always found the V series pretty looking but all previous phones had plastic backs which were frankly a downer because given at the price they come at you do a expect premium design of the phone. Finally, with the V19 we get a glass back! So that’s a plus one. The glass back does attract fingerprints so it’s advisable to use the case that comes along with the box.

Secondly, the cameras. The V series are camera-centric phones and this one is no different. Vivo claims the camera to be the key feature of the smartphone and I must say, it does a really good job. The colours come out pretty bright and crisp. The V19 can click portraits both from the front and back and it manages to blur out the background properly. There are also many filters available in the camera app itself so you need not install several third-party editing apps for uploading your perfect Instagram post. At the front it has dual selfie shooters in punch hole notch that clicks great selfies, in fact, it is one of the best selfie smartphones you can find at this price point.

There are also some major UI improvements in the V19. The FuntouchOS in the previous versions was very cluttered and confusing. Now, it is less cluttered, the notification panel is moved to the top from bottom and there’s a dark mode too.

It comes with a large battery of 4500mAh that can easily last you one full day of moderate usage and with the 33W fast charging support, you can charge this one fully in 1 hour 15 minutes.

However, there are some points that can be a deal-breaker for potential buyers like the V19 packs the Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 which seem underpowered as other manufacturers are offering better chipsets at a cheaper price. However, I did use this phone as my primary device, and considering the WFH situation the usage was more than usual – despite running multiple apps in the background the phone didn’t slow down or lag so, I guess in real life there’s a not a problem with the performance.

At the price, the V19 comes at we wished Vivo offered a better processor but none the less it has a great camera, the phone is sleek, the design is good, and it offers a full day of battery life. If you’re a diehard Vivo fan you can consider buying this! But, if you’re looking for something better at this price point then you consider these options:

Video review coming out soon. Stay tuned.