Vivo V1 Max review: Large display, good camera and premium looks fall short of justifying the hefty price tag

The past two years saw an onslaught of Chinese vendors in the Indian market. This not only ensured more options for consumers, but helped make the market fiercer in terms of specs to price ratio. Vivo, a lesser known brand in India yet, entered India in late 2014, and has managed to launch a handful of devices. We recently reviewed the Vivo Y27L and have now got our hands on the sub-Rs20,000 V1 Max. After spending roughly over two weeks with the Vivo V1 Max, here’s what we think about the device.

Design and build: 7/10
The V1 Max is a spitting image of the Vivo Y27L. Place the devices side by side and looks like the V1 Max is the result of Y27L put on steroids. By this, we mean, the Max has a larger display, but stays fairy sleek at 6.8mm and weighs 165 grams. We got a silver-white unit that has managed to fit in a 5.5-inch display in a compact form factor of 154 x 77 x 6.8 mm.

The device fits snugly into one hand, and though it is built out of plastic with a metallic ring along the edges, it does ooze a premium look, to a certain extent. On the front, the considerable space above and below the display has been used to accommodate three touch buttons, proximity and light sensors, earpiece, front-facing camera and notification light.

Turn it around and the dual tone back shows the Vivo logo etched right at the center. The white portions on the back, maintain the consistency we saw on the front with the camera module and flash on the upper left corner, and the speaker above as well as below the silver strip.

On the right edge, you will find power and volume buttons, and the left edge gets a hybrid slot for two SIMs and microSD card. The upper and lower edge come integrated with an audio jack and microUSB port respectively. The sleek and highly-portable device seems fairly durable, but get that display a scratch guard or keep it tucked in a sturdy cover, we would suggest.

Features: 6.5/10
The Vivo V1 Max gets a large 5.5-inch display, which means more viewing real estate. However, this isn’t something exceptional as we’ve seen devices priced below Rs 10,000, for example the Coolpad Note 3, feature the display size at a lower price point. It’s a HD display with 720 x 1280 pixels of resolution. The internals include Qualcomm MSM8939 Snapdragon 615 quad-core processor coupled with 2GB of RAM.

We received the model with 16GB storage onboard, out of which roughly 11GB is available for the user. It also supports microSD card slot up to 128GB.

The smartphone runs Android 5.1 Lollipop, along with a layer of the company’s proprietary FunTouch 2.1. On the camera front, you get a 13MP rear snapper and a 5MP front-facing camera. There is no dearth of connectivity options such as Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, GPS with AGPS, Infrared port, v4.0, A2DP, EDR and microUSB. Finally, a 2720mAh battery completes the package. Surprisingly, the company has decided to give fingerprint scanner a miss, which is becoming a standard feature even among mid range devices.

Display: 7/10
As the name goes, the V1 Max gets you a large viewing real estate of 5.5-inches. It’s an HD IPS display with 720 x 1080 pixels of resolution, and a pixel density that goes up 267 ppi. An HD resolution on a large 5.5-inch display won’t offer the best resolution, but the display was quite good at handling what it could. A 720p video played well without any stutter and didn’t appear dull. Needless to say, it couldn’t handle 1080p videos and the colours seemed to tear apart.

The viewing angles indoors in ambient light were good. Interestingly, the display gets special night mode that adjusts the screen light for optimum viewing. For instance, if you are one of those who indulge in reading or watching videos before sleeping, you will notice a prominent change in the display brightness as soon as you switch off the light.

Software: 7/10
The V1 Max runs Android 5.1 Lollipop with a layer of the Funtouch 2. In terms of software, Chinese vendors often tend to go overboard with tweaks and gimmicks to make them set apart from the rest.

Vivo is no different; however, its UI is rather refreshing. The icons are flat and bright. You can swipe downwards on the screen to view notifications and swiping upwards from the bottom of the screen will bring up a series of shortcuts like Bluetooth, GPS and so on, ability to adjust the screen brightness and recently viewed apps. Tap on the three dots and you will be taken to a page that shows all shortcuts, giving you the option to choose shortcuts that you want to view.

You will also find a multi-tasking feature button called ‘C’. On enabling it, you will find this “c” icon stealthy appear on every page. On tapping it, you get access to a quick multi-tasking pop-up. The phone also comes pre-installed with a host of apps including Vivo Cloud that lets you set up an account to save contacts and other content. There’s also iManager, iMusic, iTheme and so on, just like we saw in the Y27L.

Unlike other companies, Vivo doesn’t let you capture a screenshot using the power and volume buttons. It has built S Capture that goes beyond taking usual screenshots.

The S Capture introduces Long screenshot, Screen recording, funny screenshot and rectangular screenshot. Long screenshots will let you capture an entire page, even the part not visible on the screen. The funny screenshot is to select a part of the screen in any shape and then doodle on it using colours. Finally, you can even take screen grabs in different shapes and record screen operations too.

The audio interface is also interesting. It features a circle that shows, at any point of time, which song is being played. You can also set a timer for playing songs.

There are smart gestures and smart calling ability, just like we saw in the Y27L. Besides, some other interesting bits are Smart click that lets you turn your volume button into a flash light, record or open a camera, among other things, when the screen is black. Besides, there is the one-hand phone usage option that automatically turns you display interface smaller. However, it isn’t something we were comfortable using.

Camera: 7/10
The 13MP rear camera (with auto focus and LED) is a delight when it comes to taking shots in bright light. We could capture some excellent shots in daylight. However, it falls shorts when it comes to action in low light. The night shots are a tad better using the HDR mode. The device also gets a 5MP front-facing camera, which isn’t anything exceptional as compared to what we see these days. The camera interface is kept simple and neat. You have quick access to switching between front and rear cameras and flash, and the rest is hidden behind the three dots. Once you tap on it, the interface will show all modes such as – Face Beauty, PPT, HDR, Panorama, Night and so on. The modes are in in large squarish forms and right below that is a strip of options that you can swipe to view all such as choosing the video size, photo size and timer. For the front-facing camera, you get the obvious Beauty mode, along with fun mode. Just slide upwards on the camera button, and you will find the Pro mode. The Pro mode lets you change ISO, white balance and so on.

Take a look at some of the camera samples below

Note: Images have been resized below. To see the high resolution images please click on the images. Alternatively, you can also check out the Vivo V1 Max album on Flickr.

Performance:7/10

Lets start with the most basic functionality – call quality. The call quality was decent, but we faced more than usual reception issues at a few areas in the office premises known for it. However, there was no such issue when we were out and call quality was loud and clear. Another problem is with the touch functionality of the display as the call would either go on hold or mute. This started happening more frequently as days passed, and slightly frustrating in the third week.

The Snapdragon processor coupled with 2GB RAM was good enough to handle all the apps. There was no stutterer while navigating between pages, but heavy picture-packed websites took sometime to load. We played a few games and tried multi-tasking by opening multiple tabs, while frequently checking social media apps and even listening to music. The device was well capable of handling it, we must add. However, the rear side warms up within seconds of taking to any of these tasks. It isn’t uncomfortable to hold, but evidently gets so hot that it could get you thinking if you should stop the activity at once.

The audio quality is good with the bundled earphones as well as when played on loudspeaker, it is decent to fill a small room.

Battery: 7/10
The Vivo V1 Max comes equipped with a 2720mAh battery. The battery life is decent for an average usage that includes phone call, emails, Facebook, WhatsApp and some moderate web surfing, we could squeeze through a day. Our PCMark Work Battery score says just about that with 7 hours and 18 minutes of battery life.

Verdict and Price in India

The Vivo V1 Max offers a large display, good camera and sleek, premium looks. On the flip side, the device has considerable heating issues, fares poor with low-light photography, and poor reception issues.

However, its launch price of Rs 21,990 doesn’t seem justified when you compare it to others in the same or even low price range offering Full HD display, fingerprint scanner and other superior specs. A OnePlus 2 sells at roughly Rs 22,000. Now, if you check online, the device is available for as low as Rs 16,800, which places it at a better position. However, this space is also crowded with contenders such as the Moto X Play and Lenovo Vibe X3 which not only rope in better specs, but also offer better performance as well.

The Vivo V1 Max has its fair share of pros and cons. There is nothing that one will drastically hate about the device, but maybe a couple of price drops could make it appear more appealing.