Vivo V50 review: Through a rosy lens!

Finding a mid-range smartphone that punches above its weight can be a difficult task. Despite the limitations that a certain budget dictates, of late, brands have been able to appease consumers when it comes to premium-adjacent options. Promising to up the satisfaction a notch is the new Vivo V50. With ZEISS-collaboration on its optics, a super-bright display and seemingly endless battery life, is there anything that holds it back?

Design

Aesthetics haven’t been sidelined on the new Vivo V50. I’ve got the unique Rose Red colourway, which is more maroon than red, but still very pleasing to the eye. There’s a stunning blue Starry Night version and the more plain-looking Titanium Grey too. The Rose Red variant sports a glass back and weighs about 199 grams but feels light on the hand while in use. The camera module sits on one corner in the shape of a vertical capsule.

The Vivo V50 sports a sizeable 6.77-inch AMOLED display. It offers up to 120 Hz refresh rates with an impressive 4,500 nits of peak brightness. The display is said to be protected by Vivo’s own Diamond Shield Glass, making it scratch-resistant.

Multimedia

I rewatched BTS: Burn The Stage, a documentary based on the iconic South Korean band’s world tour in 2018, on the smartphone. While the visuals looked great, the audio definitely is a notch below the super-premium smartphones. Music and singing can sound a bit tinny even at 50 per cent volume. Dialogues sound clear and less distorted overall, but I’d stick to earphones with this one. The smartphone has HDR10+ support, which means compatible content on Netflix or other platforms can look really vivid on the device.

Camera

The primary camera setup on the Vivo V50 includes a 50 MP primary with optical image stabilisation and a 50 MP ultrawide with 119-degree field of view. The USP of the camera setup though is the unique Aura Light flash system, which lets me change the colour temperature as well as the intensity of the flash. This was great for capturing some stylised portraits. The manual slider offers a fair bit of creative control as well. The best shots I got were with the 23 mm and 35 mm focal lengths. With the 50 mm focal length option, the photos sometimes missed some textural details of the subject. There’s also the ZEISS collaboration, which brings in the special ZEISS bokeh effects for portraits.

The primary camera setup on the Vivo V50 includes a 50 MP primary with optical image stabilisation and a 50 MP ultrawide with 119-degree field of view.
| Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh

Where I find the Vivo V50 lacking is with zoomed-in shots. Anything beyond 2x struggles to retain details and results in some fairly grainy shots. The Vivo V50 sports a 50 MP front camera for selfies, which captures skin tones and texture fairly accurately.

Tech Specs

The Vivo V50 is powered by the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor and the unit I reviewed has 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage. Most applications run smoothly on the phone. There were a couple of instances where YouTube closed on its own while I was watching the documentary, but this didn’t recur after an eventual software update. I did experience occasional stutters while switching apps, closing apps or capturing screenshots. The phone features Funtouch OS 15 (based on Android 15) and the brand has promised three years of OS updates and four years of security patches.

Battery

One of the best parts about reviewing the Vivo V50 was never having to worry about the battery and being able to enjoy multimedia content and gaming for extended periods of time. With a 6,000mAh battery, the Vivo V50 comfortably lasts more than a day even with heavy usage. The 90 W fast charging powers up the phone fully in just under an hour.

Verdict

What I like about the Vivo V50 is its unique aesthetics, excellent battery life, super-bright display and ample options to experiment when it comes to smartphone photography. The occasional lags can be a bit of a bummer. However, if you’re looking for a dependable battery, a fun camera and something you can watch a lot of media on, then the Vivo V50 is definitely worth considering.