Vivo V7 Review: Your best bet for selfies in mid-range price point

24MP front-facing camera that captures excellent selfies

The major highlight of Vivo V7 is its 24MP selfie camera that was previously seen on Vivo V7+. The camera works on an f/2.0 aperture and comes with Face Beauty 7.0 mode that comes with updated algorithms. Unlike the Vivo V7+, the front-facing camera on Vivo V7 is not accompanied with an LED flash light, which technically works in favor of Vivo V7. The harsh LED light that usually overexposes the selfies is now replaced by a mild fill flash feature that maintains the natural skin tones even if you capture a selfie in low-light condition.

 

Front-facing camera Output

The 24MP front-facing camera delivers impressive results. The image output is comparable to the recently launched OPPO F5 selfie smartphone that is priced higher and uses artificial intelligence. The selfies you capture from Vivo V7 show very good detailing in daylight and camera sensor also manages to maintain natural color tones. However, as the camera works on a darker F/2.0 aperture, the low light shots show some level of noise and details are also affected slightly.

The front-facing camera is snappy and wastes no time in setting a focus on a subject and clicking a picture. There's no shutter lag and camera instantly gets ready for another shot which makes the overall photography experience fluent and effortless.

HDR, Group Selfies and an immersive Color Filter Palette

The front camera has an entire suite of features to improve your selfie taking experience. It can capture images with an impressive depth of field effect. The portrait images look as good as shots captured from dual-lens camera setups on Honor 9i. The front camera also supports HDR, live photos (similar to iOS), Group selfie mode, and a total of 45 color filters for selfies, which is pretty impressive. Vivo has also upgraded the Face beauty mode, which now offers deeper level of customization. Face Beauty mode 7.0 offers tweaking options such as buffing, skin tone correction, and whitening. Last but not the least, the camera also supports hand and voice gestures to capture a selfie.

Rear Camera Performance

Vivo V7 gets the same camera setup at rear as was offered by Vivo V7+. The smartphone sports a 16MP camera with PDAF that also works on F/2.0 aperture value. It is not the best rear camera in town but is also not the worst. The camera is good for daylight photography and images show vibrant colors and decent detailing. The low-light performance is not very good as the camera works on a darker F/2.0 aperture.

The camera app interface is simple and easy to use and photo enthusiasts will be pleased to see an immersive Professional mode that allows you to tweak exposure compensation, shutter speed, ISO (up to ISO 3200), white balance and focus without much struggle.

5.7- inch 18:9 aspect ratio Full View IPS LCD display

Like the Vivo V7+, the Vivo V7 also stands out for its edge-to-edge display. The smartphone flaunts a 5.7-inch HD+ IPS FullView display with an aspect ratio of 18:9. The screen is bright and very responsive, however, the 720p resolution might disappoint some users as the market has myriad of options priced even lower that offers a 1080p display.

Nevertheless, the HD screen offers a resolution of 720x1440p and serves well for reading, browsing web pages and video playback. The display has good brightness levels and contrast ratio is also good.

Overall, with a pixel density of 282ppi, Vivo V7 does not offer the most immersive display in its price-point, but it gets the job done very well.

Appealing design and perfect for one-hand use

I am quite impressed with the in-hand feel of Vivo V7. Despite rocking a plastic body, Vivo V7 is no less than any metal clad premium handset in design department. The company has managed to maintain a perfect balance of style and aesthetics. Vivo V7 looks quite premium, especially the matte Black variant. At 139g of weight, Vivo V7 is very light and is one of the most ergonomic smartphone in its price-point.

The smartphone has a screen-to-body ratio of 83.6% that makes it reasonably compact and yet it offers a screen, which is big enough to comfortably watch videos and read books or browse web pages. With round edges and correct placement of hardware buttons and fingerprint scanner, Vivo V7 snuggly fits in your palm and can be used with one hand without any struggle. It's also very light weight and the matte finish gives the handset a good feel in hands.

Entry-level but snappy CPU paired with 4GB of RAM

Vivo has given a capable selfie camera but has shipped Vivo V7 with an entry-level Qualcomm chipset. Vivo V7 is backed by the same Snapdragon 450 CPU, which we have tested in Vivo V7 Plus. The Qualcomm's latest 400-series chipset is built on 14nm FinFet process technology and is designed to replace Snapdragon 435 CPU. S450 chip has 8 cortex cores that promise to deliver a 25% boost in computing speed as compared to S435 chipset.

The CPU is paired with Adreno 506 GPU, which on papers improves gaming performance to over 25%. There were hardly any circumstances where Vivo V7 struggled to deliver on performance in everyday usage. The cameras worked fine, web pages loaded instantly, photo editing apps responded well and the handset also did not show any major heat signs. The gaming performance is also good as the CPU+GPU has to push less number of pixels for the humble 720p screen.

The CPU is paired with 4GB RAM that made sure the handset did not stutter while running multiple applications. For storage, Vivo V7 offers 32GB internal memory, out of which Android and custom skin takes a good chunk of memory and you are only provided with 22GB of usable space. Thankfully, internal storage can be expanded further via Hybrid SIM card slot.

Android 7.1 Nougat with Funtouch OS 3.2

Vivo is sticking with company's customized skin- Funtouch OS 3.2, which is deployed on Android 7.1 Nougat. The UI is clean and offers some useful software tweaks to enhance everyday mobile user experience. These include app clone that allows you to use two separate accounts to log into various applications. You also get Nougat backed Split screen mode to run two apps simultaneously side by side for better multitasking.

The customized skin also features a Night mode, Game mode to accelerate graphics performance during gameplay and a theme store to change the look and feel of the handset. Vivo V7 also comes equipped with Face recognition technology that can be used to unlock the handset. The face unlock feature is snappy and instantly unlocks the handset; however it's not as secure as the face recognition technology on Apple iPhone X. I recommend you to use fingerprint scanner, which is equally snappy and comparatively more secure than the face unlock feature.

Battery and Connectivity

Vivo V7 is backed by a 3,000 mAh battery unit that is sufficient to last a day on a single charge. The battery does last long as it has to provide juice to a 720p screen and the new Snapdragon 450 chipset is not harsh on resources and keeps power draw in check.

As far as connectivity is concerned, Vivo V7 comes equipped with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB OTG, FM, micro USB 2.0 port, GPS and a hybrid SIM card tray.

Conclusion

Vivo V7 has a lot to offer. The smartphone presents a well-balanced combination of features and performance in mid-range smartphone segment. It is engineered to please selfie lovers and it largely gets the job done. The 24MP front-facing camera delivers appealing selfies that only few smartphones will manage to match. There are some shortcomings in the form of a low resolution screen and slightly less powerful chipset as compared to its competitors in sub Rs. 18,000 price-point. But as a whole, Vivo V7 makes sense for consumers who click selfies day and night to post on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and other social platforms. It's a selfie smartphone that also gets most features right.