Vivo Z1 pro | Vivo new flagship killer smartphone

HIGHLIGHTS

• The Vivo Z1 Pro is going to be available in three variants, with 4GB RAM variant coming in at Rs 14,990.
• For its price, the Vivo Z1 Pro offers a lot of value with its large display, big battery, and cameras that click good photos.
• Our Vivo Z1 Pro review also reveals that this is a phone that can handle gaming well and it runs smooth.

Vivo is a well-known name in the Indian smartphone industry. But it is largely well-known because it has a great offline reach and it is particularly popular among the consumers who buy phones in regular brick and mortar shops and not on an e-commerce website. The Vivo Z1 Pro, which launches today in India, aims to change this. This is a Vivo phone with which the company wants to take on the likes of Xiaomi and Realme that are incredibly strong when it comes to online sales. After all, why should they have all the online fun and not Vivo?

To ensure that the Vivo Z1 Pro stands a chance in front of strong competitors, Vivo has not only given it a very reasonable -- or rather an aggressive price -- but has also equipped it well with quality hardware, an attractive design, and some cool features. The result, as I find in this Vivo Z1 Pro review, is a phone that is one of the best you can get under Rs 20,000.

The Vivo Z1 Pro comes with a big display, latest hardware, including new Qualcomm Snapdragon 712, a set of capable cameras and a massive 5000mAh battery. It looks extremely tempting on paper. And is more or less equally good in the regular use.

Shiny gradient makes it look beautiful

The Vivo Z1 Pro comes in three colors -- Sonic Blue, Sonic Black, and Mirror Black -- in India. For this review, I used the Sonic Blue variant of the phone and I absolutely love how it looks. If you - like me - love phones in funky colors, especially in shades of blue you're going to appreciate the outer appearance of the Vivo Z1 Pro Sonic Blue variant. I feel the Vivo Z1 Pro is beautiful and the mix of blue and bottle green on the back panel, with smooth gradient, adds to the overall aesthetics of the smartphone. But like all good things come with a flaw, the Vivo Z1 Pro to has an issue. The phone uses polycarbonate -- a fancy word for plastic -- for the back cover.

Nowadays under Rs 20,000 phones from brands like Xiaomi and Nokia come with glass and metal design. And I would have loved the design of the Vivo Z1 Pro even more if it had a glass body. The plastic, despite its smooth and shiny finish, and the cool colors, makes the phone feel a bit cheap in hands.

It also shows fingerprints easily. During my two weeks with the phone, I had to wipe the back cover of the Vivo Z1 Pro at regular intervals to get rid of smudges, although this won't be an issue for most users because you will invariably use the phone with the case. The use of plastic also has a brighter side to it. The Vivo Z1 Pro is a big phone with a large display. But because it uses a plastic body with a metal frame, it is lighter compared to large phones that use glass and metal shells.

Apart from the plastic, I love the Vivo Z1 Pro as far as its design is concerned. The smartphone is also sleek despite packing in a massive 5000mAh battery.

Another important bit to note is that this is a big phone. And some people, depending on how much used to you are too big phones, may find it uncomfortable and awkward to use with a single hand. If you like compact phones like Redmi 6A or the Pixel 3A, you will find the Vivo Z1 Pro too big.

Big and bright screen

The Vivo Z1 Pro packs a huge screen with slim bezels. I believe a big display has both pros and cons. It is because of the big display the Vivo Z1 Pro feels a little bulky in the hands. But for the very same reason, the phone also offers great gaming as well as multimedia experience. So, if you're fine with a big phone that might not fit in your jeans pocket you'll not have any problem with the Vivo Z1 Pro and its massive size.

The screen of the Vivo Z1 Pro is big and bright. The Vivo Z1 Pro comes packed with a 6.53-inch FHD+ display that offers screen-to-body-ratio of 90.77 percent and resolution of 2340x1080pixels. The key highlight of Vivo Z1 Pro's screen is its in-display camera. This is the first Vivo phone in India to come with Samsung like punch hole display, which houses the selfie camera.

The screen of the Vivo Z1 Pro turns out to be pretty bright in outdoor situations but at full brightness. As soon as I stepped out in the Delhi sun, I often toggled the screen brightness of the phone to maximum. While indoor, I kept the brightness around 30 percent and it was sufficiently bright for me. I often watched YouTube videos, played games like PUBG and Asphalt 9 as well as watched India's World Cup matches and I found the experience good. The viewing angles of the Vivo Z1 Pro were great, the contrast right and colours punchy.

All-in-all, the Vivo Z1 Pro offers a great screen experience to the users. So if you are a movie buff, or a cricket lover or an avid gamer, you'll love the Vivo Z1 Pro and its big, bright screen.

Good cameras almost all the time

I used the camera of the Vivo Z1 Pro in all lighting conditions and it didn't disappoint me in any situation. Do understand that the price of this phone is Rs 14,990, and at this price, I believe that Vivo Z1 Pro camera performance is absolutely fantastic.

Before getting into the real-life experience, here's what Vivo Z1 Pro cameras offer on paper. On the rear panel, the Vivo Z1 Pro comes with 3 cameras while on the front it includes a single shooter for selfies. The primary camera in the Vivo Z1 Pro uses 16-megapixel sensor. It is accompanied by an 8-megapixel super-wide secondary sensor and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. On the front, the phone includes a 32-megapixel selfie shooter. Both the front and the back cameras come bundled with lots of AI features that supposedly help people click good photos.

I used the Vivo Z1 Pro to click pictures in daylight, inside the room, and at night. In almost all scenes the Vivo Z1 Pro appears a winner. In good light the Vivo Z1 Pro clicks detailed and sharp pictures with accurate colors. In the scorching sun, I wish the exposure was better because the Vivo Z1 Pro tends to overexpose an image in sunlight, but it was mostly not horrendous. To get a better idea of the Vivo Z1 Pro camera checks the picture of the red flower in the camera sample above. In the photo all the layers of the flower, the edges of the petals and even stigma of the flower show good details. The colors are also spot-on.

In poor light too, the Vivo Z1 Pro manages to click decent pictures with good details and colours. The night mode on the phone also helps in low light. This mode isn't as good as what I saw in the Redmi Note 7 Pro but it is not shabby at all. It gets the work done pretty well.

I'm also impressed with the selfie camera of the Vivo Z1 Pro. Unlike many other phones in this price bracket that click selfies without any good amount of detail, the selfie camera in the Vivo bucks the trend. It clicks and shows your face with all the spots and blemishes. It looks natural and I prefer that. I mostly used the selfie camera with no filters but if you are on Instagram or Snapchat and want to try out some filters for your social media feed, the Vivo Z1 Pro camera offers plenty of them.

Good device for multi-taskers, gamers

I used the Vivo Z1 Pro as my primary phone for around two weeks. I used the phone for social media apps like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, send emails, browse the internet, chat on WhatsApp, listen to music, watch World Cup, YouTube, and Netflix videos. I also played lots of games -- both basic and heavy GPU games like PUBG and Asphalt 9. To my surprise, I found the phone was not only capable of handling multitasking well but also ran games smoothly. I played long Asphalt 9 sessions on the Vivo Z1 Pro and at no point, I found the phone slow. The credit for good performance undoubtedly goes to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 chipset that powers the Vivo phone.

The Snapdragon 712 is a 10nm chipset and supports Adreno 616GPU that makes it way more powerful than Snapdragon 660 and also Snapdragon 710 processor in terms of both CPU and GPU performance. On paper, compared to the Snapdragon 710 processor the Snapdragon 712 offers almost 10 percent better overall performance. Qualcomm also claims that the Snapdragon 712 offers 45 percent better graphics performance, 2 times better AI performance and 25 percent better overall performance.

In reality, the performance that new processor packs in shows. Apps on the Vivo Z1 Pro open quickly and switching between applications is smooth. The Vivo Z1 Pro also comes with several gaming modes, which lets users have uninterrupted gaming experience.

Battery easily lasts a full day

The Vivo Z1 Pro battery lasts one full day with ease. It's huge 5000mAh battery so this is on expected lines. Interestingly, the Vivo Z1 Pro comes with 18W fast charging on paper, but in real life the phone takes quite some time to get fully charged. For me, the phone took over close to 2 hours to charge from 0 to 100 per cent. I must mention that I miss Type C port in this Vivo phone. Now that almost all phones at under Rs 20,000 price come with Type C port I wish Vivo has also followed the same path. The Vivo Z1 Pro comes with a micro USB port.

Vivo Z1 Pro: Is it worth the price?

Absolutely. The Vivo Z1 Pro comes with a starting price of Rs 14,990. This is for the phone with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. There is also a variant with 6GB RAM and 64GB storage that costs Rs 16,990 and another with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage that costs Rs 18,990. The Vivo Z1 Pro is a fantastic phone at these prices.

Sure, I wish a few things could have been better. Like no plastic please, however beautiful it is. And that missing USB-C. But by saying this I am being little unfair on the Vivo Z1 Pro. I am saying this because we all want everything on our phones.

Overall, the Vivo Z1 Pro looks beautiful, offers powerful performance, captures great pictures in fairly all lighting conditions, and easily lasts a day in a single charge. For Rs 14,990, the Vivo Z1Pro is a tempting deal and if you're looking for a phone that is an all-rounder and doesn't comprise on any aspect, the Vivo Z1 Pro is a great option to consider. The Vivo Z1 Pro goes on sale in India on July 11 via Flipkart and Vivo's e-store.