Vivo V17 Pro review: Good looks and great cameras

The Vivo V17 Pro launches in India withprice of Rs 29,990. The smartphone comes with the dual pop-up selfie camerasetup. Besides the camera what else does the smartphone offer and is it worthbuying? Read our review to find out.

HIGHLIGHTS

     Vivo V17 Pro launches in India with pricestarting at Rs 29,990.

     Vivo V17 Pro is the world's first 32MP dualpop-up selfie camera.

     The Vivo V17 Pro will go on sale for first timeon September 27 in India.

If you askVivo what is the brand's DNA, the company will tell you that it is"innovation". Now, innovation can mean different things to differentbrands and different people. When it comes to Vivo, one area where you canascribe "innovation" is in the way it brings some unique and newtechnology to the mainstream phone market.

For example,Vivo was the first brand to bring in-display fingerprint sensor technology toan under Rs 30,000 smartphone with the V11 Pro. It was also the firstsmartphone brand to bring a pop-up camera phone to the masses with the V15 Pro.There are two constants here: Vivo and V series. With the latest Vivo V17 Pro,the company again brings something to consumers ahead of any other brand. TheVivo V17 Pro is a phone with a dual-selfie camera inside a pop-up module.

I have beenusing the V17 Pro for around 10 days now and feel that the camera performanceof this phone is one of the best I have seen under Rs 30,000. The V17 Prolaunches in India with a price of Rs 29,990. The phone comes with a total ofsix cameras! Four sit on the rear panel in a vertically placed module while theother two sit are inside the pop-up module on the front.

But apartfrom cameras, what else? What about the battery? The display? The performance?Some good, some not so much. So can the V17 Pro compete with smartphones fromother brands at the same price point like the Redmi K20 Pro? Let's find in thisVivo V17 Pro review

Vivo V17 Pro design

Vivo phonesdo design well. The V17 Pro is no exception. The Vivo V17 Pro is a gorgeouslooking smartphone, and surely one of the best in its price segment. It comesin two colours -- Midnight Ocean and Glacier Ice. The one pictured in thisreview is the Glacier Ice variant.

The mix oflight blue and white in this variant makes the Vivo V17 Pro very attractive.The Vivo V17 Pro sports Gorilla Glass 6 protection on the back panel. Yes,finally a glass body phone from Vivo. Most smartphones these days come withGorilla Glass 5 but for the V17 Pro Vivo goes a step ahead and uses GG6instead. The glass body adds to the overall aesthetics of the Vivo V17 Pro.

Overall, Ibelieve the back panel of the Vivo V17 Pro is neatly designed. The good bit isdespite sporting so many cameras the design of the quad-camera module has cleanlines and doesn't look cluttered. Similar to most Vivo phones, this one tooisn't very slick. The Vivo V17 Pro feels bulky in hands, probably because ofthe 4100mAh battery inside it.

On thefront, it is an all-screen affair. There's an in-display fingerprint sensorthat is fast and unlocks the smartphone quickly. On the front, the cameramodule is a highlight of the design. To repeat, the Vivo V17 Pro is the world'sfirst dual pop-up camera smartphone.

Until now wehave seen smartphones with pop-up camera mechanism with single image sensor init but with the V17 Pro Vivo introduces dual pop-up camera mechanism. Themodule is a bit broad as it includes two cameras and an LED flash. I find thepop-up speed of the camera a bit slow but that shouldn't matter much becausethere's no face unlock in this smartphone. The speed of the module is fineenough for the occasions when you want to click a selfie.

Vivo V17 Pro display

Besides thestunning design, display is another area of the Vivo V17 Pro that impressed mea lot. The Vivo V17 Pro comes with a 6.44-inch Super AMOLED display withresolution of 2400x1080 pixels, aspect ratio of 20:9, and screen-to-body of91.65 per cent. In other words, lots of screen, lots of pixels. The full-screendisplay gets pretty bright in all lighting conditions, be it inside a room oroutside under scorching Jaipur sun. The Vivo V17 Pro also comes with always-ondisplay, which is useful.

The screenis bright enough. In outdoor situations, I had to keep the brightness tomaximum but indoors around 40 per cent of brightness level worked perfectlyfine for me. Thanks to the Super AMOLED display the Vivo V17 Pro is great forwatching videos. Whether you are watching a YouTube video or a Netflix series,or playing a graphics heavy games the Vivo V17 Pro performs well. The viewingangles, because of the OLED panel, of the Vivo V17 Pro screen are great.

Vivo V17 Pro camera

And this isthe best aspect of the Vivo V17 Pro. The Vivo V17 Pro is one of the best phonesyou can buy right now under Rs 30,000 if you want good camera performance.

Hardwarefirst. On the rear panel the Vivo V17 Pro comes with 48MP primary Sony IMX582sensor, 13MP telephoto lens, 8MP wide angle lens and 2MP depth sensor forportrait shots. On the front the V17 Pro includes 32MP primary shooter andsecond camera is an 8MP super wide-angle lens.

The Vivo V17Pro captures some great shots, especially in good light. The pictures clickedwith the Vivo V17 Pro appear with amazing details and almost original-likecolours. The dynamic range is also pretty good. In addition to pictures clickedwith the main sensor I loved the ultra wide angle and macro shots that the VivoV17 Pro clicked. The ultra wide-angle lens offer a new perspective and letsusers click wider area at close range to the subject. The camera app includessuper macro mode and that's one of my favourite camera features of the V17 Pro.The super macro shots (check samples above) capture great amount of details andspot-on colours.

In goodlight the V17 Pro produces great result, but in low-light the performance isonly respectable, and that too largely because of the Night Mode. In low-light,the V17 Pro clicks pictures that look decent overall but often lack details andcolours. The Night Mode improves the picture quality.

The Vivo V17Pro also clicks pretty good selfies with accurate facial details. The camerasometimes softens the selfie but that doesn't affect the photo quality in anyway. Low light performance isn't that good. But here too Night Mode isavailable. The Super Night Mode for the front cameras lightens the selfiesclicked with V17 Pro and makes them look better. The second 8MP camera is forclicking ultra-wide selfies. This can be used to click group selfies.

Vivo V17 Pro performance and software

If there aretwo areas where the V17 Pro could have been better, they are performance andsoftware. The Vivo V17 Pro is a good upgrade to the Vivo V15 Pro in all aspectsexcept performance. The Vivo V17 Pro is powered by the same Snapdragon 675processor from Qualcomm that is also inside the V15 Pro. For a phone that costsaround Rs 30,000, we would have liked to see an upgrade here.

In fact,there are the Vivo Z1 Pro and the Vivo Z1X that cost less and come with a newerSnapdragon 712.

But what'sin the specs? Let's talk of the real-world performance. The Snapdragon 675processor is a good chipset and offers decent performance as well. The Vivo V17Pro handles games -- both heavy GPU and basic -- well. It's just that in somegames and with prolonged gaming you may see some lag from time to time.

I mostlyfound the V17 Pro capable and lag-free. Switching between applications,browsing social media or the internet, chatting, and all other everyday tasksare handled well by the Vivo V17 Pro. I played long PUBG sessions on the VivoV17 Pro and the experience was decent. It wasn't buttery smooth but unless Icranked up the graphics settings -- that made the game-play laggy -- the gamewas playable. By default, PUBG runs in high frame rate but most of the time Iset the frame rate to medium or sometimes low as that improved the gamingexperience. So, for me the overall performance of the Vivo V17 Pro was decentenough if not great.

Software toois an area where I believe the V17 Pro could have been better. Similar to otherVivo phones, on the V17 Pro too the FunTouch OS running the Vivo V17 Pro is abit cluttered. Vivo's custom OS Funtouch OS brings too many third-party appswith it. The FunTouch OS appears to be cluttered to me with too many options onone screen and that often confuses the user. Similar is the case with thecamera app as well -- it's way too full of settings and features. The latestFunTouch OS 9, however, brings a range of new features like system-wide darkmode, among other things.

Vivo V17 Pro battery

The Vivo V17Pro offers really good battery life. The Vivo V17 Pro comes with 4100mAhbattery and it supports 18W fast charging. I used the Vivo V17 Pro as myprimary device -- this means I used the phone for chatting on WhatsApp,browsing social media, sending emails, making calls, and so on -- and it lastedfor almost a day.

The icing onthe cake is the 18W fast charging support that charges the V17 Pro prettyquickly. It takes around 1.5 hours (approx) to charge the V17 Pro fully withits bundled charger. Similar to the Vivo Z1X this one too comes with Type Csupport and that's great.

Should you buy Vivo V17 Pro?

The Vivo V17Pro comes with a price of Rs 29,990 in India. This is little on the expensiveside. Not that the V17 pro is shabby. You will likely love it, it is just thatthere are competitors in the Indian market.

There aregreat smartphones available across various price segments. Under Rs 20,000there's Realme XT that is not only a powerhouse but also clicks great shots.Then there's Redmi K20 Pro under Rs 30,000 price bracket that offers powerfulperformance, great cameras, amazing battery life and so much more. Then comesthe Vivo V17 Pro with great cameras and price almost touching Rs 30,000.

To get itright off the bat the V17 Pro is a good smartphone to consider if the camera isyour key concern. It should also be considered if you want your smartphone tobe innovative or have dual pop-up camera setup. Overall, I believe if you wanta good camera in your smartphone and are not going to spend a penny more thanRs 30,000, then the V17 Pro is the one for you. If the camera can becompromised, there are other options available.