The sub Rs 20,000 price band is emerging as a key battleground for smartphone supremacy. The rules have changed here, triple cams abound, devices have also upped their design game. Vivo joins this party with the Z1Pro. It’s among the first devices in India kitted with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 Processor and also features a heavy duty battery. But it’s not an easy game with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy M40 and Redmi Note 7 Pro firmly entrenched in this space.
Vivo keeps up with the textured gradient trend that’s been sweeping mid-market devices for a while now. It’s a plastic rear panel but the gradient lends it a premium touch. These textures border on flashy in the Sonic Blue colour variant that we checked out. If you prefer less bling, then you might gravitate towards the more subtle Sonic Black. The dimpled fingerprint sensor is also placed on the rear panel. Despite its plastic back, it’s quite a heavy device, one that crosses the 200gm threshold. That heft should come as no surprise given its massive 5000 mAh battery. If battery life is more critical than form, then you’re sorted. The Z1Pro’s battery won’t let even heavy users down. Average users might even be able to stretch it to a day and a half. It’s disappointing to see a micro USB slot at a time when Type-C is fast becoming ubiquitous. But the bundled 18W charger powers up the device very quickly.
The Z1Pro is among the first devices that is powered by Qualcomm’s all-new Snapdragon 712 Processor. On paper, it has a slight edge over the Snapdragon 675 Processor under the hood of the Samsung Galaxy M40. The AnTuTu benchmark score reflects this superiority. The Z1Pro’s score (183538 in our test) was marginally higher than the 173217 score that the M40 managed. Overall, there’s not a lot between these devices on the performance front. The Z1Pro gets a slight boost from Vivo’s gaming-friendly features like Game Turbo for a smoother gaming experience. You can choose from two hardware variants – 4GB/64GB and 6GB/128GB (expandable up to 256GB).
A hole-punch display is the other distinctive design element, it adds vital screen real estate – Vivo claims that the screen: body ratio crosses the 90% threshold. Colours are quite crisp on this 6.53-inch HD+ display (with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio) that packs almost 400 pixels per inch. This punch hole crams a 32MP selfie camera, but it’s the triple camera that is the talking point. This rear shooter combines a 16MP (f/1.78 aperture) primary lens, an 8MP wide-angle lens and a 2MP Bokeh lens for those portrait shots. The camera does surprisingly well for a device at this price across different shooting scenarios. Lowlight images were decent but we were not overly impressed with the videos we shot. That was one of our only minor cribs aside from Vivo’s layered spin on Android – its custom FunTouch UI. The Z1Pro holds its own in an ultra-competitive price segment with its all-round credentials.
The Vivo Z1Pro costs Rs 14,990 (4GB/64GB) / Rs 17,990 (6GB/128GB) and is available in Sonic Black, Sonic Blue and Mirror Black.
Ashwin Rajagopalan writes extensively on Gadgets & Trends, Travel & Lifestyle and Food & Drink. He owns and manages Brand Stories, a creative Content outfit and www.bytesize.in, a premier lifestyle blog with a focus on short-format content. (Instagram: ‘ashwinpowers’)