Vivo V1 Max review: Super Stylish Smartphone Delivers Unique Experience

Vivo V1 Max is a great mid-range smartphone that can become a big style statement for consumers

Price - INR 21,980

There is something different about this Vivo V1 Max smartphone – it has got panache and style written all over its body. Even just the first look gives you a feeling of elegance. However, we do feel that it is a bit over-priced when compared with other brands with similar features.

Vivo, one of the Chinese smartphone brands has entered India recently and has been able to make its mark by aligning itself with the local channel partners across the length and breadth of India. Today, Vivo is offering everything from budget smartphones to flagship devices in the country.

Super Elegant Looks

Even though, Vivo V1 Max is positioned as a mid-range smartphone, it is giving super elegant looks that can only be compared with flagships models of other vendors. The company has a done a good job in terms of giving this device a superb finish and this can give the company an edge over its closest competition.

Vivo V1 Max Specifications

5.5-inch (720x1280p, ~267 ppi) LCD display

Octa-core 1.36 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor

2GB RAM

16GB storage (expandable up to 32GB)

13MP rear camera + 5MP front

Li-Ion 2720 mAh battery

Supports 4G LTE

Android Kitkat OS

Look and Feel

Vivo V1 Max is quite impressive when it comes to giving a unique touch and feel. Vivo has taken great care in terms of selecting the right materials (glass and metal) to create this smartphone. And as a result, it delivers a great feel that is difficult to find in a lot of other Chinese brands today. It has a premium feel and the combinations of plastic, glass and metal gels very nicely and gives this device a unique style.

Wonderful Display

This smartphone surely delivers more than what one can expect on the display side. Even though we found out that the 720p IPS LCD panel on a 5.5-inch screen of the smartphone will not return any staggering pixel density, however, the colors were always coming out very nice.

Additionally, the auto brightness setting of this smartphone works excellently and the night mode as well, which turns the screen into an ambient display showing notifications and time, quite beautifully.

Superb Camera

The camera of this smartphone brings out another positive aspect of this device. I extensively used the primary camera of this device to click a number of pictures and it has given good performance.

There was no lag in performance and most importantly, this device does not heat up even after clicking pictures in quick succession. Especially the camera of this phone negotiated with the minimum lighting situation in an intelligent manner.

Performance and battery life

Processor performance and battery life brings another good side of this smartphone. As we have tested this device for a long time of about four weeks – we did not experience any issue with the performance of the phone while doing multi-taking – while playing games etc. the processor has handled different tasks quite easily. The battery has usually lasted well past a day.

On the down side – we were not impressed with the sound coming from Vivo V1 Max speaks. The smartphone comes with dual speakers but they don't offer great sound quality. We also experienced a bit of difficulty while trying to click pictures as - the camera lens is placed exactly where your fingers may come when you try to grip the device while clicking pictures. This design element could have been avoided. Other than this, there are no major drawbacks on this device.

Vivo is an upcoming brand which is bringing out good devices in India. Its special relationship with the channel community is also adding to the benefit of end customer as it becomes easier to get handsets serviced once you have good relations with the channel ecosystem.

Vivo V1 Max is a good device to opt for, if you are yearning for style and panache. However,  we feel that the pricing of this device could have been done in a more aggressive manner.