vivo V23 5G

 

vivo V23 5G

Full review

 

This is the vivo v23 it's one of vivo's newest mid-rangers and like it's pro

sibling it has a focus on excellent selfie camera performance and it has a slick new design it's a little cheaper a little smaller and it has a little less power than the pro version but is it a better deal i'm andrew for gsm marina and this is our review of the vivo v23 5g

 

The vivo v23 has a flat screen and flat edges and the camera island design is

the same as on the pro it looks like vivo has taken inspiration from samsung

and apple and then mixed these design elements all together with the phone's

signature color sunshine gold this color is thanks to the v23s uv reactive dye that changes when exposed to sunlight or other uv light it's fantastic the paint

can take from 30 seconds to a couple minutes for the color to change from golden to bluish green you can choose to go with the more understated stardust

black version of the phone but either way it's a great looking device as a

whole the v23 is more comfortable than the pro which can slip out of your hand

more easily due to its curved sides the flatter aluminum frame of the v23 offers

better grip even without using the case this means that you get to enjoy the

soft sandy feel of the fluorite ag glass on the back it doesn't get greasy or

dirty either which is a nice plus the buttons on this phone are a little clickier and more usable than on its  sibling too.

 

Thanks to the metal frame it's a little heavier than the pro at 181 grams if you

get the sunshine gold version on the front you'll find a notch with two selfie cameras that isn't too obtrusive it also hides a proper proximity sensor

and a light sensor which are better than virtual alternatives the display is

covered by shot sensation upglass which is the same as what you'd find on the

vivo x70 pro it is a step down from the vivo v23 pro sensation alpha glass

though which is said to rival gorilla glass victus the vanilla v23 doesn't have any formal ingress protection rating so while it might survive a fall

You should keep this phone away from dust and water there is an optical under display fingerprint reader which is snappy and reliable as for the display itself it has a slightly smaller 6.4 inch amoled panel than the 6.5 inch one on the pro the

regular v23 has a slightly taller 20 by 9 aspect ratio and a slightly higher

pixel density with 409 ppi in person there is not much of a difference between the two panels aside from the aggressive curves on the pro i prefer flat displays but it's really up to personal taste the only other difference of note is brightness the

 

V23 doesn't get as bright as the pro with a max of 629 nits which makes it usable outdoors but not in direct sunlight as far as color accuracy goes the v23s color is lean towards blue regardless of which color mode you use you can try to adjust for that with the included slider but it won't make a huge difference the phone supports hdr 10 plus and hlg and has the highest possible wide vine l1 drm certification for higher streaming resolutions the display handles refresh rates

similarly to the one in the pro and while you have an auto refresh rate option it's not reliable so you should stick to either 90hz or the standard

60hz there is a single bottom firing speaker on the v23 and no headphone jack or fm radio support either it's a bit of a letdown for a phone at this price and

the speaker itself is not overly impressive it got an average loudness score on our tests and had identical sound quality to the pro which is to say okay

This is a great time to mention that in some markets the v23 supports nfc while

the pro version does not the v23s 4 200 milliamp hour battery is respectable and the phone made good use of its capacity with 103 hours on our endurance tests the 44 watt flash charger the v23 comes with also worked well you can charge the phone from dead to 60 in half an hour for a full charge you need just over an hour which is quite good too the v23 has a mediatek demensity 920 chipset and 8 or 12 gigs of ram its closest snapdragon competitors are the snapdragon 860 and the 778g while they beat the phone in terms of raw performance it's a closer call in

terms of overall cpu performance and the phone holds its own as an excellent

mid-range performer even with torture testing the phone never got too hot and

while it's a step down in comparison to the pro it's reasonable and the v23 runs

very well the vivo v23 has fun touch os 12 on top of android 12 and you can see some new android 12 features here and there namely google's green notification dot which indicates when the camera or mic is in use and the more bouncy animations overall fun touch is a highly customizable os with its very own flavor

if you're into stock android phones well this is not it actually many of the

customizations vivo has included are quite useful system menus are tailored for

single-handed use and its default selection of widgets is more intuitive

than before you can choose between different themes animation effects and

ambient light controls there's also quick action features where you hold the

volume down key to launch an app of course you also have a dedicated ultra game mode that helps you mitigate disturbances during games and lets you

turn off the screen and keep the game running in the background

 

As far as cameras go the v23 really shines in the selfie department it's

actually the same setup as on the v23 pro you get a 50 megapixel main camera

with autofocus and a megapixel ultrawide and two dual tone leds that are hidden

in the corners of the frame vivo is calling these leds spotlights

selfies are captured at 12.5 megapixels by default and shots look fantastic

detail is great as is dynamic range colors were natural and the background

had pleasant bucket the wider selfie camera is respectable but less

impressive in comparison its fixed focus plane is wide and forgiving and the

level of detail is nice it's also wide enough to justify its inclusion next to

the main front camera that said colors are duller and the dynamic range is

narrower in low light there's plenty of detail and noise is practically absent

night mode on the v23s front camera works better than on the pro and we

would often prefer it over the spotlight's illumination the ultrawide

front camera also held up well in the evenings shots are softer and noisier

but they don't disappoint the spotlights near the top of the display work very

well to illuminate your face and boost overall quality thanks to the better

light you can even shoot selfies in your complete darkness 4k videos from the

main front camera are stunning detail colors and dynamic range are all

fantastic the autofocus works well and doesn't hunt either

with eis off footage is decently steady but if you're willing to shoot in full

hd and accept a bit of crop you can switch it on and enjoy even smoother

videos videos from the ultrawide camera are less impressive in comparison their

soft and dynamic range isn't stellar but they aren't that bad on the back there is a bigger difference between the v23 siblings here you'll find a 64 megapixel main

camera an 8 megapixel ultrawide and a 2 megapixel macro cam during the day the main camera captures 16 megapixel bin photos while good they're not impressive colors are nice and not overly exaggerated and the dynamic range and level of detail are fine too  on the other hand sharpness isn't great the sharpening algorithm doesn't help much by highlighting straight lines excessively creating shots that look both sharp and fuzzy at the same time since there's no telephoto zoom shots suffer from the same ills as the main camera all the same you can get a decent two times crop the ultra red camera is also barely decent the detail and dynamic range are not great and we notice a lot of softness and a lot of over sharpening artifacts at least the colors are a close match to those from the main

camera the macro cam has decent detail for its small resolution and gets the job done but don't expect miracles in low light the main camera can take

 

Some good though overly processed photos just like during the day actually the over-processing looks more acceptable in low-light shots and the softness is comparable with the competition there is a night mode which can salvage some shots from the main unit though it's a toss-up whether you'll end up with cleaner and more natural shots or ones that have the same over-processed nature as regular low light snaps the ultrawide camera struggles in low lights and we highly recommend the night mode for it while photos are still soft there's less noise and they look better as a whole the main camera can shoot videos up to 4k at 30fps and the results are solid there's plenty of detail good colors and no noise the frame rate is steady too only the dynamic range could have been a little bit better two time zoom videos are a bit disappointing because vivo decided to over sharpen everything aggressively they're also just cropped and upscaled versions of what the main camera outputs the ultrawide can capture videos in 1080p they're soft and dynamic range isn't stellar but they aren't that bad colors are okay too there's eis on both the main and ultra wide cameras on the back but there's also a super stabilization mode on the main camera that smooths out the video further it's not perfect though and it's up to you whether it's worth the

resolution downgrade the vivo v23 starts at a more sensible price point than the pro version but it doesn't have as good of a main camera and really it only has selfies going for it if you want a phone with better overall value there's plenty of competitors to choose from which have stereo speakers ingress protection and other features that this phone does not that said it does seem to have more

appeal than its pro sibling and if you're looking for a good mid-ranger with great looks and good selfie prowess and you're gonna be creating a lot of

social media content then this one is worth considering