vivo V40 5G Review

The vivo V series has been one of our favorite mid-range smartphones in the past few years. The phones weren’t perfect, but they did excel in one aspect in particular – photography. The V30 series, specifically, the V30 Pro, easily had one of the best cameras in its segment since they were co-developed with Zeiss.

There is one problem with the V30 Pro though, it is quite expensive. The phone retailed at PHP 34,999, meaning it wasn’t the most affordable. While the cameras on the regular V30 were decent, they didn’t have Zeiss-tuned optics.

But now vivo Philippines has introduced the V40 series, and today we’re looking at the V40 5G. While it might not be the Pro model, it already comes with Zeiss cameras. They also solved other issues with the V series lineup, and best of all, the price is quite reasonable, at least on paper.

Still, is it worth it to jump especially if you just ordered the V30 Pro earlier this year? Well, I suggest you read on to find out.

Design and Construction

In terms of styling, vivo didn’t change too much on the V40 5G from the V30 series. It retains the slim design and form factor that we loved. For reference, it still only measures 7.58mm thick, making it easy to fit your pockets.

The back panel retains the minimalist design with the vivo logo at the bottom left corner. The majority of the design change can be seen in the camera island. Instead of two squares, it now features a rounded design with a dual-rear camera at the top half while vivo’s signature Aura Light is located at the bottom. Of course, it now also bears the Zeiss logo.

With a curved body design, it is easy and nice to hold, even if you’re just using one hand. The volume rocker and power button are easily accessible on the right side and sit within your finger’s reach.

At the bottom, you have the USB-C port, the dual-sim card slot, and a loudspeaker. The left side and the top are clean like before, but the earpiece now doubles as a loudspeaker as well. Yes, we finally have dual speakers on the vivo V40.

The color of the V40 5G is really pretty too. Our unit is in the Nebula Purple colorway, and matches well with what vivo calls their new Gemini Ring Design styling cue.

For protection, the phone is rated at IP68 for dust and water resistance, and I tested it out when I used it during the typhoon last week.

Overall, I like the subtle redesign vivo made from the V30 to the V40 5G. It’s minimal, but hey there’s nothing wrong with the styling of the V30 to begin with. Instead, vivo decided to change things that mattered.

Display and Multimedia

For the display, the vivo V40 5G features a 6.78-inch curved AMOLED 1.5K Ultra Clear Sunlight Display (2800 x 1260 resolution) with HDR10+ support. Some might think this is a carryover from the specs, but it’s not.

As expected from this display, the colors are great, and you get deep blacks too which is very evident when watching dark videos. I like the thin almost borderless design since it allows you to be more immersed in the display. On top of that, it is also SGS-certified for blue light, low flicker, and the works. It’s also protected by Schott Alpha glass.

As the name suggests, it is great for outdoors and even in bright sunlight since it has a maximum of 4500 nits peak brightness. This ensures that you will be able to see everything on the screen when you’re outdoors capturing content.

It also comes with a 120Hz refresh rate giving you smooth animation whether you’re going through the menus, browsing the net, or watching your favorite series. But it was with gaming that I really enjoyed the 120Hz refresh rate, but more on that later.

Perhaps my favorite upgrade vivo made to the V40 5G is the dual stereo speakers. This one is something we’ve been waiting for vivo to add to the V series since the V27, and now you finally have stereo speakers.

They’re more than decent for watching a video in a group. It has good clarity and a decent sound stage, but it does lack bass as with most phone speakers. But more importantly, it is loud. And since you now have stereo speakers, you won’t have to worry about your finger covering the bottom loudspeaker.

Cameras

Now, we get into the part where the vivo V40 5G really shines – the cameras.

As mentioned earlier, the vivo V40 5G comes with a dual camera system for the rear lens. I know what you’re thinking, didn’t the V30 5G come with a triple rear camera, but hear me out. In the V30 series, only the V30 Pro came with Zeiss tuned cameras. Now, the Zeiss cameras make their way onto the standard V40 5G.

You get a 50MP Zeiss OIS main camera that uses the 1/1.56-inch Samsung ISOCELL GNJ sensor with OIS paired with a 50MP Zeiss ultrawide camera. For selfies, you even have a 50MP front camera with a 92-degree FOV. With that, you have most of the basics covered, especially if you want to take portraits, landscapes, or group photos.

With ZEISS Multifocal Portrait, you even have various focal lengths to choose from when shooting in portrait mode. But it’s not just the focal lengths you can adjust in portrait mode, even the aperture can be set up to f/0.95, but personally, I leave it at either f/2.8 or f/1.4. You can also choose the kind of bokeh you want in the images by going through the menu.

And as you would expect, the photos come out amazing and the jump in quality from its predecessor is obvious. You get sharper images, even more vivid colors, and nice bokeh, especially when using portrait mode.

Switch to Zeiss mode, and you get less saturated but more natural-looking colors too. However, I did notice that it sometimes desaturates colors too much. Just check out the photo of the Mustang above and compare it to the others in the gallery to see what I mean. Still, it’s not bad, and I like how the images came out.

With the larger sensor on the main shooter, you can also capture better low-light or night images. Together with the OIS, it makes taking hand-held low-light images more easily. There’s a lot less noise and grain, and more detail is retained.

You also have Aura Light to help illuminate the dark images. However, you do have to set expectations. The phone will still have a hard time when it’s almost pitch black, and your only source of light is Aura Light.

To give you a better idea of just how impressed we were with the camera of the V40 5G, check out the gallery below.

But of course, the cameras aren’t just for taking pictures. The V40 5G can also capture amazing videos. The highest resolution available is 4K@30FPS, but it’s more than enough especially if you plan to do content creation.

Even at 4K, you have stabilization at your disposal, which helps a lot. There is an Ultra Steady mode, but it’s limited to 1080P. Compared to shooting at 4K, the quality drop is quite obvious. Personally, I find that the standard stabilization is already more than decent, meaning you can just stay at 4K.

There’s also Zeiss cinematic mode, but you are limited to just 1080P. What’s great about this mode is the Zeiss focus transition, which as the name implies makes it easier to track the subject. It’s not perfect, especially if there are more than two people in front of the camera, but for solo shots, it works great.

Just check out the sample video below and see for yourself.

OS, Apps, and UI

The vivo V40 5G runs on Android 14 skinned with FunTouch 14. It’s a decent OS, and there’s nothing particularly new about the OS. If you’ve used any other Android 14 smartphone, then you’ll feel right at home.

You get the usual split screen, floating windows, and the like. When you’re playing games, you even have game boost mode at your disposal to improve your gaming experience. Not to mention the OS runs smoothly on the V40 5G too. No lags or whatnot when you’re in the settings.

Interestingly, the phone isn’t natively set to its max resolution of 2800×1260, which I assume is to preserve battery life. But you can easily adjust this in the settings to make the most out of the phone.

What I didn’t like about the V40 5G is the load of bloatware that comes with the phone. I’m not even talking about the native vivo apps that you might find useful. You have several folders for various games and apps, that you will definitely end up uninstalling.

While having Facebook, Tiktok, Lazada, and the likes pre-installed is great, the others are pretty much useless and takes up space.

Performance and Benchmarks

Under the hood, the vivo V40 5G runs a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 paired with 12GB of RAM and another 12GB of extended RAM for a total of 24GB. For storage, you can get up to 512GB of internal storage for all the apps you’ll be installing together with the photos and videos you’ll be capturing. Unfortunately, there is no MicroSD card slot to expand storage further.

The Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset is a carryover from the V30 5G, but it is still decent to this day. During my time, the V40 5G was able to handle almost anything I asked it to do. From day-to-day tasks to even playing graphic-intensive titles, you can be sure it can do it well.

I was able to play Genshin Impact and ZZZ without any issues and even managed to set the some of the graphic settings to high to have a better gaming experience. Best of all though, the phone didn’t heat up either even after playing for an hour.

More importantly, there was no drop in frame rates or lag spikes either even after playing for extended periods of time. So you can continuously game on this phone for hours on end. There’s even a game boost mode which trades battery life for a better gaming experience. Impressive considering this phone is mainly aimed towards photography.

For those interested, we’ve run the usual benchmarks too which you can check out below.

AnTuTu benchmark v10 – 815,842
3DMark Wild Life – 5419
PCMark Work 3.0 Performance – 10675

Geekbench 6
Single Core CPU – 1162
Multi Core CPU – 3216
GPU OpenCL – 3496

Battery and Connectivity

If there’s one thing that really impressed us with the vivo V30 series, it’s the long lasting battery. No doubt, I expected the same results with the V40 5G since it has a bigger battery too, featuring a 5,500mAh battery pack.

It’s not your run-of-the-mill lithium-ion battery pack either. Instead, this phone uses vivo’s new BlueVolt battery which is made out of silicon-carbon. Because of this, vivo was able to retain the slim form factor, but with a larger battery pack.

Interestingly, the phone didn’t seem to fair as well as its predecessor. The V40 5G only achieved a result of 19 hours and 58 minutes using the PCMark Work 3.0 battery test. For reference, the V30 5G was able to last 24 hours and 54 minutes. The tests were done in similar conditions – 50% brightness, zero volume, and in airplane mode.

Considering the larger battery pack, I expected the V40 to last well beyond 24 hours. Overall though, almost 20 hours is still very impressive. And from my experience, I rarely found myself charging the phone. This phone lasted me two days before I ended up needing to charge it again, which shows that battery life is very much user dependent.

When you eventually need to recharge the phone, you have an 80W FlashCharge fast charging available to ensure you’re always on the go.

In terms of connectivity, you get the full suite – 5G, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.4, GPS, and NFC.

Conclusion

The vivo V series always had issues such as the lack of stereo loudspeakers and a lackluster chipset. But with the V40 5G, it has grown up and looks better than before.

You still get all of the features we’ve come to love with the V series like Aura Light and nice cameras, packaged with a capable chipset and a long-lasting battery. Now, it even comes with Zeiss-tuned cameras. It still isn’t perfect, but for what it can do, it does it well.

Best of all, with a starting price of PHP 26,999 for the 12+256GB variant, it’s quite affordable too. If you want more storage space, the 12+512GB variant retails for PHP 29,999.

Is it worth upgrading too though? If you’re in the market for a new phone then yes, definitely. But if you picked up the V30 series earlier this year, specifically the V30 Pro 5G, then maybe hold on to that for now. Remember, this only comes with a dual rear camera vs the triple rear camera system on the V30 Pro. Maybe when the V40 Pro 5G is released you can consider it.

For now, there’s no word yet about the V40 Pro 5G, which we’re very interested in, but what do you think of the standard V40 5G? Would you cop? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

What we liked:
* Now has dual-stereo speakers
* Great cameras
* Beautiful Display

What we didn’t like:
* Chipset is a carryover
* Loads of bloatware

vivo V40 5G specs:
6.78-inch 1.5K AMOLED display
2800 x 1260 pixels, 120Hz refresh, 452 ppi
4500 nits local peak brightness
Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3
4nm, 8-cores, up to 2.63GHz
12GB LPDDR4x RAM (+12GB extended memory)
256GB, 512GB UFS 2.2 storage
Dual rear cameras (tuned by ZEISS):
– 50MP f/1.88 main, OIS
– 50MP f/2,0 ultrawide, 119° FoV
– Flicker sensor, Aura Light
50MP f/2.0 selfie camera, autofocus (hole punch notch)
Dual nano SIM (supports eSIM)
5G, 4G LTE
Dual frequency Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 5.4
GPS, BeiDou, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS
USB Type-C (USB 2.0)
NFC
Under-display fingerprint sensor
IP68 dust and water resistance
Dual stereo speakers
Funtouch OS 14 (Android 14)
5500mAh battery
80W charging (wired)
164.16 × 74.93 × 7.58 mm
190g
Stellar Silver, Nebula Purple, Sunglow Peach