vivo V30 Pro 5G Review

The vivo V29 series is still a relatively new phone following its launch late last year. It featured a fair price point, great cameras, and the new Aura Light 2.0 system; no doubt it became a popular smartphone in the mid-range segment.

Now, just months after the launch of the V29 series, vivo Philippines has introduced the successor to the V29. The all-new vivo V30 series, and today, we’re checking out the top-spec V30 Pro 5G.

Unlike the jump from the V27 to the V29, vivo made a lot more changes to the design of the all-new V30 Pro 5G. But aside from a makeover, vivo also made several changes to improve performance, and more importantly the camera on the V30 Pro. That’s not all though, there’s also a bump in price.

But given how capable the V29 still is, would it be worth it to upgrade already? Well, read on to find out.

Design and Construction

Let’s start with the design of the vivo V30 Pro 5G, which looks great. Gone is the old design language with the slim camera housing. Now, the triple rear camera system is enclosed in a square black housing.

The new Aura Light 3.0 system is the other “square” below the camera housing. Yes, that surround lights up. Also, did you notice the Zeiss logo? We’ll discuss the camera in more detail later.

But aside from the new camera housing, vivo also made the phone a lot slimmer than before. Compared to the 7.5mm thin V29 5G, the V30 Pro 5G now measures 7.45mm. Like before you do get a curved design to help you grip the phone better. It’s lighter too now weighing just 185g. As a result, it is nice to hold and feels very premium.

Of course, we also have to talk about the design of the back panel itself. Our unit is finished in the Petals White colorway, which looks stunning. While it is called white, it does have hints of blue in it too, giving it a nice relaxing color.

Like before, the volume rocker and power button are on the right side. A the bottom, you’ll find a dual-sim card slot, a USB-C port, and a single downward-firing loudspeaker. The left and top are left clean like before.

The frosted and matte finish also helps prevent leaving any nasty fingerprints as well. Perfect since you wouldn’t want to hide the beautiful design with a phone case.

Display and Multimedia

From the back, let’s flip the phone over and you’re greeted by a 6.78-inch 1.5K 3D curved AMOLED display. Like before, it still comes with a 120Hz refresh rate, making it great for users, and more importantly gamers. But what did surprise us was the maximum brightness of the screen.

According to vivo, the peak local brightness can reach up to a maximum of 2800 nits, while maximum overall brightness is rated at 1200 nits. And by maxing out the brightness of the display, it is bright. Even when we used it in the afternoon in direct sunlight, we didn’t have any issues with seeing the display.

This means you can easily check out all of the photos you took on the phone anytime, anywhere. It’s worth mentioning that the colors are great too even when color mode is just set to standard. But if you want more vivid colors, you can set it to Bright. While there is also a Pro in the color mode, the colors do seem less saturated and the temperature becomes warm.

Aside from photos, the 6.78-inch display is also great for watching videos, whether its the one you took or on YouTube and Netflix. The only downside is that the loudspeaker isn’t the best. You only have a single mono loudspeaker, which you can easily cover up with your fingers.

While the loudspeaker is loud and clear, I do wish vivo gave this phone stereo loudspeakers to give users a better listening experience. Then again, you can always just pair your favorite Bluetooth headphones or earphones with it.

Cameras

Now, let’s talk about the highlight of the vivo V30 Pro 5G – the cameras. That Zeiss logo isn’t just there to flex, this phone takes great photos and videos. The triple rear camera is highlighted by a 50MP main shooter that uses Sony’s IMX920 sensor. You also get a 50MP telephoto lens that uses Sony’s IMX 816 sensor and a 50MP ultrawide with a JN1 sensor.

Yep, the V30 Pro 5G comes with three 50 MP rear cameras for various applications. This ensures whatever subject you’re taking photos of, you can be certain the image will come out great. And the images we were able to capture show that.

Whether you’re using the ultrawide, zoom, or just regular photo mode, you get stunning images that are sharp all around. Like before, vivo’s algorithm does a great job of adjusting the colors so that they’re not too saturated or overly edited.

You can even choose the color mode from vivid, textured, and Zeiss. For reference, the photos we took were set to Zeiss mode since I found them to have the best colors for my liking. If you want rich and vivid images though, I recommend setting it to either vivid or textured.

Even when you zoom up to 20x, it’s still very much usable. Although it’s worth mentioning the quality and sharpness start dropping off when you go beyond 4x zoom. It also goes down when shooting in a low-light environment, but that’s to be expected. However, at the standard 1x zoom, you can capture nice photos even at night.

While there is night mode, I didn’t find the need to use it even when taking photos at night. The camera automatically does the work for me, and the photos come out still sharp. You don’t get the overly edited and you still retain the details even when you try to pixel peep. However, it’s not as sharp in the day or well-lit environments.

At the same time, you also have the new Aura Light 3.0 system to work with. It’s great when taking portrait photos of people in darkly lit areas, and like before you can adjust the setting to your liking. This time, it’s a lot brighter too, making it easier to light up dark areas if you’re shooting some scenery. Adjust the color and you can get some really mood shots.

As for the front camera, you also get a 50MP shooter which takes great selfie images. Although given how great the rear cameras are, I think most would rather use the rear camera and take a Gen-Z selfie with the Aura Light.

In terms of video, the rear camera can record at a maximum of 4K@60FPS. There is OIS with two stabilization modes to work with – standard and ultra. The standard stabilization works even at 4K@30FPS, however, Ultra only works at 1080P.

If you want some cinematic shots, you can do it with the standard stabilization but you do need steady hands to work with. Otherwise, you might need Ultra to capture silky smooth video if you don’t have a gimbal. Like the photos, you get great video quality both during the day and night, and the zoom is workable as well.

However, there is no color mode to choose from like in photo mode. But that doesn’t mean you don’t get to capture nice footage. To give you an idea of just how capable this camera is, check out our sample photos and videos.

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the vivo V30 Pro is a MediaTek Dimensity 8200 chipset. Our unit comes with 12GB of RAM with up to 12GB of dynamic RAM expansion and 512GB of storage. For reference, this is the only variant available in the Philippines.

Given the capability of the Dimensity 8200, we’re not surprised that it can run day-to-day tasks without any issues whatsoever. Despite having multiple apps running in the background along with games, you can quickly switch to another application, and it will run well. Perfect if you’re going about your day and then you need to take a quick snap of your environment.

But it’s the gamers who will enjoy the chipset the most. You can easily run graphic-intensive titles like Genshin Impact on max graphics, and it can run quite well without any slowing down or frame rate drops.

One thing I did notice is that the phone heats up rather quickly when gaming or at least when playing Genshin. After just around 20 minutes of playing Genshin, the phone already heated up.

Although it didn’t seem to affect the gameplay at all, it’s still surprising given the short time I was playing. Then again, this isn’t exactly a gaming phone, being able to run Genshin at max graphics is still a feat in itself.

To give you a better idea, these are the benchmark scores of the vivo V30 Pro 5G.

vivo V30 Pro Benchmarks:
Antutu Benchmark v10: 969,754
Antutu Storage: 80,277
S. Read – 22,678
Speed: 1976.3MB/s
S. Write – 21,129
Speed: 1841.3MB/s
R. Access – 36,740
R. Speed: 493MB/s
W. Speed: 480MB/s

3D Mark Wild Life – 6777

Geekbench 6 CPU
Single: 1219
Multi: 3910

Geekbench 6 GPU
OpenCL – 4542
Vulkan – 4343

OS, Apps, and UI

The vivo V30 Pro 5G runs on Android 14 skinned with Funtouch OS 14. It’s a great OS to use since you get Ultra Game Mode, various personalization options along with the usual host of Android functions.

The personalization options are quite simple, but these allow you to customize the phone to your liking, giving it a more personal touch. These include personalized screen animations, transitions, and even display resolutions. There are also several themes you can choose from, some of which are free but the others are paid.

Like before though, there is a lot of bloatware that comes with the device. These include the Hot Apps and Hot Games folders, which you will likely end up deleting. Other than that though, FunTouch OS is rather fun to use, especially if you’re used to Android 14.

Battery and Connectivity

In terms of battery, vivo upgraded the battery on the V30 Pro, now packing a 5,000mAh battery pack. Given how slim the phone is, I’m surprised that they were able to package it all together. With the larger battery pack, the phone now lasts a lot longer, allowing you to take more photos, video, and play games for extended periods of time.

From my experience with the phone, I was able to use it for an entire day from playing games, running benchmarks, and taking photos and videos, and by the time I got home, I still had around 20 percent of battery life left. Not bad all things considered.

But to give you a better idea, we ran our battery loop test and PCMark’s Work Battery Life test and got 21 hours and 40 mins and 17 hours and 48 minutes, respectively. These are excellent results, and you can be sure that you’ll have enough juice to last you the entire day.

When you do need to recharge the phone, you have an 80W fast charging to work with. But given how long the battery lasts, you probably won’t be charging as often.

In terms of connectivity, the vivo V30 Pro 5G comes with 5G connectivity with the dual nano-SIM slots, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS, and NFC.

Conclusion

So, that wraps up our review of the vivo V30 Pro 5G. But before that, we have to talk about the price. The vivo V30 Pro 5G in 12GB+512GB configuration retails for PHP 34,999, making it a lot more expensive compared to the vivo V29 5G in the same configuration. For reference, the V29 5G retailed at PHP 26,999.

Yes, it’s a big price jump, but the difference in quality can be seen both on the outside and in terms of performance. Now if you were to ask me, if you have the V29 5G and don’t want to cough up PHP 35,000 then you can stick to it. It’s still a great phone.

But, if you’re looking to upgrade from an older model and don’t mind spending more then you can’t go wrong with the V30 Pro 5G. The only downside is that it heats up rather quickly when playing graphic intensive titles, and you’ll have to contend with a mono loudspeaker.

Well, what do you think though? Is it a phone you’ll consider picking up this Q1 2024? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

vivo V30 Pro 5G specs:
6.78-inch 1.5K 3D curved AMOLED display
2800 x 1260 pixels, 120Hz refresh
2800 nits (peak) brightness
MediaTek Dimensity 8200 (4nm)
12GB RAM (up to 12GB dynamic RAM)
512GB storage
Triple rear cameras (co-engineered with ZEISS):
– 50MP Sony IMX920 main
– 50-megapixel Samsung JN1 ultrawide
– 50MP Sony INX816 telephoto
– Aura Light 3.0
50MP selfie shooter
Dual SIM
5G, 4G LTE
Wi-Fi dual-frequency
Bluetooth 5.3
GPS, BeiDou, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS
USB Type-C
NFC
In-screen fingerprint sensor
Funtouch OS 14 (Android 14)
5000mAh battery
80W FlashCharge (wired)
164.36 x 75.1 x 7.45 mm (dimensions)
188 grams (weight)
Petals White, Green Sea