Does battery capacity equate to better overall battery life? Is fast charging a critical feature? How does power efficiency work for smartphones?
These are some queries that many smartphone users often hear or encounter but get confused about.
To give you some clarity regarding this technical mumbo-jumbo, allow us to show you some real-world examples with the freshly released vivo Y100.
By the end of this article, you will have a better understanding of why smartphones like the vivo Y100 are able to balance design (thickness and weight), engineering (battery technology), and system optimization (software features) in order to achieve the best user experience.
To start off, you’ll be impressed by how thin (7.79mm) and light (186 grams) this device is. Yet, it managed to pack a generous 5,000mAh battery.
Take note, though, that “bigger battery capacity does not always equate to longer battery life”.
There are several factors to consider – this includes the chipset, charging protocol, and software optimization. Even the charging brick or adapter that came in the box plays a significant role.
In order to give you a better idea – we put the vivo Y100 to a real-world test to see how it performs in the battery department and how it managed to achieve that.
Now, let’s go ahead and tackle the whole gang:
Table of Contents
I. Chipset
What exactly is a system-on-a-chip (SoC) or chipset? Most people would oftentimes mistake it for the processor or the CPU. Close, but not entirely correct.
The chipset is a traffic enforcer. To elaborate, it manages how data flows between several components running your phone.
It helps the processor’s cores, graphics card, memory, and storage run together smoothly. Think of it as the glue that holds the family together!
In the case of the vivo Y100, it runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 685 based on a 6nm process technology.
This chipset is notably optimized for power efficiency with a total of 8 CPU cores:
- Four (4) ARM Cortex-A73 performance cores running up to 2.8GHz
- Four (4) ARM Cortex-A53 power-efficient cores running up to 1.9GHz.
- An Adreno 619 GPU
With the vivo Y100, it comes with 8GB of RAM + 8GB Extended RAM and 256GB of internal storage. You can expand this to up to 1TB of storage via a hybrid microSD slot.
The Cortex-A73 performance cores power the active apps and games, with the help of the GPU. The Cortex-A55 power-efficient cores run most of the background and in-active apps.
The Cortex-A55 is very energy efficient and uses less power to run the background apps. That means less battery consumption and longer device usage.
Again, take note – the type of chipset and the included power-efficient cores allow the smartphone to run your favorite apps or games for much longer.
II. Charging Technology
At the end of the day, your smartphone will run out of battery with continued use, so you’ll eventually pick up the charger.
Your smartphone’s charging technology mitigates this downtime. The sooner you can charge your phone, the sooner you can go back to using and enjoying it.
At a certain capacity, the chipset can monitor charging speed and device temperature to help your phone perform well.
The vivo Y100 comes with an 80W FlashCharge support. The higher that number, the faster your phone can juice back up.
Here are the charging settings indicated in the charger that came with the unit:
20V = 4A or 80W
11V = 7.3A or 80W
9V = 2A or 18W
This charging protocol optimizes your charging rates while also favoring the overall battery health span of the vivo Y100.
The vivo Y100 also features a SuperCharge Pump that is customized for the USB Type-C cable and the travel charger. So, yes, please use your phone’s respective charging bricks to maximize this feature.
To clarify further, we’ll discuss how the charging protocol via power output works.
At the start (0% battery), the Y100 charges at full throttle – with 80W of output as advertised. Here, you will see the battery charges very fast (27% in 10 minutes and 38% in 15 minutes).
Once it reaches around 50% battery charge (around the 20-minute mark), charging slows down a little bit until it reaches around 70% (30-minute mark). Within this period, the device’s temperature might increase a bit.
The system detects this and adjusts the current that it allows the battery to take in (in the table, from a high of 7.3A to 4A, to a low 2A). By making these adjustments, it is able to control or manage the temperature of the battery.
Taking less power is a safety measure against overheating, which could harm the battery, and ultimately the device. In simpler terms, it’s a charging protocol that understands you need power, but knows better than to hurt itself.
III. Software Optimization
For reference, these software-specific optimizations are featured under Funtouch OS 14. Under the Battery tab in Settings, you’ll see a bar of your battery life and how much uptime it has.
Users also have toggles for Battery Saver and Super Battery Saver. Enabling Battery Saver will limit or turn off background activities, some visual effects, and certain features.
As for Super Battery Saver, it restricts the functionality of your phone and lowers its overall performance. Take note, only a number of apps are available to use under this mode.
Below this toggle, there’s also a button that tells you whether or not your apps are performing normally. However, if apps end up using too much, the Y100 will suggest taking actions here.
Moving on, we have a button for background power consumption management.
Most apps are usually set to smart control, automatically adjusting the app’s background activity according to your usage habits. You also have options to restrict or not restrict an app’s background activity, which could affect power consumption.
Next, we have a tab for battery health and charging, which is pretty straightforward. It just gives you a rundown of your maximum battery capacity, with toggles for fast charging and optimizing battery life.
Out-of-the-box, the vivo Y100 is set to optimize battery life, learning your charging habits to make smart adjustments.
As for the fast charging toggle, it gives a warning that turning it on will make the phone warmer. If users disable this, charging speed will be adjusted if the device temperature becomes too high.
As for the last button, we have battery style and percentage. This is essentially a user interface setting. Users can choose a logo orientation for how you want to view your current battery level.
Opt for a vertical, landscape, or circular battery indicator that you can see on the top right of the phone’s display.
Users can also toggle between battery percentage indicators. Choose whether or not you want to see the actual number of battery percentage available. You can even choose to display it outside or inside the battery icon.
On the bottom half of the Battery tab under Settings, the Y100 shows a graph of your weekly battery usage. It shows your uptime since the device was last fully charged along with your current screen time.
Additionally, there’s also a leaderboard below for power consumption rankings. Users can view this by apps or by systems.
IV. The Battery Test
The vivo Y100 is powered by a 5,000mAh battery, featuring the aforementioned 80W of FlashCharge technology with SuperCharge Pump feature.
We took the liberty to take some practical tests for the Y100, and we’re here with results from mixed usage variables.
First, in PCMark’s Work 3.0 Battery Life test, the vivo Y100 performed for 16 hours and 8 minutes.
As for our video loop test, the device had a solid uptime of 21 hours and 40 minutes. This is playing a full HD movie at 50% brightness and in airplane mode.
To a certain extent, I think the vivo Y100’s 120Hz AMOLED Dotch Display played a part in these great battery results.
This is because AMOLED panels save power when displaying darker colors by turning off individual pixels.
In our next test, we focused on gaming. We found that the Y100 can provide users with 7 hours and 19 minutes of gameplay.
This test was conducted with brightness and volume set to 50% over a Wi-Fi connection. I also have to give my props to the Y100’s dual stereo speaker and audio booster for this.
It made for an enjoyable gaming experience where I didn’t even feel like I was playing with less volume. I should also mention that this phone features up to 300% in volume increase, which was tempting, to say the least.
But anyway, I’m sure people are probably thinking, how fast does the phone charge from zero?
Charging with the vivo Y100’s smart charging toggled on, the phone takes 1 hour and 4 minutes to charge from 0 to 100%.
But with the 80W of FlashCharge fast charging toggled on, the Y100 takes only 34.5 minutes to charge from 0 to 80%.
This is where the Y100 shines – the FlashCharge technology works as promised and we’re able to take the phone and bring it to full use with just a little over half an hour of charging.
Imagine, when you wake up in the morning and find out your Y100 is fully drained. By the time you finish brushing your teeth and taking a bath, you’ll already be 50% changed. Once you’re done with breakfast, you’re all set and fully charged for the entire day.
V. Final Thoughts
A lot of thought has been put into developing the vivo Y100. It strikes a great balance between form factor, engineering and optimization.
As for the vivo Y100, we can attest that it’s a solid pickup for what it offers. It’s optimized to perform well, with a LOT of work put into it behind the scenes.
Not to mention, it has this nice Photochromic Appearance feature that changes the phone’s color under UV light.
It sports a good chipset, complemented by user experience catered system optimizations, and a solid battery and charging protocol to boot.
These parts work together to give us a well-rounded smartphone with a highly appreciated balance at a modest price.
You can now grab the vivo Y100 with a starting price of Php12,499 (8GB+128GB) or Php13,999 for the 8GB+256GB variant.
Simply visit any of the ff. sites and online stores:
Website: https://bit.ly/vivo_Y100-Website
Shopee: https://bit.ly/vivo_Y100-SHP
Lazada: https://bit.ly/vivo_Y100-LZD
TikTok: https://bit.ly/vivo_Y100-TikTok
