Vivo V5s Hands-on, First Impressions

Vivo has just officially launched its latest offering and just as the trend goes in the smartphone scene, the newest handset caters to the selfie-centric crowd and it comes with an ‘s’ in its name. Here’s our hands-on with the Vivo V5s.

The Vivo V5s is the successor of the Vivo V5 with just minor upgrades hence the additional ‘s’ in its name. It still has a 5.5-inch display with a 1280 x 720 resolution topped with 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass. On top of the display is the 20MP front-facing camera with a f/2.0 aperture for your bright and high-resolution selfies, while down at the bottom is the fingerprint scanner.

The sides of the phones are kept clean with minimal antenna lines blending with the unibody design of the V5s. Both the volume rocker and power/lock button are on the right. On left is just the hybrid card tray for the SIM and microSD card.

The top of the phone is virtually clean because the 3.5mm port, microUSB port, and the loudspeaker grilles are all located at the bottom end.

The back of the phone shows the refreshed design of the V5s. It shows a similar design with its more expensive sibling, the Vivo V5 Plus, or as most would say — like an iPhone 7. Here sits the 13MP PDAF rear camera with its LED flash. We do find the placement of the rear camera to be a bit off to the top but it’s just us nitpicking.

Here are some early samples we were able to take during the launch using the front and rear cameras:

: Front camera w/o beautification

: Front camera w/ beautification set in default

: Rear camera

Powering the handset is MediaTek’s MT6750 octa-core chipset clocked at 1.5GHz. It’s then paired with a whopping 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage. The phone supports 4G LTE but there’s no mention of 700MHz support.

A Vivo phone must have a Hi-Fi DAC chip onboard and we have here again the AK4376 audio chip. Lastly, running on the handset is Funtouch OS 3.0 that based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow

With the Vivo V5s, you’re getting an upgraded storage to 64GB, the latest Funtouch OS 3.0, and new unibody design. For that, it’s priced at Php14,990USD 255INR 21,655EUR 243CNY 1,860 which is Php2k more than its predecessor with about the same specs.

Vivo V5s specs:
5.5-inch HD IPS display, 267ppi
2.5D curved Gorilla Glass
1.5GHz MediaTek MT6750 octa-core CPU
4GB RAM
64GB storage
microSD card support
13MP PDAF rear camera w/ LED flash
20MP front camera w/ Moonlight Glow
Dual-SIM
4G LTE
WiFi
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS, A-GPS
Gyro
USB OTG
FM Radio
Hi-Fi AK4376 audio chip
Fingerprint scanner
Funtouch OS 3.0 (Android 6.0 Marshmallow)
3,000mAh battery
153.8 x 75.5 x 7.55 mm
154 g

We’ll be taking the Vivo V5s for a full spin. Stay tuned for our review.

Daniel Morial

This article was contributed by Daniel Morial, a film school graduate and technology enthusiast. He's the geeky encyclopedia and salesman among his friends for anything tech.