We check out the latest V-series phone from vivo!
While all eyes are on the NEX 3 flagship, another vivo smartphone is about to enter the limelight. The V17 Pro is the latest mid-range phone from the Chinese company, and much like other mid-range phones release recently, it has four cameras in the rear. It’s the most premium phone to come from their V-series lineup and is the company’s new weapon in the escalating mid-range wars.
Unboxing and packaging contents
The color of the box depends on the color variant you are getting. Since we have the Crystal White variant, you get a white box with the silhouette of the V17 Pro in front, highlighting its six cameras: two in the front and four in the back.
Inside the box, you get the phone itself, 18w fast charger, headset, USB-C cable, documentation, SIM ejector pin, and a white hard case.
Is V the new X?
One of the few things that immediately caught our attention is the V17 Pro’s overall build. Instead of polycarbonate, the V17 Pro now sports an aluminum frame and glass back. You’d easily mistake the V17 Pro as the X27 Pro since they look similar, visually—except that the V17 Pro has four rear cameras and two cameras in its pop-up module. The glass back is protected by a transparent film for your peace of mind that you can easily remove. If you want better protection, just use the supplied hard case—though using the hard case would mean covering the gorgeous pearlescent finish.
Regardless if you choose to use the hard case or not (it is NOT easy to remove the case from the phone, mind you), the V17 Pro has virtually no camera bump so you can place the phone flat on the table without any worries.
For the port layout, you have a dedicated Google Assistant button on the left side, power and volume controls on the right side, headphone jack and pop-up module on top, and a loudspeaker, NanoSIM tray, and USB-C port at the bottom. While we are happy that vivo is finally using USB-C, it did at the expense of axing the MicroSD card slot.
That’s one HUGE pop-up module
The V17 Pro’s crown jewel is its pop-up module that houses not just one but two front cameras, along with an LED fill flash and an earpiece. The dual front camera setup comprises of a 32-megapixel f/2.0 main camera and an 8-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera with a 105-degree field of view. Despite its size, the pop-up mechanism extends and retracts in less than a second.
Thanks to its pop-up mechanism, you still get the same 6.39-inch Full HD+ AMOLED notch-less display found on the V15 Pro. Like its predecessor, you get skinny bezels, along with an in-display fingerprint scanner that is slightly faster than the one found on the V15 Pro.
Familiar internals
Powering the phone is a Snapdragon 675 processor paired with 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage, with the V17 Pro’s using speedier UFS 2.1. The V17 Pro is expected to have roughly the same performance and benchmark scores as the V15 Pro, though we have to run our usual set of tests to see if there are any improvements.
While it has roughly the same set of internals, you get a bigger 4100mAh battery with the V17 Pro, along with vivo’s 18w dual engine fast charging.
Off to quad rear cameras
Rounding up the V17 Pro’s camera-centric design is its quad rear camera setup that consists of a 48-megapixel f/1.8 Sony main camera, 8-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera, 2-megapixel f/2.4 macro camera, and 2-megapixel f/2.4 depth sensor.
We took the V17 Pro for a quick spin at Masungi Georeserve, and we generally got well-detailed photos with a good amount of dynamic range and decent color reproduction.
For videos, you can shoot HD and Full HD video at up to 60FPS and 4K video at 30FPS, while EIS works up to Full HD. Check out some sample clips we shot at 4K:
We will need more time to test the V17 Pro’s cameras to see if it lives up to its photography-centric reputation, so watch out for our full review soon.
We should know more about the V17 Pro and its official price come October 9.
vivo V17 Pro Specs
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 octa-core processor
- 8GB RAM
- 6.44-inch Full HD+ AMOLED Ultra FullView display, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 2340×1080 resolution
- 128GB of expandable storage (up to 256GB)
- Quad rear cameras: 48-megapixel f/1.8 main camera; 8-megapixel f2.2 ultra-wide-angle; 2-megapixel f/2.4 depth-sensor; 2-megapixel f/2.4 macro camera; with PDAF, Dual Tone LED flash, AI Scene Recognition, Super Night Mode
- Pop-up dual front cameras: 32-megapixel f/2.0 main camera, 8-megapixel 105-degree super wide-angle camera; with Selfie Softlight, Night Selfie
- Dual SIM
- 4G, LTE, VoLTE
- WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC
- GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS
- In-display fingerprint sensor, Jovi assistant, USB-C
- 4100mAh battery with 18W fast charging
- Android 9 Pie with FunTouch OS 9.1