Initial verdict: Despite having roughly the same specs as the V27, the vivo V29 introduces a few quality-of-life upgrades that are well-appreciated for the mid-range market in the Philippines.

Pros

-IP54 rating at last

-Faster charging speeds

-Best-in-class display resolution

 

Cons

-Processor feels like a slight downgrade

After making a hit with the V27 5G a few months ago, vivo wants to follow that up in the Philippines with the arrival of the V29. While they look the same as far as core features are concerned, the V29 adds a few upgrades that further improves upon what the V27 5G already has.

 

vivo V29 Philippines: Unboxing and packaging contents

Like with the V27 5G, you get a silver box with the V29 that has the usual vivo and model name branding. This time, the V29 branding is placed in the center, with a halo surrounding it to highlight the upgraded Aura Light–more on that later.

Inside the box, you have the usual contents: the phone itself, documentation, TPU case, USB-C cable, and a faster 80w charging brick.

vivo V29 Philippines: Design

The V29 does not steer away from the core design of the V27 5G–that includes the slim frame design, curved AMOLED display, and the glossy back panel finish. vivo made some tweaks to the camera module, where you have two prominent circles for the main and ultra-wide cameras, and a third circle for the Aura Light. The V29 still has a triple rear camera setup–the depth sensor is just a small circle right below the LED flash.

Yes, you read that right: this time around, the V29 has two different LED lights at the back–the Aura Light has an adjustable color temperature that’s useful in making it more versatile for taking portraits.

Our review unit is in purple, and it has a gradient finish that transitions from white on top to light purple towards below. There’s also a wave pattern that gives it an added aesthetic touch to the back panel.

While the button and port layout is practically the same with the V27 5G, the V29 5G adds an IP54 rating. This makes it a rare vivo phone to have the said IP rating–and its nice that the brand is making this a standard feature in most of its phones.

Unlike the European variants of the V29, the one that’s coming to the Philippines does not have support for eSIM–instead, you get the usual dual SIM slot on its SIM tray.

 

vivo V29 Philippines: Display

From afar, you’d have a hard time differentiating the displays of both the V27 5G and V29 since they both use a 6.78-inch 120hz curved AMOLED panel that delivers vibrant and accurate colors, along with deep blacks. the only difference is with the resolution: on the V29, you are getting a 1.5K display resolution that’s more detailed than the Full HD+ resolution offered on the V27.

While the higher resolution translates to a better watching experience, we’ll have to see how this will affect battery life–there’s not setting to tone it down to Full HD+, so the V29 will always run at 1.5K resolution.

 

vivo V29 Philippines: Cameras

Despite the different layout, the V29 retains the same set of cameras found on the V27 5G–which is not a bad thing, as the V27 5G’s cameras are proven to be one of the most optimized setups for a mid-range phone.

To recap, the front camera is a 50-megapixel ISOCELL JN1 with Eye Autofocus, while the rear setup consists of a 50-megapixel IMX766V main camera with OIS, 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and 2-megapixel depth sensor. With the same setup, you can shoot 4K video on both the front and main rear cameras–making the V29 a capable phone for content creation.

The main upgrade on the V29’s camera setup is vivo’s Aura Portrait Light, which has more functionality this time. It’s more versatile on the V29 because you can adjust the color temperature of the Aura Light to suit your current lighting conditions for better portrait shots. This is a very intriguing feature to have on a smartphone, and we will definitely put that to the test to see if the adjustable color temperature does make a difference.

 

vivo V29 Philippines: Internals

One of the biggest differences between the V29 over its predecessor is the processor of choice, where vivo went back to team Qualcomm with the use of a Snapdragon 778G processor. While people may argue that the Snapdragon 778G is a downgrade to the V27 5G’s Dimensity 7200, the mid-range Qualcomm chip is a tried-and-tested processor, especially for its ISP.

In addition to that, the Snapdragon 778G is just as capable of handling multitasking and heavy gaming. A lot of brands still use this processor on their phones in 2023, which shows that the Snapdragon 778G is one of the better chips Qualcomm has designed in recent years.

As for its RAM and storage, our review unit came with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, though we were told that vivo will also offer the V29 in the Philippines with 512GB storage. The battery capacity remains the same at 4600mAh, but the V29 benefits from faster wired charging speeds at 80w.

 

vivo V29 Philippines: Wrap-up and initial verdict

Despite being more of an incremental upgrade over the already-good V27 5G, the V29 introduces a number of quality-of-life improvements that make it better overall. The biggest question is how much vivo plans to price the V29 in the Philippines–especially given that the V27 5G’s under Php 25k price point made it a solid mid-range phone for what it offers.

 

vivo V29 Philippines: Price

There’s no official pricing and availability yet for the V29, so stay tuned to the coming days for updates.