vivo has made great strides with its Y series phones recently. The Y100 impressed us with its 80w fast charging and a bright 120hz AMOLED display, while the Y03 proved that vivo has a competitive budget phone at an under Php 5k price point. The Y28 is the latest budget offering from vivo that wants to prove that it is a great budget phone for under Php 10k.

After using the vivo Y28 for over a week, we share the things we like about vivo’s latest budget offering:

It has a huge 6000mAh battery with 44w charging. One of the headlining features of the Y28 is that it comes with a huge 6000mAh battery inside while supporting vivo’s 44w FlashCharge at the same time. It’s a very rare combination to see at an under Php 10k price point, and it shows: we got a score of 19 hours and 53 minutes in PCMark’s battery benchmark test, which easily translates to more than a day of use before needing to charge the battery—or even as much as 2 days if you’re a light user. 

The Y28 is more than having a huge battery, as having support for 44w charging also means that you don’t need to wait long to top up that battery. Based on our tests, it took us around 1.5 hours to fully charge the battery—an impressive figure for a budget phone

 

It boasts a class-leading IP64 rating. These days, even the most affordable phone gets at least an IP53 rating for adequate protection against dust and water. The Y28 steps things up with an IP64 rating, which translates to this budget phone being dust-tight—and that’s despite it still having a headphone jack. Considering the Y28’s price point, it is the only budget phone that’s available in the Philippines to have an IP rating that you’d normally associate with mid-range phones. 

 

Its display can handle outdoor lighting. One of our frustrations with budget phones is their display’s visibility when using them outdoors. The Y28 joins several new budget phones that offer a better display, thanks to its 1000nits high brightness mode that lets you use the phone under the sunlight with good legibility. 

Aside from a good maximum brightness range, the Y28 also has a Wet Touch feature that makes navigating through it possible even if the display is damp, along with a 90hz refresh rate to make the navigation experience smooth and fluid. 

 

The Dynamic Light and stereo speakers adds a dash of flair. The Y28 has a nice design for a budget phone, and we love it in this Gleaming Orange colorway. Aside from the accents in the camera module that take inspiration from luxury watches, the Y28 has an LED notification light called Dynamic Light. This subtle, circular LED lights up when you get a notification, and you can even program it to match the beat of the music you’re listening to or to the video you’re watching on the Y28.

This fun feature makes the Y28 a statement piece, easily informing everyone that you’re enjoying that Pop song that’s playing through Spotify. Speaking of being fun, the Y28 also has stereo speakers to blast your favorite tunes with a decent soundstage, support for Hi-Res Audio,  300% audio booster. Paired with the Dynamic Light feature, the Y28 is a budget phone that can be the life of the party. 

 

Its main camera punches above its rivals. One thing we give credit to vivo for its recent Y series phones is how it maximizes the camera hardware to take great shots. The Y28 is no exception, as it takes great photos in most lighting conditions with its 50-megapixel main camera.

The Y28’s main camera also supports 2x digital zoom—and with good lighting conditions, we were able to take decent shots at 2x zoom, which is not bad for a budget phone. 

Paired with an excellent battery life, the Y28 is a wallet-friendly phone that you can consider if you’re a shutterbug. 

All of these features–along with a still-capable Helio G85 processor and other value-added features like a side-mounted fingerprint scanner and Android 14 out of the box–makes the Y28 another decent budget offering from vivo.

The vivo Y28 is priced at Php 7,999 for the 128GB variant and Php 9,999 for the 256GB variant. They are available at official vivo Stores nationwide and online in Lazada and Shopee.