Vivo Y70 Review - New quality mid-range phone | TechBuyGuide
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Vivo Y70 Review – New quality mid-range phone

Vivo launches mid-ranged Y70 on the European market and in the UK.

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Vivo is finally launching a new mid-range phone Vivo Y70 on the European market and we can now see if it will outrun its rivals in Xiaomi or Huawei.

Although Vivo is one of the world’s biggest phone manufacturers it is not a well-known brand in the western market just yet. There has been an announcement made a couple of months ago about Vivo expanding from Asian to European Market specifically interested in tech markets in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain.

See also: New Xiaomi Mi 11 officially launches and it’s a beast.

Vivo is a consumer electronic company founded in Chinese  Dongguan, Guangdong as a subsidiary of BBK Electronics, the large Chinese conglomerate which owns all sorts of electronics brands together with well-known mobile phone brands such as Oppo, OnePlus, Realm iQOO and Vivo.

Vivo Y70: Design and construction

Vivo.com

As we can see, the new Vivo Y70 sticks to a design that is very similar to other mid-range phones from the Asian ‘colleague’ Realme. This may not necessarily be a bad thing for those who like shiny rainbow colours and don’t mind a back case made of plastic. Even the vertical rectangle camera module sticks out of the body, being very close to the one in Realme 7.

The phone with its 161 x 74,1 x 7,8 mm dimension will fit well in hand, mostly thanks to an average thickness, as the phone manufacturers have finally accepted the truth that we don’t really need a 1mm razor blades-like thin phones. Even though 171g weight doesn’t put the phone in the ultralight category, it won’t certainly be too noticeable.

There is also a black colour variant for those who don’t like the shiny pearl blue. The phone also comes with a protection foil already applied on its screen and a protective silicone case in the box.

Vivo Y70: Hardware

The Vivo Y70’s dominating factor is a 6,44″ AMOLED display with FullHD (1080 x 2400) resolution at a satisfying 409 ppi (pixels per inch). The display itself supports an HDR enhancement and brightness of 412 nits with a 2 000 000:1 contrast ratio, which will surely come in handy in outdoor use. The display is slightly curved with wide viewing angles. According to many reviewers, the used display panel is truly among the best in the mid-range category.

Vivo.com

Vivo even didn’t forget on Always-on technology to show your notifications even though the rest of the display is currently turned off. Even though its functions are more limited than the one in Samsung phones with this technology, it is certainly an advantage compared to other models in this range. The display runs also only on 60Hz frequency, which is not particularly bad but at least 90Hz would certainly add it to attractivity.

Under the hood, we will find the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 running at up to 2Ghz with Adreno 610 graphics having a good 8GB RAM for its disposal. This is chipset was for example used in the last year’s Oppo A9, Redmi Note 8 or Moto G8 Plus. In the AnTuTu benchmark, the Vivo Y70 has reached 183 562 points which is not astounding and the competitors are getting better scores but it will still do fine for regular use and less demanding games.

Image credit: elandroidelibre.com

We can’t forget to mention its storage capacity which is natively a pleasant 128GB with an option to expand it with additional MicroSD cards.

Vivo Y70: Features

As for other hardware, we’ve got here Bluetooth 5.0, GPS/A-GPS/GLONASS/Beidou/Galileo, NFC, 3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio or fingerprint sensor.

The fingerprint sensor is not the fastest we’ve seen (perhaps due to used optical technology here as it’s hidden under the screen) as there is a noticeable delay between touching the sensor and actual unlocking of the phone. On the other hand, it behaves very reliably, as Face ID which is here also present and works surprisingly well and quick.

Vivo.com

The Vivo Y70 is a dual-SIM device with 2 Nano-sized card slots, separately from the MicroSD slot, so you will avoid the struggle of having to choose which you’d like to use.

What might be a letdown for some is the absence of 5G network connectivity. There might still be enough time, though, till the 5G will be available in most of the large cities, never mind the countryside. Perhaps due to saving costs, the phone doesn’t provide any (water or dust) resistance, although it will surely survive some rainy weather. Frankly, the low IP resistances in other mid-range models don’t provide any extensive protection either.

Vivo Y70: Battery and charging

Vivo.com

The Vivo Y70’s has a 4100mAh battery, which is more or less typical for today’s phones. It also supports a fast 33W FlashCharge charging via USB-C charging adapter, which is included in the box. The battery life will last you around a day and a half with regular use with the Battery Saver function turned on, and just about a day with extensive use, such as gaming or long video streaming.

As some tests suggest, the battery went down by only 9% in 1 hour while streaming Full HD video. As for fast charging, you get from 0-60% in about half an hour, and it takes just over an hour to reach the full 100% capacity.

Vivo Y70: Android 10

The Vivo Y70 kicks off on Android 10 with FunTouch OS launcher, which design is unlike One UI or EMUI very much like the one in the native Android 10 with very few changes to its style, such as animation controls. There also aren’t many pre-installed applications and you can get rid of most of them if you don’t intend to use them.

Vivo Y70: Camera and video

At the back of the Vivo Y70, you will find a trio camera module with a 48MP main sensor with f/1.8 aperture and two accompanying lenses for the bokeh effect and macro with 2MP (f/2.4) sensors.

Vivo.com

The 16MP (f/2.0 aperture) selfie camera is built into a small rounded notch in the middle of the screen.

Needless to say that this is a mid-range phone and the camera expectations cannot be unreasonably high. during good lighting conditions the photos come out very well, don’t suffer from blurry edges or any extensive image noise. Photos are not always the brightest, which you can always edit in post-processing. Surely better than if they come out too bright with poor colours.

Compare photos with HDR turned off (left) and HDR on (right) (Image credit: elandroidelibre.com)

The camera also features 2x digital zoom, which is usable only in really good lightning conditions as it tends to lose focus when it gets darker outside.

Compare photos with night mode off (left) and on (right) (Image credit: elandroidelibre.com)

The macro functionality will however not give you any satisfying results. The same case might be for nighttime photography as the photos come out dark, with image noise and blurred details.

The main camera is capable of recording video in 4K at 30fps, but might be good only for some occasional memorabilia or home shooting as the camera lacks image stabilisation and the footage will come out rather shaky. It gets even worse during night conditions as the video image gets noisier and struggles to focus.

Vivo Y70: Price, Availability and Verdict

Vivo.com

The Vivo Y70 is currently the top phone out of all introduced on the European market by the brand so far and will surely get its customers here as its not a bad device.

The Vivo Y70 is currently available to purchase in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain, as well as in around 100 other countries around the world. In the UK, you can buy the Vivo Y70 for example on Amazon for a price of £279.00. In other European countries, it comes a bit cheaper at around €279.

Buy Vivo Y70 on Amazon for £279

Yes, with last year’s chipset, lack of 5G and poor camera it might not be an award-winning phone, but if you don’t care about these, for quite a good price you will get a smartphone with a very good screen, NFC, fingerprint sensor and Face ID, good 128GB memory and even 3.5mm audio jack, and good battery with fast charging support. All this is wrapped in a modern style chassis.

In the final verdict, the Vivo Y70 is well made a mid-range phone with more pros than cons, which could definitely compete with smartphones such as Samsung Galaxy A41 or A51.

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