Vivo U3 smartphone review with key features

The world of mobile technologies is changing very rapidly, and in 2019 it is difficult to surprise someone with both crazy technology and inexpensive Chinese devices. Today, more than ever, users are really interested in the "stuffing" of new gadgets and try to choose the one that will be ideal in terms of price / quality. It is also interesting that the level of trust in Chinese manufacturers has grown significantly, and not from scratch, because the companies were really able not only to surprise with their characteristics, but also to raise the quality bar to the level of European competitors.

However, it seems that this stage is gradually starting to recede into the past. I recall the statement of the CEO of Xiaomi that the company is going to get rid of the stamp of the “cheap” manufacturer. And now the first real evidence is visible - a review of the Vivo U3 smartphone with the main characteristics in practice proves that one of the most popular manufacturers of the Middle Kingdom keeps its word (the key competitors Redmi Note 8 and Redmi 8 turned out to be worse in almost all respects and at the same time more expensive). At the same time, it is Vivo, thanks to its innovative solutions and pleasant pricing policy, that can take over the leadership in the budget segment.

Competition

No matter what anyone says, the growing competition between Vivo and Xiaomi can be seen with the naked eye. At the same time, many world communities say about Vivo's decision to play on dumping while the competitor is on the wave of success, and continues to break sales records (even overstating the price tags). Interestingly, the "competition" is extremely beneficial for ordinary buyers, because in addition to being better than a well-known competitor (in terms of cameras, processor, screen size), the new product is also very affordable - the minimum configuration will cost 140, and the top-end one - 170 $ (in China). The most curious thing is that these price tags are even lower than previous Vivo models, which started at $ 200.

New design

Official sales in China began on October 24, so almost everything is already known about the smartphone (it is worth admitting that the manufacturer did not try to hide this information too much). As expected, the smartphone turned out to be typical for modern Chinese gadgets - a large screen, interesting color schemes, a teardrop-shaped camera cutout and, of course, a vertical stripe of cameras. However, upon first acquaintance, the phone does not give rise to a feeling of cheapness or excessively boring design - the body looks quite fresh and impressive, albeit predictable.

At the first acquaintance with the novelty, for some reason the edges of the device and the chin are immediately evident. But at the same time, they cannot be called wide - everything is within the framework of modern fashion, and here the manufacturer himself is probably to blame, who chose not the most successful desktop wallpapers for teaser photos. In real life, a smartphone looks quite common, so this should be taken into account when buying a gadget over the Internet.

The body material is plastic, which is expected for such a price, but outwardly the smartphone looks even more expensive, largely due to the gradient transitions on the back. There are three color variations available - classic black (not looking the best), stylish green and popular blue.

The front of the smartphone has a large screen, above which there is a teardrop-shaped camera cutout in the center, and a small stroke of the chin below.

On the right side panel there are volume rockers and a power button under them. There are no buttons on the left side.

On the back, the phone has a camera sensor strip (three sensors and an LED flash) in the upper left corner. A little to the right of them is a fingerprint scanner, so many may not like it, although it can hardly be called a minus. Going even lower from the triple camera, you can see the vertically executed inscription "Vivo" - nothing unusual, but it looks good (especially on the green and blue versions with gradient transitions).

Interestingly, all the connectors are on the bottom, including USB, and 3.5 mini jack for audio. Next to them are cutouts for the microphone and speaker.

Of the important, it is worth recalling once again that in life Vivo U3 is quite different from the images shown in official presentations and videos.

Camera features

Low-end smartphones always raise some concerns in terms of the quality of their cameras, because good optics cannot be cheap. However, in recent years, mobile phone developers have finally managed to find a compromise between affordable price and sensor capabilities, thanks in large part to new technologies and proper optimization. As for the Vivo U3, everything is very good here, given the initial cost of the device.

So, the smartphone has a triple camera of 16, 8 and 2 megapixels, more details about each of them below:

• The 16-megapixel module (f / 1.78 aperture) is expected to be the main sensor and supports software such as Super Night Mode 2.0 and the irreplaceable HDR function. There is autofocus and face detection function;
• The 8 megapixel module (f / 2.4 aperture) is ultra-wide-angle and is designed for shooting large companies, large objects, and everything that the main camera cannot cover;
• The 2 megapixel module (f / 2.4 aperture) is a so-called depth sensor or macro camera capable of taking pictures from record distances of 2 cm.

It should be said that, despite the price tag, the device can shoot well not only during the day, but in medium light conditions. Photos are bright and vivid with a good level of detail. And when asked how Vivo U3 photographs at night, the answer is rather unexpected - much better than the main competitors, largely due to the Super Night Mode 2.0 function for night shooting and good aperture transmission.

With the front-facing camera, everything is absolutely wonderful - it is not only no worse than the main camera, but even surpasses it. Yes, and a 16 megapixel sensor with an f / 2.0 aperture, this is rather an average level (in the popular Xiaomi Redmi 8, for example, they limited themselves to a modest 8 megapixel sensor).

Video can be shot in a comfortable 1080p resolution at 30fps (both on the main camera and on the selfie camera).

Making a brief conclusion on the cameras, we can say with confidence that "y3" may well become one of the most interesting devices in the budget segment of the outgoing 2019. The support of modern technologies, an excellent balance of sensors and good lens throughput combined with an excellent selfie camera make it very attractive for those who cannot imagine life without photos and want to upgrade their device with minimal investment.

Unexpectedly powerful

Typically, if a smartphone costs less than $ 200, but has good cameras and a large screen, you should expect deplorable performance in terms of performance. But with Vivo U3 2019, not everything is so simple. Obviously, the model was created as a "killer" of Redmi Phones and one should expect some "zest" and features, but in practice everything turned out to be much better - the new product has at least a little, but still a more powerful and modern Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor with Adreno graphics 612 (versus Snapdragon 439 in the G8 and Snapdragon 665 with Adreno 610 in the note 8).

Performance

The budget segment today is a real ring for the world leaders in smartphone sales, because it is here that the successful choice of processors and RAM determines not only the high speed of the device, but also its attractiveness for gamers who choose a device for active games. Needless to say, although the level of iron in smartphones today is quite high and suitable for most everyday tasks, every day more and more people are starting to pay attention to the characteristics, even if they choose a phone for selfies - no one wants to overpay given the huge choice and high competition in the niche.

Vivo y3 is equipped with a fourth generation 11-nanometer Snapdragon 675 processor (developed in 2018), which was initially positioned as a solution for mid-range phones. Inside the "dragon" lies the Kryo 460 chipset, which has eight cores - two at 2 GHz and six energy-efficient cores at 1.7 GHz. The 6th generation GPU Adreno 612 GPU offers good performance (30% more powerful than its predecessor with a pair of Snapdragon 670) and supports the OpenGL ES 3.2 API, Vulkan and Open CL. It is also worth noting separately that this 675th model can work with a screen refresh rate of 120 Hz, which was previously possible only on top chipsets and flagships of the Snapdragon 845 level.

Separately, it is worth highlighting that the Snapdragon 675 has received advanced photo processing capabilities, which allows it to work with three cameras and use the previously unavailable functions of 5x optical zoom, slow-motion video recording, create pictures with a blur effect in real time and take ultra-wide-angle shots. In addition, a high-speed modem X12 LTE and Wi-FI 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac / n operating at a frequency of 5GHz has also been added to the number of innovations. Potential features also include NFC support, but U3 will not have this interface.

The smartphone will be delivered in two versions of RAM - with 4 and 6 GB, which looks like a fairy tale for a price of $ 140-170. Frankly speaking, the 6 GB model looks very attractive at all, given that with such indicators the smartphone will calmly cope with most programs and even new games, retaining its potential for some time after purchase.

According to the manufacturer, U3 is gaining about 180,000 points in the popular AnTuTu benchmark. In addition, the phone has a special function for optimizing resources during the game - Multi-Turbo.

Summing up, we can state that the engineers of the Chinese mobile giant coped with this point perfectly - however, for Vivo this trend has begun to firmly strengthen for more than a year, which cannot but rejoice. In games, the smartphone will be able to show decent results, especially considering that Qualcomm is actively cooperating with the creators of such popular platforms as Unity, Unreal, Messiah and NeoX.

Vault

To release in 2019 a smartphone that should become the "killer" of the popular series of competitors' phones with only one ROM variation is a rather strange decision. However, this is exactly what the Chinese company did, equipping its new items with 64 GB internal memory. However, it is worth considering that the gadget has a slot for an external SD memory card, so everyone can increase the storage capacity by simply picking up the desired card up to 256 GB.

operating system

Nothing unexpected happened here - Vivo plans to release smartphones "out of the box" based on the Android 9.0 (Pie) OS, although it will not be a pure android, but with the proprietary Funtouch 9.0 shell. There is nothing special to say about Funtouch 9.0, but according to the developers, it includes a whole lot of innovations (about 400 improvements, new functions and fixes in optimization), including an updated interface, a redesigned gesture system, new application icons and even updates to Jovi Smart Voice Assistant (voice assistant).

Screen

Today displays of smartphones can boast of excellent quality, but the fashion takes its toll, and everyone wants to get a novelty with a larger diagonal and a more detailed screen.Not the least role is played by the useful area, as well as the lack of frames, eyebrows and chin - it is difficult to please everyone at once, but the variety of models makes it easier to choose.

As for the y3, the device received a rather large 6.53-inch IPS LCD capacitive screen (FullHD +). The usable display area was 84.4%, which is slightly less than the established standards. The aspect ratio is 19.5: 9.

But the screen resolution is 1080 by 2340 pixels and the density is 395 ppi, which contributes to excellent color reproduction and detail of a wide variety of images and videos. It is worth saying that for the stated price, these are very decent characteristics.

If the selection criteria contains the item "for watching movies", then this Vivo model will do just fine, because in addition to a large screen with a "live image" and a high-quality picture, the phone is surprisingly good in the hand and does not slip, which makes it possible to use it as at home and on the go.

Autonomy

It would seem that this is the point where Vivo's fly in the ointment should be. But this is not so, because in addition to the fact that the phone received a good Li-pol-battery (non-removable) of 5000 mAh (remember that the device is equipped with a rather economical processor), it also has the possibility of 18-watt fast charging.

You can find fault, perhaps, only to the fact that the smartphone still uses Micro USB, and not tipe c. However, we can safely state that the autonomy of the gadget is all right and it will be able to last 3-4 days without any problems, subject to normal use.

Technologies, communication standards, dimensions

Quite an important section that many users ignore and completely in vain. After all, it is here that you can find out about such moments as the size of the device, its high-speed capabilities for transmitting / receiving data, the presence of the latest technologies and the banal version of Wi-Fi and bluetooth. So, yu3:

• Wireless technologies: Wi-Fi 11 a / b / g / n / ac / n5GHz, Bluetooth 5.0, VoLTE;
• Network and Internet: 2G, CDMA, 3G, 4G;
• Navigation: GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS;
• Sensors: Fingerprint (back), accelerometer, proximity, lighting, gyroscope, compass;
• Dimensions: 47 x 162.15 x 8.89 mm;
• Additionally: microUSB, Jack 3.5.

The model, as expected, did not receive NFC support, but it got a good Wi-Fi module, fast Bluetooth 5.0, a lot of necessary sensors and a Jack 3.5 mm jack.

Summing up

Vivo is one of the most recognizable and mainstream smartphone manufacturers in the world, although it practically does not supply its products to the West. However, in recent years, the number of interesting new products from the company simply breaks all records, starting with a powerful and at the same time one of the most affordable gaming smartphones Vivo nex s, and ending with the unusual Vivo Nex Dual Display with two screens. It is noteworthy that U3 can also enter this company, if the developer keeps his word about the starting price.

What can be said about the new product is a smartphone that has practically no flaws, with the exception of the rear fingerprint scanner and the lack of tipe c. Rarely does a phone in the budget segment boast such an ideal balance - there are excellent cameras, a large and bright display, an interesting design, sufficient power and good energy efficiency, do not forget about the autonomy of the device. Perhaps fans of a pure android will not like the proprietary Funtouch 9.0 shell, but finding something more interesting for such a price is unlikely to work.

• Attractive price;
• Stylish design with gradient stripes (in blue and green colors);
• Powerful and economical processor;
• The quality of the cameras is at a decent level;
• The ability to increase the amount of memory due to an external flash card;
• Enviable autonomy;
• The presence of a mini jack 3.5 mm;
• Fast charging 18W;
• Android 9.0;
• Modern Wi-Fi module;
• Fits tightly in the hand;
• Big screen.

• Frames can be conspicuous;
• Just one variation on internal storage;
• No NFC module;
• Lack of USB Tipe C;
• The smartphone in life is different from the official images.

Characteristics table:

Summing up the advantages and disadvantages, it immediately becomes clear that the smartphone turned out to be very successful, and most of its disadvantages are either not very significant, or are generally a consequence of the individual preferences of the owner. At the same time, it is also impossible to seriously criticize a budget model with such characteristics for the lack of NFC, although of course the sensor would definitely not hurt (given that the processor supports its installation). As a conclusion, the device has excellent chances to become a new bestseller and compete with many popular models.