The vivo brand is practically synonymous with industry-setting camera performance, and they’d like it to stay that way with the vivo V23 5G. Form and function goes hand in hand in their product philosophy, as we’ll see here once more.

DESIGN

Sunshine Gold and Stardust Black are its base colours, but this fancy phone has a trick up its case with colour changing glass, for the Sunshine Gold variant. It will sport a striking blue / green gradient when exposed to the sunlight or UV light, gradually returning to normal when removed from the light source. This is backed by the Fluorite AG Glass material. In your hand, its ‘soft, matte’ texture is very comfortable to hold, and most importantly, fingerprint free! Your vivo V23 5G is assured to remain stylish whichever light you see it in.

The aerospace aluminium frame is ultra-thin, with rounded corners to assist in providing a comfortable grip. For the full-view experience, the front bezels are narrower for that screen real estate.

GENERAL HARDWARE

Leaving the cameras to their dedicated section, let’s go through the various other features the vivo V23 5G has.

The lights are kept on with a 4200mAh battery with 44W FlashCharge support. That might sound like a smaller capacity than usual, but thanks to a combination of FlashCharge, 6nm chip, power saving technology and vivo’s OS power optimization, that battery is made far more efficient, and you can juice it back up real quick if you need it.

The phone uses Funtouch OS 12, as the Android-based OS continuously gets improved and fine-tuned to suit the user. The brand-new Widgets interface is designed to inform you the key information you need at a glance as well as centralizing the info hub in one place. The Nano Music Player is part of the Widgets update, offering an interactive, zero-layer music experience on the home screen: tune in to a whole new world of music with just a tap!

All that processing is helped along with its MediaTek Dimensity 920 chip, a 6nm SoC that comes with more stable and efficient chip circuitry, with support for SA & NSA Dual-Mode 5G networks and 5G+5G dual-SIM standby simultaneously. Part of that lower power consumption is thanks to its 5G Modem Power Saving Technology. As such, you can enjoy the visuals on that 90Hz refresh rate, Ultra Slim 3D Curved Screen certified by TÜV Rheinland with accurate and even brightness, contrast, vibrancy and low blue-light emissions. The vivo V23 5G is kept cool using a unibody aluminium alloy cooling module. 

Thanks to Extended RAM 2.0, expect no hitches when you can use an additional 4GB internal memory for 8GB / 12GB +4GB configurations and keep all those apps open as you need them with no lag. This would be important more so for games if you’d like, turning on the relevant Game Mode when you’re getting in the zone.

CAMERA RUNDOWN

Here comes the big guns.

The front camera has an eye-watering array of features, including:

• Dual-tone spotlight to make you look radiant and works like a lighting assistant. It will also match colour temperature
• Super wide-angle night selfie, thanks to its 105 degree super-wide angle camera
• 4K Selfie Video, enabled by the 50MP sensor offering 4K video up to 30 FPS, with AI Face Beauty technology, for your vlogging needs
• HDR Selfie Video that’s capable of reproducing clear faces and backgrounds even if light is directly on you, as well as steady output

The rear camera setup almost seems modest in comparison, with features including:

• 64MP night camera
• 8MP, 120 degree super wide-angle camera
• 2MP macro camera
• All the good stuff of 108MP Ultra Clarity Camera, Super Night Video, Super Panorama, Bokeh Flare can also be found here

USER EXPERIENCE

GAMING

 When it comes to testing gaming performance, there’s no better method than Genshin Impact. Maxing out the settings in Balanced Mode or Performance Mode runs the game smoothly, dipping when turning on more battery saving modes as expected. While the phone does manage to keep cool, turning on the game is enough to make the temperature go up.

Call of Duty Mobile only has up to Medium graphics as its maximum setting, while the frame rate is set to very high for this test. Much like Genshin, the gaming experience was completely smooth, and the temperature didn’t go up. The Esports Mode option appeared for this, which Genshin did not have.

BATTERY

The vivo V23 5G can charge to full in less than 60 minutes, very handy when Genshin makes it drop from 100% to 75% after an hour in Performance Mode.

NOTIFICATIONS

When playing games, a semi-transparent pop-up will appear at the top of the screen for calls. Accepting it will make a tiny green box pop up which quickly disappears, just as an indicator that you’re on the line. Rejecting it will only give you the standard missed call notification.

If you haven’t completely turned off notifications, messaging apps can have a bubble pop up and you can tap it to go straight to the conversation window. This window is resizable, and the keyboard movable.

CAMERA

The rear camera setup works like today’s standard of cameras, with its functions making it stand out from the others. The more discerning user should be able to figure things out better than I.

The front camera is one of the vivo V23 5G’s selling points all things considered, capable of taking clear selfies even in a completely dark room. You can set the lighting as needed from three options: Cold White, Default and Warm Yellow to fit the situation.

Last but not least, the touted night mode capabilities absolutely live up to their promises. The night mode photos below pretty much look like evening shots!

 GENERAL USE

Due to the phone’s thickness and non-curved edges, it can actually get uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time, like when gaming.

The buttons on the side are quite shallow without that feedback, so you might press the wrong ones at times.

Overall though, the Fluorite AG Glass material itself is nice to hold and touch.

VERDICT

vivo does it again with a pretty great all-rounder phone with the vivo V23 5G, even with its major focus on the camera capabilities. It really is that simple! You can get your own from:

• vivo estore
• Shopee
• Lazada

Promotions include:

• 14 – 16 January 2022: Free gifts worth RM668 (vivo TWS 2e + 1 Year Screen Crack Protection + 1 Year Extended Warranty)
• 14 – 17 January 2022: Free gifts worth RM558 (wireless vacuum cleaner + 1 Year Screen Crack Protection + 1 Year Extended Warranty)

SPECIFICATIONS IN BRIEF