Vivo NEX 3 Review

The Vivo NEX 3 is one of the biggest and most interesting flagships of 2019. Why? Well, there are many reasons. First, the smartphone has pretty good specifications inside thanks to the Snapdragon 855+ processor inside and then there’s the beautiful design of the smartphone that can really compete in the market and lastly, the price. Vivo NEX 3 has shocked the country with its low price tag of Php39,999. Interested? Check out the smartphone below.

Vivo NEX 3 Review: Design and hardware

The Vivo NEX 3 is a massive flagship smartphone but it isn’t a bad thing as this one offers a more immersive display on the smartphone and has a very premium look. This one comes with a glass build on both the front and back of the smartphone but this one is different compared to most smartphones as we got here a waterfall display.

Just like the Huawei Mate 30 Pro, the Vivo NEX 3 introduced the buttonless volume button but this time, we also have a buttonless power button thanks to the waterfall display of the smartphone and it’s very unique. But don’t worry, you don’t have to look at the smartphone in order to look for the power button as there’s a jagged textured side for that one, however, the volume button doesn’t have one. Also, once you press these buttons, it does give a pretty good haptic feedback.

When it comes to ports, the Vivo NEX 3 surprisingly doesn’t lack one as we got here the USB-C that supports fast charging and the smartphone also comes with a headphone jack despite most smartphones ditching this on a flagship smartphone.

In case you’re worried about not having a physical power button on this one, well, there’s the small power button at the top of the smartphone that can be covered by the included case. I don’t actually use that as I always use the in-display fingerprint scanner of the smartphone and also the home button.

Vivo NEX 3 Review: Display

The biggest feature of the Vivo NEX 3 is the waterfall FullView display. It’s no ordinary display as this one has almost zero bezels on the sides of the smartphone and it has an amazing 99.6% screen-to-body ratio which is amazing.

The display is also massive as we’re talking about a 6.89-inch AMOLED display that is gorgeous and man oh man, that Waterfall display looks seamless on the sides. When it comes to quality, the Vivo NEX 3 is pretty bright and the colors are really well. It also features HDR10 that’s why the colors and vividness of the smartphone’s display are really good.

Aesthetically, the Vivo NEX 3 does look awesome but I’m having problems when I’m running some games on the smartphone as it maximizes the whole screen of the display and sometimes, I find it hard to touch the edges of the display of the smartphone. However, the touch rejection on the sides of the waterfall display was pretty good and I didn’t have any issues with it.

Vivo NEX 3 Review: Battery life

Inside the smartphone is a 4500mAh battery and it doesn’t feel heavy despite the large battery inside. The smartphone also supports 44W charging in case you want to charge your smartphone for just a short time and in my usage, I was able to have a day of usage without asking for more battery on the smartphone.

But in my usage, I was able to use the smartphone for a whole day of usage without asking for a battery and in the PC Mark Battery test, the smartphone was able to last up to 13 hours and 34 minutes which is already great.

Vivo NEX 3 Review: Software and performance

The Vivo NEX 3 is still running on FunTouch OS based on Android 9 Pie. Well, it’s not bad but it’s heavily customized so if you’re looking for something that is near Vanilla Android, well, this one is too far from that.

Just like the previous Vivo smartphones that we’ve reviewed before. The UI is basically the same and there’s the swipe up to bring the functions and swipe down from the top to bring out the notifications on the smartphone.

When it comes to performance, the Vivo NEX 3 features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ which is currently the best in the market right now and of course, there’s the 8GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage.

To be honest with you, I don’t think that you need more than 8GB of RAM on smartphones and with the Snapdragon 855+? Well, it’s already perfect for all the things that I love on the smartphone including gaming.

Speaking of performance, the Vivo NEX 3 performed really well in our benchmarks thanks to the hardware inside the smartphone. Actually, the processor is really powerful and it scored really high in different benchmarking applications. Check out the benchmark scores that we got on the smartphone:

But of course, we also did some gaming on the Vivo NEX 3 and as expected, we didn’t have any problems with any of the games that we installed on the smartphone including the latest ones with heavy graphic requirements.

Overall, the Vivo NEX 3 is a very powerful smartphone and it’s very future proof to most games in the future because the Snapdragon 855+ of the smartphone can handle everything right now.

• Download Gamebench here: https://bit.ly/2Ei3daX
• Check out the Gamebench app here: https://bit.ly/2m4t0LR

Vivo NEX 3 Review: Camera

The smartphone features a 64-megapixel main camera and yes, that’s a triple-lens camera with the Samsung GW1 sensor on the main camera and of course, there’s the 13MP ultra-wide angle lens and a 13MP telephoto camera that can shoot 2x optical zoom.

In my usage, the Vivo NEX 3 delivered some pretty good shots and night shots were well on the smartphone. It doesn’t have the camera on the flagship segment but I’m pretty sure that these shots are pretty well.

There’s a pop-up selfie camera on the smartphone but unlike the Vivo V17 Pro, this one only features a 16MP selfie camera. In my selfies, the smartphone can shoot sometimes a little bit more saturated than expected but again, it will do just fine but still, it’s not the best selfie smartphone in the segment

Overall, the camera of the Vivo NEX 3 will do just fine. It’s an average one and it’s not bad for a flagship smartphone which is the important thing here.

Vivo NEX 3 Review: Verdict

The Vivo NEX 3 ticks a lot of boxes. The smartphone may not have the best camera but it is very powerful, beautiful, immersive, and lastly, it packs an excellent price point. The Vivo NEX 3 is priced at Php39,999 and I think that’s excellent especially for its hardware.

Actually, I highly recommend this smartphone if your budget is around that range or if you’re looking for a flagship smartphone that won’t break your wallets.