Vivo S1 Pro Review

Before the end of 2019, Vivo Philippines has announced the arrival of the Vivo S1 Pro. It’s the pro brother of the Vivo S1 but despite that, they do have different looks and this one is a lot better. The S-series of Vivo has become their mid-range smartphone series but does the S1 Pro can live up to our expectations? Check out our review of the smartphone below:

Vivo S1 Pro Review: Design and Hardware

When it comes to design, the Vivo S1 Pro is different from the Vivo S1 as this one is more ergonomic and personally, I find this one more attractive than the latter thanks to the diamond-shaped camera module of the smartphone.

What we got is the Knight Black and it does look great thanks to its glass construction and also the curves that feel good. It doesn’t feel thick as the curves at the back helps in the ergonomics of the smartphone. There’s no gradient color in this color but it does offer a reflection and some effects depending on the lighting.

This smartphone doesn’t lack in ports as we got here a USB-C port below that supports Dual-engine fast charging which is still 18W and then there’s the speaker grill beside the smartphone and of course, there’s the 3.5mm headphone jack at the top of the smartphone.

We have here a power button and the volume rocker on the right side of the smartphone and it’s very reachable to the hands. The smartphone also features an in-display fingerprint scanner and it does its job pretty well if you ask me.

Vivo S1 Pro Review: Display

There’s a Super AMOLED display on this smartphone that measures at 6.38-inch with a Full HD+ resolution. There’s no mention of any protection on the glass of the smartphone but don’t worry because this one comes with a screen protector.

The colors of the display were really fine and I do like the vividness and the sharpness of the display. I’m a little bit bias to Super AMOLED displays because of the vividness but this one also features a pretty good 90% screen-to-body ratio on the smartphone that feels pretty immersive.

Vivo S1 Pro Review: Battery life

If you’ve noticed with Vivo smartphones, most of their smartphones feature a large battery inside and with the Vivo S1 Pro, we’re getting here a 4500mAh battery which is pretty big for its size. In our PC Mark Battery Test, we managed to get a score of 14 hours and 26 minutes which is really great. In my usage, the Vivo S1 Pro can last up to a day of usage despite playing games once in a while.

Vivo S1 Pro Review: Software

The smartphone still runs on FunTouch OS 9.2 based on Android 9 Pie. There’s no word if Android 10 will arrive on this smartphone but this one comes with some features that you’re familiar with like Digital Wellbeing in where you could see the data of your app usage.

The FunTouch OS UI is heavily skinned and it’s very different from the one on vanilla android. The home screen is also the app drawer of the smartphone but it does come with a UI that is easy on the eyes and most of the elements in the UI are user-friendly so nothing to worry about that.

As expected, the smartphone will show the notifications by swiping down from the top and also the functions including brightness and sounds by swiping up from the bottom. This is actually a staple UI design of the FunTouch OS on all Vivo smartphones.

There are also some pre-installed applications but you don’t have to worry about that since we’re getting a 128GB of internal storage on the smartphone

Vivo S1 Pro Review: Performance

The smartphone runs on a Snapdragon 665 processor that is paired with 8GB of RAM. The processor is the same one being used by the Realme 5 and OPPO A9 2020. We’ve tried the processor of the smartphone before and we got satisfying results as we can run most games and applications on the smartphone without a problem.

We also tried benchmarking the smartphone and we got some pretty fine results. Check out the results that I got in different benchmarking applications:

When it comes to gaming, the Vivo S1 Pro will do just fine. Well, it might not be able to run the games at the highest settings but the Vivo S1 Pro will be able to run most of them as long as you turned down the settings. In NBA 2k20, we managed to play the game at high settings, in Black Desert Mobile, we were able to set it at highest settings but I recommend turning it down and in COD: Mobile, we set the game at high settings to get the max framerate. Check out the FPS that we got at GameBench on these smartphones:

Overall, the Vivo S1 Pro can run almost all games on the Play store right now as long as you adjust the settings of the smartphone. IT might not be as powerful as the Snapdragon 675 on the Vivo V17 Pro but the smartphone will do just fine in gaming as long as you set it in the right settings for the game.

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

Vivo S1 Pro Review: Camera

The smartphone is considered pro because this one packs a quad-camera rear camera with a 48MP main camera. Aside from that, there’s the 8MP ultrawide lens, 2MP depth sensor and 2MP macro lens on the smartphone and on the front, we got here a 32MP selfie camera.

For selfies, the Vivo S1 Pro did well in decent lighting conditions and in lowlight, I noticed that the selfie camera can do brighter photos than I expected. When it comes to videos, the Vivo S1 Pro can only record at a maximum of 1080p at 30fps and it will do just fine as long as you just use it for social media usage.

When it comes to the rear camera of the smartphone, it will produce lively and decent photos. It’s actually better than I expected the colors that I can get on the smartphone were really fine. The dynamic range was pretty good and it can capture just fine details. You can clearly see that this isn’t the best camera when it comes to the mid-range smartphones but it does its job well for its price range. Check out the shots that I took using the smartphone:

Vivo S1 Pro Review: Verdict

Overall, the Vivo S1 Pro is a fine mid-range smartphone. It doesn’t have the best hardware inside but it ticks the boxes that I need on a mid-range smartphone. The performance is good, the camera is fine, there’s long battery life, and the display was really good on this one. This smartphone is actually a pretty decent one.

The Vivo S1 Pro is now available for Php15,990.

Vivo S1 Pro Specs

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 655 Octa-Core Processor
• 6.38-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED Display
• 8GB RAM
• 128GB Internal Storage expandable via MicroSD
• 48MP AI Quad Camera + 8MP Super Wide-Angle Camera + 2MP Macro Camera + 2MP Bokeh Lens
• 32MP Selfie Camera
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS
• Dual SIM, LTE
• In-display fingerprint scanner
• USB-C
• 4500mAh battery with Dual-engine fast charging
• FunTouch OS 9.2 based on Android 9.0