Monday, October 5, 2020

vivo Y20i Review

Recently, vivo added another device to its Y-series lineup, the Y20i. We took it for a quick spin, and we have mixed feelings about it. Now, in this review, let’s see what else it has to offer, and can it justify its price? Read on to find out.

Design and Construction

There’s no doubt that the vivo Y20i is quite a head-turner. Although it has a polycarbonate body, it looks and feels premium. Its got a glossy back, and it creates this ray-like design when you move the device in a different direction, which is a pretty nice touch. Our unit comes in Nebula Blue, but it also a Dawn White variant.

We’ll also find its vertically stacked triple rear cameras and the vivo branding here at the back.

Upfront, we have the 6.51-inch Halo FullView Display and the notch that houses the front camera and the call speaker.

On the right side, we’ll find the power button that also acts as a fingerprint scanner. Honestly, we like this placement as it is a convenient way to unlock your phone.

The left side houses the dual-SIM card and microSD card slot that’s expandable up to 256GB storage.

Nothing can be found up top, while at the bottom, we have the dated micro-USB port, the 3.5mm audio port, the speaker grille, and the primary microphone.

The Y20i comes with quite a heft, but it still feels comfortable to hold. As you may have noticed, it’s a fingerprint magnet, so better slap the jelly case that comes with the box.

Display and Multimedia

As we’ve mentioned earlier, the vivo Y20i sports a 6.51-inch IPS HD+ Halo FullView Display. So far, the display is good and would suffice for casual use, as you would expect from a smartphone at this caliber. Media consumption is still immersive, thanks to its large display.

If you don’t like to see the notch while you use a specific app, you have the option to hide it. You can also adjust the color temperature to your liking and change the font style.

As far as sound quality goes, it’s relatively decent. The sound comes off tinny when you put it at max volume, and it doesn’t get too loud. You may also tend to block the speaker when playing games. So we highly recommend you hook up your favorite earphones or external speaker to have a better listening experience.

Camera

Now for cameras, we have a triple camera setup consisting of 13MP f/1.8 (wide), 2MP f/2.4 (macro), and 2MP f/2.4 (depth). While for selfies, we have an 8MP one. The camera app features Panorama, Portrait, Live Photo, Slo-Mo, Timelapse, Pro, and Doc mode.

Images produced from the vivo Y20i aren’t too shabby, quite honestly. They look good, but sometimes colors tend to look a little bit washed out. Highlights tend to look overblown in some scenarios, which kill off the shadows. Photos with HDR also tend to lean on the softer side. The portrait mode does a pretty good job of separating the subject from the background, though sometimes it can be quite a hit and miss.

As for selfies, it’s a mixed bag. They’re decent, but we are usually not a fan of the beauty mode as it looks too overdone, and even when we don’t use it, it still seems like there’s still beauty mode going on, though not that strongly.

Video-wise, it can shoot up to 1080p at 30fps, and the quality is okay. It also doesn’t feature any stabilization.

OS, UI, and Apps

Running the Y20i is Funtouch OS 10.5, based on Android 10. Its UI is clean and straightforward. There’s an app drawer, and you have the option to use navigation keys or gestures.

It also features Dynamic Effects that lets you choose animation entering the home screen, unlocking, or charging your phone. We think it’s a really cute feature to have. Other features include Digital Wellbeing & parental controls, Face beauty for video call, Smart Motion, Smart Split, and Easy Touch, among others.

It comes pre-installed with Gcash, Lazada, and proprietary apps from vivo such as Easy Share, Game center, and Vivocloud. Out of the 64GB storage, you get a usable 48.77 storage, which you can further expand via microSD.

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the Y20i is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 460 chip paired with Adreno 610 GPU and 4GB RAM. It’s good enough to handle basic tasks such as browsing the internet and heavy social media use. Playing light games is all good; however, we experience stutters when playing graphically intensive games even though we used the Ultra Game Mode. There’s also a little delay when multitasking and switching from one app to another, so don’t keep many apps running in the background.

• AnTuTu v8 – 150,262
• PCMark – 5,736 (Work 2.0)
• 3DMark – 842 (SSE – OpenGL ES 3.1), 801 (SSE – Vulkan)
• Geekbench – 255 (Single-core), 1,128 (Multi-core)
• AndroBench – 501.1 MB/s (Read), 172.73 MB/s (Write)

We get a side-mounted fingerprint scanner and facial recognition for biometrics, and honestly, both worked hella fast!

Connectivity and Battery

The Y20i has your modern connectivity features, including WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and yes, it comes with FM radio.

For battery, we get a massive 5,000mAh battery with 18W fast charging support. Using the device lasts us a day or two on moderate usage. Charging, on the other hand, took nearly two hours from 0-100%.

In the PCMark battery test, the device yielded 14 hours and 43 minutes. Our standard video loop test (1080p movie on loop, 50% brightness, 50% volume, airplane mode on) got us 22 hours and 36 minutes worth of playback.

Conclusion

To be fair, the vivo Y20i is one decent device. It has an immersive display, a pretty good set of cameras, and a large battery. However, for PHP 7,490, we think that it’s a little overpriced for its specs– to think that it still sports a micro-USB port. At this price point, you can cop the realme 6i and the Redmi Note 9, which comes with better specs.

The Y20i doesn’t have much to offer, but it’s got everything you need if you’re looking for a daily driver that’s capable of handling basic tasks and medium gaming. Not to mention, it has an attractive design, so if you’re into that, and if you’re a vivo fan or want to try out a vivo device, then the Y20i is worth considering.

vivo Y20i specs:
6.5-inch (1600 x 720) HD+ IPS display
Qualcomm Snapdragon 460
4GB RAM
64GB storage
microSD slot
Rear camera
• 13MP f/1.8 (wide)
• 2MP f/2.4 (macro)
• 2MP f/2.4 (depth)
Front camera
• 8MP
Dual-SIM
4G LTE
WiFi
Bluetooth 5.0
GPS, BeiDou, GLONASS, Galileo
Micro USB 2.0
FM Radio
Fingerprint Sensor (side-mounted)
Funtouch OS 10.5 (Android 10)
5,000mAh battery with 18W fast charging support
164.4 x 76.3 x 8.4mm
192.3g
Dawn White, Nebula Blue